Pisces and I had a routine GP visit yesterday and on the opposite of the road is a garden centre which just happens to sell my preferred potting mix and has a popular cafe which serves up a pretty decent cup of coffee. So when Pisces suggested we drop in there on our way out I didn't take too much persuading. It turned out to be a really good decision because the potting mix, which is usually a little expensive but worth it, was on special. Yay!
We sat and had our coffee - which was good - then I thought I'd go and see if I could find some cat grass for my indoor kitty. I usually rotate pots of this but when I went to do the changeover a couple of days ago I found ants had moved into the pot outside recuperating. We're already having ant problems inside so I had to dump that lot and start afresh.
This garden centre, which once was one of the busiest in the area with a huge stock of plants of all kinds, has shrunk dramatically in recent years with much of the land being sold off for housing. Their focus now is mainly on pots and indoor plants and gardening items that go with them but they do still have a small selection of seedlings and among the herbs I found the cat grass. I'm not quite sure how it fits there but, hey, they had what I needed. I loaded up my basket and then noticed they had some of the vegetable seedlings I wanted so I sent Pisces off for another basket and this is what we ended up with - a small veggie garden in a box.
The weather hasn't been kind enough to let me plant them out yet and it will mean I have to disrupt some of the heartsease - sometimes called Johnny Jump Ups - (Viola tricolour) that have self seeded all over the vegetable patch.
I love these dainty little flowers and plant them and other edible flowers along the vegetable garden bed edges and this year because I wasn't able to work in the garden for such a long time they've spread out a bit. I haven't minded because a bare garden which would usually be producing food is a sad sight. Since it's late to be putting in any winter crops my box contains pak choi and kale along with some parsleys - plain leaf and curled - all of which will last into spring along with the already sown sugar snap and snow peas and the volunteer lettuces.
Now if the rain will just hold off for a couple of hours I'll get some planting done. I can't say I'm hopeful. We're on the verge of the highest rainfall recorded here for July since records began being kept and the forecast for the rest of today and all of next week is for yet more storms and rain.
2 comments:
What a great way to turn a routine visit to the doctor into an enjoyable morning out. It's always great to discover that what you intended to buy anyway is being sold at a discount. Too bad you couldn't send some of that rain to western North America.
Yes I've been watching the problems you've been having in the west. It's horrible. We had a similar problem at the end of 2019 into the beginning of 2020 but with the pandemic disruptions many people still are living through their second winter without proper housing. A caravan is fine in winter on the coastal lowlands - not great but tolerable - but for those in the mountains it's very tough even if they don't have snow to contend with. Added to that are the ongoing health problems some are suffering due to the thick smoke which blanketed large areas including our national capital for weeks.
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