Seed sowing, Rainbows and Museum Visits

I haven't done an updated polytunnel photo for a while so here is how it was looking on last Wednesday. The newly sown seeds are advancing down one side as the rooted through plants leave on the other side. It's all very productive.

The poly tunnel at the beginning of April

I finally finished giving the main stock beds their spring tidy, woo hooo! After a quick meeting with the other businesses here at Whitmuir I sowed another big batch of seeds. David has filled up a huge pile of plug trays which speeds my job up enormously. Some of the seeds we inherited with the business and are quite old but I am going to sow them and see if they are still viable. Some seed will last for years if stored correctly, and some will even if not (does that make sense?) we will see. The weather has turned cold again and we had a frost last night so we are still out of the woods yet weather wise, we have had snow in May before!

Seed sowing is progressing and filling the
polytunnel

Yellow is a very spring colour and this wee collage shows off some of the yellow flowers
and foliage in the nursery this week

I've even had an engine named after me this week,
all be it on David's model railway he is building

Our chooks getting some treats

Thursday was another mixed weather day but we did have some lovely rainbows stretching right across the nursery, no gold though, otherwise I'd be travelling and not writing this, ha ha. I did the cafe flowers, tidied the plants indoors and then got on with real work! We got the software for the labelling machine up and running and can now print plant labels, they look so good in the pots. Another task off the list and another step forward, I finished off planting the Rosa rugosa hedge along the entrance of the native garden. This will help define the nursery boundary, create more of an entrance and provide shelter. The birds will appreciate the huge red hips in autumn and I'll appreciate the scented flowers in summer. In the afternoon I started tidying the shrub stock beds and extending them to make room for everything. This involves putting down more ground cover fabric then weeding, tidying and moving the trees and shrubs. It's also more organised now so that conifers, fruit, Acers, etc are all together in their groups, instead of scattered about wherever there was room. We are slowly refining everything and getting organised. I finished off the day by potting up more plants I've brought in from home for planting and to add to the stock list over time.

This week's cafe flowers

Great rainbow over the nursery. As I haven't managed to grow a money tree I'm off to look for the pot of gold

There were double rainbows when I got home in the evening too

Sadly there was no gold in the greenhouses!

Urghhhhh, Friday was freezing cold, wet and windy and I wanted to go back into hibernation. I spent the day cuddling the heater and wrapped up in layers in between sowing seeds, sorting out the plants I brought back form the tunnel in exchange for a trolley of seed trays and doing admin. I was glad to get home to a warm house where we had a sea based dinner of dressed crab, red snapper and mackerel, The first two were on my bucket list to try and are now ticked off. Ben, Daniel and Adam all tried some which was good and it was all very tasty. I cooked the Red Snapper and mackerel in a lime, orange and chilli based marinade with some honey.

Who will have a fishy on a little dishy? Ticking things off the bucket list

Thankfully Saturday was a lot warmer and dry. The nursery was busy right from first thing. In between customers I managed to carry on working on extending the shrub stock bed and tidying the plants there. This means there will now be room for the newly potted trees too. It was great to see previous and new customers and catch up with friends who visited.

Euphorbia polychroma at home

Working on the tree and shrub stock beds

Extending the stock beds back for more room and to keep the weeds down

Cardamine heptaphylla flower bud in the garden
at home

Corydalis malkensis looking good in the alpine trough at home

Cardamine kitabilii

Meconopsis with dew

Sunday was another good day, the weather was ok and we had lots of interesting, new and existing customers come to shop. I got all the jobs on my to do list done despite my back going and the pain progressing down into my hip joint and leg. The shrub stock beds got finished which has really opened up and tidied up the back of the office, still more work to do there, but progress all the same. I potted up some bedding seedlings for summer sales and took them over to the tunnel. David and I cleaned out the water feature to remove fallen leaves and dead plant material, which was fun using the big pump to empty out the water! We have a delivery of new water plants for sale arriving next week which will fill up the rest of the feature.

Narcissus 'Jenny' a lovely daffodil
for sale in the nursery

The man himself, my partner in crime, being cheeky x

The finished tree and shrub stock bed

We were back to murky, drizzly weather on Monday, so it was indoor jobs again. I got anti-bird tape tied on to the sprinklers in the stock beds, this will hopefully deter the jackdaws from throwing compost everywhere. I finished potting the summer bedding seedlings, topped up sales tables, sowed seeds, potted up plants from Fiona and moved crates of plants waiting to be planted to make a new path in front of the compost heaps. Busy busy.

Weaving at Summerlee Museum

On Tuesday eldest son had an interview in Bellshill, so since everyone was off we decided to make a day of it and do something after. We ended up at Summerlee Industrial Museum near Coatbridge. You can find out more here. We wandered around the museum, had lunch and then explored outside. The weather was cold but dry and the sun came out. We all enjoyed our afternoon out and it was good to spend some time together. Then it was home for tea.

I'll leave you with some photographs of the museum. Have a great week, catch you soon