Take a look at the Potting Shed today, friends - Gardening Central. After the heat of July and August, when it was almost impossible to work in there, it has become more and more a hub of activity recently, as the garden starts to be tidied up and put away for the winter. Those green leaves in the red bucket? They're all headed for the compost heap, which is in full 'reception' mode at the moment, filling up with (amongst other things) loads of emptied out pots - plants that did not 'come back from the dead' after being blitzed by the scorching heat this summer. I did manage to rescue a good number, though, which will be joining the other plants in beds all over the garden that I've propagated over the last several years. (Thanks be for seeds, cuttings and divisions - how could I ever afford to have filled this garden up otherwise??)
Talking of seeds…there's the bag of seed compost, with which I've recently started off a number of seeds that I have collected, here and 'out and about' over the last few weeks. I now mostly make my own compost mixes (see under bench!) from home made compost and leaf mould, but in the matter of seed sowing, I do buy a prepared medium - I've had one too many irritating surprises in the past when several seedlings of has come up alongside the seeds I sowed deliberately. Oh what confusion that causes! The fan on the floor? Not needed now that the temperatures have dropped to a really balmy and delightful mid to high teens. That will be packed away soon - along with all the plant pots that are about to be sorted and then put up on shelves, where I can actually see what sizes I've got - and how many of those are available. Now that I have this shed, they can all be kept both clean and dry - and used (by me, clean and DRY!) under cover, when it's pelting down outside…I'm looking forward to that!
Sieves and buckets, secateurs and dibbers,tender plants and seedlings, pots and trays and poems on the wall - more and more will gather here in the next month or two as the weather closes down. There will be even less space in here than there is at the moment - but it will be warm, dry, cosy and very, very potty and plant-y. It might not suit others of a neater, tidier disposition - but it will be just right for me!
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