My gardening diary
MONDAY Coming home from the Chatsworth Show, I was horrified to see that our potatoes, all of which are growing in huge pots, looked like they were starting to develop blight! On closer inspection we realised that slugs had been feasting on the leaves. They’ve now been dispatched to a new home!
TUESDAY As usual we’re creating a last-minute Heath Robinson invention to separate the blackbirds from our redcurrants. One of these days we’re going to build a proper fruit cage. We used to grow more soft fruit and had a big fruit cage that wasn’t as successful as it might have been. My mum always called it ‘the bird cage’.
WEDNESDAY Some of the brassica crops we sowed earlier were neglected so we’re giving it another go. Cu ing your losses and starting again when seedlings are gangly and crowded is often the best policy. Although I hate to abandon anything we’ve started, resowing, and this time nurturing, seedlings, is the best idea. Second chance for cabbages, pak choi and broccoli!
THURSDAY Along the front wall of the co age a penstemon ‘Heavenly Blue’ is swathed in its delightful blue and purple flowers. Some of the plants have sideshoots that haven’t and will not flower this season, so I’m detaching a few of them and making cu ings. Nothing could be more straightforward, they’re pulled off with a heel or cut below a leaf node.
FRIDAY Have come across a few new and exciting plants this year, including a brilliant turquoise corydalis from China, called Corydalis mucronipetala. It was on Kernock Plants’ stand vying for our a ention with Himalayan blue poppies, superb saxifrages and alpines galore.
SATURDAY When Mike (who helps out here occasionally) and I were planting out the other week we came across a tray of polemonium I didn’t recognise. It was planted in the blue and yellow garden, but turned out to be pale lilac. Now I remember dividing up one plant of polemonium ‘Glebe Co age Lilac’. Back then they were teeny pieces, now they’re burgeoning plants in full flower.
SUNDAY Must try to start collecting aquilegia seed as soon as it’s ripe. Aquilegias have had a tough time recently being subject to a downy mildew specific to them. I’m hoping that plants grown from seed from the survivors may have some resistance to it.