Easter weekend

Just a catch up on what I got up to over Easter. My main progress was with the path, which I finally got sorted. We decided against pebbles or grave l in the end as Christine quite fancied going with bark chip as it looks more natural. Wyevale had some green-coloured bark in that we thought would match the colour of the shed really well. I put down some weed-suppressing membrane and then just threw the bark chip over the top. Obviously, I didn't buy enough so ended up back at the garden centre the next day! It's all finished though now and looks fantastic - pics to come soon.

Of course we couldn't come away without buying a couple of plants, both Christine's choices this time so we now have a stunning purple and white Senetti in the south-west border and a White Margaritte in the south-east.

We also found some 42 litre green garden trug buckets in B&Q, which I thought would be very useful for growing spuds and carrots in. I just drilled some holes in the bottom and planted the rest of my Charlottes in one and sewed some Early Nantes in the other. They were a fiver each so I'm going to buy a couple more and sew more carrots and maybe some parsnips in them.

I thought I would take the opportunity to get the rest of my potatoes in so I have now planted Ambo, Arran Victory and Desiree in the raised bed. Progress on my first earlies (Duke of York) is great. All five bags now have lots of leaves coming through so I'm starting to get excitied about lovely salad potatoes in the summer! I've also planted out some plug plants I had in the greenhouse (fuschia, argyranthemum and lobelia) under cloches (made by cutting the bottoms off mineral water bottles).

The other thing I did was to make some newspaper pots - a bit tricky at first but very easy when you've got the knack. I have transplanted some tomato seedlings into them and they seem to be holding up fine. I ran out of newspaper after making 9 pots but shall be doing some more next week as I have some more seedlings that desperately need potting up.

On the germination front, my catgrass has finally germinated as have my broccoli, courgettes and one or two dwarf French beans. My nasturtiums are going mad as are two of my pepper plants and there are one or two cabbage seedlings just starting to come through. In my raised bed, the carrots have all germinated and will hopefully start to grow, cat-permitting! I've been covering everything with netting to try and prevent the kitties from using it as a toilet.

That's all for now. More updates next week.