There's something very soothing about coming home from work on Friday evening and going straight out to fuss about in the garden. I really only wanted to check the seed status in the greenhouse, but ended up doing a full walk around and water.

News from the greenhouse: seed sproutings can now be seen in the teasel, sweet pea and echinacea trays. I want to believe there are seeds sprouting in one of the chilli trays but I think that's a little too optimistic. However there are seedlings popping up down below the transplanted Penstemon which are either Aster, Nemophilia or Scabious. In that patch of the garden, there has been no sign of activity from the mystery seeds, the sunflower seeds or the larkspur seeds.

I have sorted my seeds again, this time actually labelling them and using rubber bands to attach like seeds together. And in the time it has taken me to do this, March has become April, so the "plant now" and "plant in April" piles have become one... and become large. This is a little daunting because this is my last weekend at home before I go on holidays for two weeks. All I have to do is finish weeding the shady side of the garden, plant 40 types of seeds in the garden and in seed pots, and make the fence impervious to shitzus. (Another pile of shitzu was found and thrown back over the fence today.)

As first Friday in the month, it was Gardening Club night.
http://www.communigate.co.uk/london/whittinghamgardeningclub/
Our guest speaker was John, a local gardening enthusiast showing slides of a collection of just some of the plants in his garden. As his talk was about 1.5 hours, you can only imagine just how many plants he has in his garden, and this talk was only about SOME of his collection.

I did manage a word with him in the break, asking his advice about the pear trees. He assured me that as bare root stock, dug up and moved around and only planted a short while ago, the trees may still be having a bit of a sulk, and I shouldn't be concerned that they're not budding up. It's quite normal for them to do this as they've had a bit of a shock. So long as they get plenty of water to help them establish, he said, it's very unlikely that they will not grow. Although I shouldn't set any store on getting a pear harvest this year.

The apple tree, however, is going great guns. I'm very excited by a small red cluster which may be a flower bud! I just hope that I will be here to see it. I'm unhappy at the prospect of the tulips just about to start flowering just when I'm about to go away. The first tulips may open their buds this week (some buds already attracting an appreciative crowd of aphids which I chased off with the hose today). I just don't want to come home from holiday and find all my tulip pots contain leaves and green sticks where there once were petals but the blooms have all now faded.

I'm reading a book called Allotted Time by Robin Shelton. It's about him and his mate deciding to get an allotment plot together. I'm impressed that there are people out there who took on an allotment with even less knowledge of veggie gardening than Amanda and I had in our two failed attempts at allotmenting. The book is a good read so far, although perhaps no-one but another gardener could appreciate whole sections on the pain and tedium of trying to dig over a garden bed covered in weeds. In the rain. It almost made me want to go out and get an allotment again. Almost.

It's predicted sunny for Sunday so I hope to get up early and be out there sorting the garden and getting a last load of photos done to save here so when I get back I can compare then and now. I guess you'll hear from me again then.