I don’t think I’ve actually acknowledged this, so time to do so now: How very, very lovely that, thanks to my wonderful friend Krys, getting stuck into the garden this year did not involve two days of weeding (and all the attendant sore muscles). Thank you so much, sweetie.
So, what did the day in the garden involve?
During my last visit to the garden shop, I mentioned that my black currant produces very little fruit. Turns out that, like blueberries, black currants need a buddy. More slightly ribald comments about cross pollination ensue and a second black currant bush is purchased.
Too late this year, I fear, for the original to produce more than its usual handful of black currants, but hopefully this will change next year. And who knows? Perhaps the new bush will produce enough fruit for me to finally be able to make the wonderful pork with black currant sauce recipe, which was the main reason I bought a bush in the first place. (Although red currants do occasionally turn up for sale in the produce section of the local supermarket, black currants never do.)
While there, I also decided to play gooseberry for the first time, after spotting a pink gooseberry bush for sale. (Pink gooseberries, as I learnt from my cousin Peter, being sweeter than their green cousins.) What I don’t think to do, until I’m back home with both and look on the internet, is check to see what sort of conditions gooseberries like. As much sun as possible. Uh, oh. The spot I had in mind at the end of the raspberry row by the fence will not do the trick. Ring the garden shop. Can gooseberries be grown in containers, I ask? They hem and haw a bit, say, yes, well, probably for a year or two, but this is definitely not ideal. Look around garden for somewhere sunny. Well, I suppose I could use part of the original “raised bed” (ha, ha), usually devoted to cherry tomatoes. Worth a try.
Empty out one section completely and refill it with a mixture of topsoil and compost. Plant gooseberry and cross fingers. While I’m there I also weed the remaining three sections and mix some compost in, ready now for the tomato plants at the end of May.
Come inside for some lunch. Talk to Ginny on the phone about the Gabriola Youth Group session I’ve agreed to help out with this weekend. Mention I’m off to Wheelbarrow. She says she’s just been to pick up her tomato plants. Too soon! I cry. Tomatoes cannot be planted until the end of May. Of course she knows this. Hers have been placed in the cold frame. I need one of those, I tell her. Easy, peasy, says Ginny (a bit of a dab hand at carpentry). She can, she says, show me how to make one for next to nothing. Hurrah! Again, too late for this year, but next year…!
The Stargazer lilies I planted last year turned out to be every bit as beautiful and fraigrant as I’d hoped. (The wisteria behind – which I had visions of growing and blossoming all along the fence – not so much. Dead as a doornail.) Definitely need some more.
Bollocks. There are none to be had. What, oh what to buy instead? The other lilies just don’t cut it. Oh, but wait – what’s this I see? Freesias? I love freesias. Okay, they’ll do.
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