Coronavirus lockdown diary weeks 11 & 12

After three months, tomorrow marks the start of shops reopening. As much as I'd like to look round, I think there will be long queues and a lot of people milling around, so I will probably wait a while.

I'm missing the sunny and warm weather,it's been very rainy and cloudy most days. However my gardening efforts are just starting to pay off! In the first week of June I harvested my first courgette, quickly followed by two more, including a round one. We've been snacking on fresh peas straight from the pod and pulled up one pot of potatoes, which were delicious - full of flavour and firm. I just used some old supermarket potatoes that were past their best and already sprouting and I think they were tastier than last years from seed potatoes. My only regret is that I used two potatoes per pot instead of the three I did last year, as I'd read that cramming them in actually reduces the yield. However, the foliage seemed a bit sparse and my concerns were confirmed when i pulled them up, as I had a yield of just under 600g, approximately a third less than last year! So from now on I'll stick to three seed potatoes in my pots as it doesn't seem detrimental.

At least however I can now use the potato pot for something else and today I filled it with radish seeds. They are fast growing so hopefully I can get a few batches.  I've sown two more waves of spring onion seeds and some carrots. The carrot seeds are five years old so may not sprout, but there's only one way to find out!

My eBay sales were fairly busy last week, but so slow this weekend. It could be in view of the shops opening imminently, but I do hope it picks back up again as it has been a good way to declutter.

My gorgeous rose bush has finished flowering for now and I miss its scented showy blooms, but the sweet peas have started to put out flowers so hopefully it won't be long until they take over. I'm going to try to take cuttings from the rose next month so I have more plants.

It is such a treat to pick roses from the garden for your vase, especially whilst it's been difficult to buy flowers.

Finally, up until last week we were still seeing the cute great tit family in the garden, the chicks still sticking together and being fed by their parents. I haven't seen them this weekend but think I heard them in the trees. I bought a new feeder for them so I'm hoping they come back to visit soon!

Coronavirus lockdown diary weeks 9 & 10

Most of the last two weeks were spent in the garden on warm days and updating my eBay listings on cooler days.

The garden has really started to burst into life now, with the roses out in full bloom, the lavender starting to flower and the sweet peas are taking off. I've been filling out the border with my home grown zinnia plants which have finally all been planted out, along with some marigolds and petunias.

In the back garden, I've used a raised bed to create a wildflower patch. I'm not sure if many seeds are growing; at the moment it's hard to tell between weeds and flowers as the only shoots are very small. There are however a few rogue tomato seedlings, I have no idea where they came from but perhaps it will be a vegetable bed instead!

The vegetables are doing well having enjoyed the warmth and sunshine last week. The courgettes are starting to produce viable fruit, early thanks to the nice weather and early start. It's a risk starting seeds too early in case the weather is too bad for them to go outside when they need planting out but this year it seems to have paid off; there are four courgettes which will be ready to pick in the next day or two. The tomatoes have started setting fruit too and the runner beans are producing flowers. Two of my cucumbers are looking very healthy now with big leaves any tiny fruit. The next two don't look as good, with split stems and small leaves. I don't know why this is, but I'll be trying to coax them to grow stronger as there's nothing to lose. I have another two cucumber plants which were sown later to replace failed seeds and one looks particularly healthy, so I'm aiming to pot that one up by this weekend too.

My lobelia plants finally looked big enough to plant but as I'd grown them in a tray I was concerned about splitting them, so I decided to just split them in half and used one half in a hanging basket and the other in a terracotta pot, but mixed with petunias. They're looking good and I'm hoping to put them out soon.

On my days off from gardening, I listed some clothes on eBay and then went through my stash of seeds and listed some of those too. It was successful and I managed to sell over twenty items, so I
was pleased to declutter and make a little cash.

As the days went on through May, it became clear that the adorable birds and their chicks would soon be vacating the bird house, as the birds started calling to the chicks and they started to look out of the nest box. We noticed one had fledged on Wednesday 20th May, when we saw it hoping around the patio and clumsily flying around the plant border. We didn't need to worry though as it flew into the nearby plum tree and was then found by one of the parents who had brought it some food. On Sunday 25th May, the last of the chicks moved out, and the once buzzing little box now seemed sad. I was quite sad about their departure but hoped to tempt them to stay near by replenishing the bird feeder which seemed to work. We've been hearing them in the trees daily and I've even spotted them a few times too, all together in a tree being brought some food. The smallest chick was just a tiny ball of fluffy feathers! So far we have been able to count five chicks, though there may well have been more as they are tricky to see in the trees. I'm hoping the parents will return for a second brood, if not this month then next year.

I've finally started reading a new book. I mentioned previously enjoying dreaming of st Tropez by TA Williams and was thinking about buying another from the dreaming of series. Last weekend it was sunny so I pulled my sunlounger outside to the shade and decided to download a summer read, only to find that one of the books in the series was free to download on Amazon, so I'm now reading dreaming of Florence. So far I'm enjoying it, but I also want to get the last book in the series soon, dreaming of Italy, as it has received good reviews following its release at the beginning of May.

Lockdown is gradually easing but everything is still strange. Now more people are going out I sort of feel like I want to stay in more, as places become more busy and crowded. I hope everything returns to normal soon.