The good, the bad and the frustrating of gardening.

While this weeks update on my urban garden was going to be a completely positive one (I had this draft here for a few days I just needed to add the photos) tradgedy sadly struck. My poor, very loyal growhouse got completely shattered in the wind yesterday. I’ve had the growhouse for over a year and it had survived a lot of different weather (mainly heavy rain showers as we do live in the UK after all). Now I know it was just a growhouse of the more cheaper kind so it wasn’t super sturdy to begin with but it was still very sad, especially since i lost lots of my terracotta pots as well. I would not have been as annoyed if we weren’t in this Covid-19 situations because then at least I would have been able to replace everything somewhat ok but it is what it is and I do have some good news about my other gardening plus some houseplant news.

The pots that are upside down (heavy terracotta pots) were ones I was saving for my tomatoes and they were helping to weigh down the growhouse it just wasn’t enough for the vicious wind.

Now for some less frustrating news. I have had lots of things growing. Had my first harvest which was radishes. I had these guys in a window box in my kitchen and they did amazing. I try to sow new seeds for each one harvest so that way I always have fresh radishes.

Another thing that has been growing well has been my squash. Now these ones I actually didn’t buy the seeds for. I bought some small mixed squahes at Sainsburys last autumn as I think they are very lovely to have as a decoration but once christmas was over it didn’t really feel like they fit in the house anymore so I cracked one open and took some seeds out and look at the results!

One thing that is new for me this year is cucmber. I love cucumber, it is one of my favorite vegetables. All I need is a bit of salt and I could eat the whole thing in one go. The cucmber started out very good but I have had a few of them dry out before becoming too big. I’m not completely sure what is going on but I am keeping an eye on the others that are growing right now.

While I mostly grow vegetables ,and the odd berry, I have been trying my luck with flowers as well. I am still waiting for soil so I can plant some beautiful Dahlias that I bought but for now I have my hydrangeas. I bought these two plants in the late summer last year from Wilkos. They were sitting outside in the sun looking absolutely miserable and had been taken down to £1 from original £5 price so I bought both of them as I figured if I didn’t manage to save them I would have lost £2 which isn’t the complete end of the world. They have done great thoguh, even spending their whole time outside through the frost and everything and now they sit in a lovely trough that I purchased awhile ago. One of them is even showing some signs of flowers which is very exciting. When I bought these last summer they had no leaves even so I would like to think that I did a pretty good job at keeping them alive 🙂

Now back to the vegetables, I had this one potato root and I thought I’d conduct a bit of an experiment and see how far I can go with it and I have to say it’s going quite well so far.

I also have one of my houseplants, a Guinea chestnut (pachira aquatica), that has decided to grow little babies all over. We’ve had this tree since last summer and a few months ago I noticed it was growing a small branch at the base of one of the trunks. I waited until it was big enough and cut it off and put it in some water which has now resulted in some root setting. As soon as the roots grow long enough I will plant it into a pot and see how big it gets. I have also noticed this week that that same trunk on my Guinea chestnut is growing even more babies which could mean more trees, we’ll just have to wait and see! I never thought growing trees would be so much fun, even though a bit slow, and ever since I first put my avocado seeds in water a year ago it’s been so amazing to see them grow into proper avocado plants from a small seed. I don’t know about you all but I just love to see life being created like that!