Hi Everyone,

Where to start? What a month – the weather has been just awful, heavy rain, westerly winds and foggy overcast days. The perfect way to ruin a summer garden and then just when you’ve decided to pack up the patio furniture for next year, guess what the sun comes out!

August has been really hit and miss when it comes to seed germination. I planted up some 2008 Viola seeds that have germinated perfectly, I have planted up fresh from my future Mum-in-Law’s garden, bright orange, English Marigold seeds that grew almost instantly, yet a new packet of cabbage seeds germinated and then died, same for the Stevia, Lavender and a few of the turnips.

As the grass seeds take between one and four months to germinate I’m not sure what the success rate will be. The Liatris appear to have failed entirely. Even though I have tried different composts, different sowing months, and different conditions. It’s a shame because I really liked the look of these plants.

But it’s not all doom and gloom – I have had great success with my food plants – but more about that later. First I need your help. I am a bit bored with writing the names “Big Greenhouse” and “Little Greenhouse” each month so I want to call them something different. I thought of calling the big one Ty Mawr which is Welsh for the big house, but then I would have to call the little one Ty Bach which although translates to little house, it actually refers to visiting the toilet.

In Pembrokeshire a lot of people speak Wenglish! (Welsh-English) for example, “I’m just going to  the Ty Bach” or Put it in the Popty-Ping” meaning use the microwave. Although Popty-ping is a nickname that seems to have stuck. The real word for Microwave in Welsh is Meicrodon -phonetically pronounced as Micro Don and easy to remember as it sounds like a tiny Italian Mobster. So please help me out and suggest some names.

Meanwhile…..

In the little greenhouse, I have germinating seeds, some plug plants that I had free from Thompson and Morgan, via a Gardeners World special offer and many empty pots waiting to filled when my seedlings get larger.

Unfortunately, a quarter of my twelve free plants are in a bad state and will possibly fail, the box was slightly crushed when it was delivered, and the plants were very dry, which makes me wonder how long they had taken to get to me once they had been despatched. I haven’t complained as they were free to begin with. I was also disappointed that some of the plants stated in the magazine offer (Hensol Poppies) were not actually in the collection, but they were substituted for Geranium Splish Splash – which although pretty is not what I wanted. However, as I’ve never grown these before perhaps I’m in for a treat. And it clearly states on the offer that they can substitute plants at any time – so again not complaining, but I really only took up the offer because of the poppies (sad sulky face).

The other plants in the offer were Digitalis Alba, Digitalis Sugar Plum and Digitalis Candy Mountain plus Primula Denticulata. The primula looks exciting to grow so I really hope I don’t loose any more of these plants.

On the shelves I also have a Christmas Cacti cutting that has finally rooted, a sickly looking dog rose and two buckthorn alders, again in a sorry state. The reason being we put the trees in the cold frame and then I totally forgot about them.

In the border there’s the usual aloes and cacti and money tree, along with a yellow stuffer tomato plant. Its nice to have an annual plant in there again. I’m sort of missing the annual borders there, but it is really nice to have permanent evergreen plants to look at all year round. Plus it only needs a light weed and feed, so is easy to maintain.

In the cold frame I now have two baby money trees and a spider plant, as they have been evicted from the big greenhouse for the summer.

Whilst sorting out the little greenhouse a few days ago I found a flowerpot with small bulbs in it. No, compost, no, label so no idea what they are. I asked Mark if he put them there, he said: “Yes I did ages ago. I forgot about them.”

“What are they?” I asked. Meaning have you any idea what bulbs they are.

Shrugging he helpfully replied “You are the gardener not me. I don’t know what they are.”

“Where did you get them from?” I tried. Hoping he would say which border or bit in the garden he had accidentally dug them out from.

“One of your pots in the garden.” Was his reply.

As we say in Welsh “Fel Rhech Mewn Pot Jam……”*

It’s used to describe something or someone as Useless – but you may want to google the phrase for the exact translation!

*I mean his reply was not helpful not that he is useless.

And so to the big greenhouse……

I have so many Sweet Aperitif tomatoes, I can pick fresh ones every day. The lowest number per pick per day was seven, the highest is currently at sixty six. The Yellow Stuffers are a bit more reasonable, in that they produce one or two a day, which is ideal. The Bonica Aubergines are slow, but they have flowered and I can just see the fruits forming. The Patio Mix ones are awesome, they are giving me one or two fruits per week since the second week of August. But so far only dark purple ones, the green type from the mix (Jewel Jade) have fruit, but they are not ripe enough to pick.

The Marigolds and Amaranthus and Nicotianas are still keeping the pests at bay, except for a giant slug, that I quickly evicted. I left the Hunter Spider in the foliage as he can help out with pest control.

The Sweet Bonita peppers have many fruits on them, they are large but still too hard, and they are refusing to turn any other colour, they are staying a pale creamy yellow. I took a single pepper off each plant to encourage them to keep flowering. I have put said peppers on the kitchen windowsill to ripen.

The Medina chilli stopped growing for a while, but has since recovered, and thanks to the pollinators there are now more chillies growing. Mark wants us to make a sweet chilli sauce with them – I think he’s forgotten how hot they are! Regretfully, I lost my watermelon to powdery mildew last month before its fruits were big enough to recuse, and annoyingly the cantaloupe melon has done the same. The fruits would grow to no bigger than a tomato then fall to the floor. Then I noticed powdery mildew on its leaves and stalks, so I had to have Mark rip it out. So frustrating, as it was a total waste of time and money buying them from a different supplier. Thankfully T&M gave me some melon seeds to trial this year, but because they were posted to me after their recommended sow by month, I can’t trial them until next year.

The greenhouse pumpkin succumbed to mildew too. The outdoor one is fine. I wish I lived near to Ian and Stuart Paton, the champion pumpkin growers as I would love to ask them for some handy tips. I don’t think I could afford their electricity bill though to keep the pumpkins at a constant eighteen degrees both day and night, nor the gallons of water needed for the pumpkins to grow six stone a day.

The gaps left by the melons were dug over, and fresh fertiliser was added to the soil, in the form of compost and tomato feed, and we have now put in the two spare tomatoes that were in spud growing sacks in the smaller greenhouse. They have established and continue to form fruit and flowers.

Mark still has to do all the heavy watering, lifting and digging,for me, as I continue to recover from the cancer and learn my new limitations with the heart failure. But compared to this time last year, things are 100% better.

Finally, there was nothing better than to see the smile on my oncologists face, when I presented him with a bag of home grown tomatoes at my last check-up. A tiny thank you from me for everything he and his team have done.

Until next month.

Happy Gardening,

Love Amanda xx

Amanda Davies

My name is Amanda and I live in Pembrokeshire with my fiancé and our garden is approximately 116 meters square. I want to share with you my love for gardening and the reasons behind it, from the good to the bad and ugly. I want to do this for my own personal pleasure. If you would like to take the journey with me then please read my blogs and share with me your gardening stories.