Yes, it is a huge risk planting Geraniums out so early. I just couldnt resist, especially as it was thrift of a kind. Shop Fidelity cards are issued here, and some are really worth having. Our garden centre sends a regular cheque, to be used in their shop, every time you amass points. I used some of them yesterday, but also took advantage of the 'Three for the price of two' geranium offer. I'm always on the look out for a bargain!
Water is incredibly expensive in France and every drop is metered. We have to be careful. This is my husband's answer to the problem of watering vegetable plants. There are three more like this on the other side of the shed. It works well...when it rains. Naturally, since he put them in we havent had a drop of rain ...for about five or six weeks.
And this little object is our compost bucket. All the peelings, teabags, apple cores etc, go in here, and are regularly emptied into a big green compost bin in the garden.
Like many other people who have written about thrift in the garden, we save seeds too. I have a bag of un-named seeds that will be planted and give me much joy from recognising what has grown! We found some three year old Tomato seeds, sowed them, and at least four have come up. Amazing!
Water is incredibly expensive in France and every drop is metered. We have to be careful. This is my husband's answer to the problem of watering vegetable plants. There are three more like this on the other side of the shed. It works well...when it rains. Naturally, since he put them in we havent had a drop of rain ...for about five or six weeks.
And this little object is our compost bucket. All the peelings, teabags, apple cores etc, go in here, and are regularly emptied into a big green compost bin in the garden.
Like many other people who have written about thrift in the garden, we save seeds too. I have a bag of un-named seeds that will be planted and give me much joy from recognising what has grown! We found some three year old Tomato seeds, sowed them, and at least four have come up. Amazing!
I love when Mother Nature drops me some freebies off in the garden. I notice that I have a few new additions this year that I will be interested to see what they are. xxx
ReplyDeleteHere in the cottage, my husband and I collect our rain water and compost all of our garbage.
ReplyDeleteIt makes for a very organic and simple gardening later in the season.
Mrs. M.
We mulch our veggy patch with grass clippings and leaf mulch to help save water. A few years ago we had to take water from our pond (which had dropped about 5ft in depth)for the veggy patch because it didn't rain for weeks and the rain barrels were dry...we had to pick out the little frogs and creatures and take them back to the pond. It took us ages!
ReplyDeleteI love to see blogs when people do 'show and tell'. Thank you!
Jane x
What a great idea for collecting water. We compost, too.
ReplyDeleteIt will be fun to see your mystery seeds come up.
I am so impressed by the water tanks - I didn't know you had to pay for water - I am so lucky as the allotment provides taps in various strategic points and we can have as much as we want - it must be a nightmare trying to keep everything watered ... although having said that I have held on to advice better to water really well but not too often as it encourages roots to dig down deep looking for moisture so on carrots etc you get better crops. Lovely to have geraniums - I like the flowers but can't stand the smell though so don't usually have them! Thanks for a lovely post. Bettyx
ReplyDeleteSo far our water is free and in Ireland too,if we are charged for it as is predicted we will I do not think our water barrels will be empty for long!
ReplyDeleteWhat a great idea to recieve cheques for your loyalty to your garden centre!Here we have loyalty cards for various supermarkets only.
Hopefully the geraniums will thrive,very hard to resist pots of colour!
I guess I'd better take some photos of Ben's new cistern for my garden post! Water really is so expensive, but maybe, in fact, we are just paying it's true cost..?
ReplyDeleteI love the idea of your mystery seeds. We really enjoy seeing 'volunteers' popping up from the compost - every year one our two gourds or pumpkins pop up in unexpected places!
I enjoyed this post, Elizabeth, and seeing different ways that you practice thrift. And we do some of the same things. :) Such as the compost bucket and saving seeds (and I am hoping to do more of the latter this year.) We would also really like to get rain barrels sometime as well.
ReplyDeleteI hope that your geraniums do very well for you and aren't hurt by any chilly weather!
How strange to think that there it is possibly too early for geraniums; my poor geraniums are already celebrating their "last hurrah" here (Houston, Texas) since we've already had a couple of days in the lo 90's. I hate that because to me, a front porch is at it's very prettiest when there are all different types and sizes of pots filled with geraniums. Like your blog very much and I hope you have a lovely Easter with your guests.
ReplyDeleteGreat tips! I love the rain water butts, when we have our own house (instead of renting) I really want to have some water butts for the garden - such a good idea!
ReplyDeleteWe're not allowed to compost (landlords don't like it!), but our food waste is taken to be composted at the local recycling centre/dump. In the summer we visit to pick up bags of free compost from there!
Have a great weekend! :) x