Thursday 19 March 2009

St Paddy Power ~ 3 (the closing chapter)

It's not only hard landscaping and soil prep going on at the Lottie. Oh, no. I planted 3 trays of lovely flower seeds. The first is definitely a favourite - the yellow California Poppy 'Golden Values'. So pretty and delicate, I want some for home too! Even better, they were free with a gardening magazine Andrew bought. My big red Oriental Poppies that we got earlier don't seem to be doing too good, only 1 is showing signs of life :( So the more yellow ones the better.

I also planted out Calendula 'Art Shades' (a lovely mix of slighlty muted yellows and oranges), a marigold- type plant. You know you can eat their petals; though I've grown them before. Their seeds are the strangest I think I've ever seen. I took a photo of them yesterday - they really look like fossils to me. I love them and have loads more for a continued supply of new plants throughout the summer.


Lastly, I planted my Marigolds - excellent friends in the constant battle of keeping nasty beasties away from my veggies and better than Nasturtiums in my opinion as they don't take over! The variety I chose was 'Naughty Marietta', a great name and they are the ones that have marron centres to the yellow flower. They, again were free, don't you love it!! Quite liked their seeds too, so , here's a photo of them.

Andrew did some direct sowings into the bed with the garlic already in it. Ummm, A3 on our plan. We had the 2 sun tunnels over that area of soil for a couple of weeks after giving it a good lot of prep. and it had dried out beautifully. After a quick riddle (check out our fridge basket & chiken wire recycling) it was perfect ground.



We now have hidden rows of Turnip 'Purple Top Milan', Onion (Scallions) 'White Lisbon', Carrots 'Early Nantes 5' and finally Beetroot 'Boltardy' (which will all be continuously re-sown crops). They're all things we grew last year and loved. I highly recommend each of them. In fact I demand you go out, buy a packet of 'Boltardy': grow, harvest, eat and enjoy!! ~with Brown Sauce, trust me :)

So St Paddy's Day was pretty darn good, no?

4 comments:

  1. Pretty good Carrie!

    Sorry - can't go and get the Boltardy as you ordered as I have Bulls Blood instead - great for salad leaves as well as beets!

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  2. Must get my veg sown soon!

    Yes, I agree those top seeds look odd. They remind me of alphabetty spaghetti :)

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  3. Lots of great things going in. Love marigolds, but also enjoy the nasturtium. I plant those in the corner of my beds and let them cascade over the sides. Nice blog.

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  4. I guess I'll just have to let you off the hook VP. x

    I never thought of alphabetty spaghetti - that's pretty darn funny EB! It would be so cool we could actually plant pasta shape plants x

    Gardeness - welcome to my blog and thank you very much for your comment. It's mainly my Hubby who won't let me go nasturtiums again, he thinks they're messy, hehe. x

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