"In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt." This month's discussion in the potting shed.

[MyNightWithMaud]

Grateful thanks to the magnificent Margaret Atwood (via A Mighty Girl) for the quote.

I have just come indoors after a delightful couple of hours' pottering in the garden. It's far warmer than yesterday and everything feels optimistic and vernal again, after yesterday's Arctic blast.

High point: Realising that most of last year's cuttings have taken. Given that I am useless with seeds this, I think, is my propagating future.

Low point: Realising that my newest fairy lights have already failed.

Ooh, thanks for starting a new potting shed thread, Maud. It's nearly 7.00.a.m. here, still black as your hat and 23. Weird.

A work day beckons, so I'm looking forward to the Easter hols next week, so I can get cracking on some autumn veggie planting.

Slight panic there but I found you!

Love that quote. I definitely smell of dirt and compost & chicken poo after today, so I'll fit in nicely.

Got some carrots, spring onions and radish started in the veg plot and sowed some asters & zinnias for the cutting bed. All assisted by DD1 which was a bit of a surprise as normally she wonders off bored after about 30 seconds.

It was largely to allay my sense of panic that I decided quickly to start another thread, Bertha.

Great quote!
I had a morning of gardening but then we had people to lunch, but we sat in the summerhouse after lunch and ds2 showed their kids his playhouse which dh has just reroofed and painted.

Sorry rhubarb, funnyperson and anyone else who picked up on my post on the last thread, I've been battling the MN ipad/Safari glitch which is refusing to load Threads I'm On...the lovely B&B garden is in Cambridgeshire, on the banks of the Granta. Plenty of people wouldn't consider it overly large, I'm sure. But I swapped a tiny (and I do mean very tiny) typical London garden for our 200ft x 150-ft plot, which I'm realising anew is quite a handful given a spell of enforced inactivity thanks to some tiresome health problems!

I try not to be too anxious but I worry very much that I'm not devoting nearly enough time and effort to it. Partly thanks to a garden designer called in by a neighbour to do stuff to a shared area - she was so sniffy about my garden that I felt myself shrivel inwardly.

It will never be a show-garden but I do enjoy pottering about in it.

Excellent quote Maud. A lovely day here too, although quite chilly. Finished painting the shed, but sadly didn't get around to splitting the snowdrops...

Feeling a bit of a cold coming on now so snuggled under a woolly blanket catching up on GW with a Lemsip. Hope you all have a lovely week ahead of you!

Does anyone know, what should I do about dense clumps of bulbs that show no sign at all of flowering? Might they flower next year if split or are they likely past it?

Hope you feel better soon, Chouette.

Thanks Countess

Can I join, please? Lovely quote.

I've washed the dirt off now, but the dc needed hosing down before they could even take their waders off. We've a boggy patch at the bottom of the garden which will one day be a fabulous bog garden , but for now is their swamp and I can't possibly take it away from them!

Please do join us, Temperamental. Tell us more about your garden. (And in what way are you crow-like?)

Halsall - Would you mind PMing me the name of that delightful-sounding BnB? We occasionally have reason to stay in Cambridge and need somewhere that is older child-friendly, as the other place we used to use is child-free.

I have just bought some new/old windowboxes on Ebay, so I'll be picking those up tomorrow and decanting some of my bulbs into them, freeing up the original pots for lilies. Does anyone else share my inability to stop frittering money on the garden? Still, I've never smoked and have pretty much given up drink, so I think I'm allowed one vice.

Found you all :) I changed the mumsnet settings to 25 posts per page rather than I long continuous thread iykwim which finally made loading the last thread possible, except it was full!

Dh has been busy digging out our old and probably original front gate whilst I was on a spa day
We will then crack on and plant hedge where the gate was although can't decide what to plant. I fancied an edible one but couldn't convince Dh. We'll probably copy the neighbours and use Laurel.

Welcome temperamental

Good morning everyone and welcome new spring thread and newcomers!

My garden is springing up everywhere- the epimediums and erythroniums and scilla and japonica are flowering! The hellebore blooms change colour as the flowers are pollinated, which is fascinating to see, and the raspberry canes, which were cut down only a fortnight ago, are already shooting! The rhubarb is growing apace and I shall pick and cook some at Easter.

Actual gardening is going to have to wait till the weekend (cant wait!) That organised thing of having done the sowing and repainting and lawn mowing so that one simply sits out and chats with friends at Easter may not happen as there is lots to do (seed sowing in particular) so I'll have a happy Easter pottering I think!

I'll be smelling of earth and grass and primroses. I'm not sure about the dirt thing. Earth and compost, like potters clay, have never been the same as dirt to me.

Those troughs look brilliant. All our patio pots are now in a neat line along the driveway making room for the kitchen. The pots with swags of flowers and foliage moulded in terracotta on the outside look as good as the long toms!

Love the title !

I know very little about plant names compared to a lot of you but am learning. What I know clearly doesn't come from my Dad. There is a tray of foxglove seedlings in an old leek container which is still labelled as such. He asked they were so I said foxgloves, he said 'no, those' pointing at the foxgloves so I repeated foxgloves. 'But is says thery are leeks ' he said, 'Yes I know it says they are leeks Dad but honestly they are foxgloves, leeks tend to go straight up' . 'Oh'.

Arf! My dad's a very keen gardener, but (as I've probably said before) when I first started this garden and was receiving regular donations from my parents' garden, they were some spectacular mis-labellings. The so-called borage was alkanet and the so-called polemonium was speedwell!

I share your misgivings about dirt, funnyperson, but am assuming that MA means it in the North American sense of soil.

That's funny, my mum always told me that the alkanet in her garden was borage, too.

I've spent the last couple of weeks building a slightly dodgy but pretty greenhouse on my allotment out of old windows.

I'm now ready to start some seeds in it - it's unheated and draughty but warm inside in the sun so I need something to start off that will germinate at low temperatures.

Any ideas??? Flowers ideas please?

Also, it's so dry I had to water my allotment yesterday which is unheard of in March as my allium bulbs looked like they were about to give up (ive hundreds of them).

And I stuck 15 bags of horse manure (very decomposed horse manure) on everything. Think I need another 30 bags to cover it.

It's a very common confusion. It's popped on here a few times on "what is this mystery plant?" threads. Around here, alkanet is very common in untended gardens. My friend's front garden - which I'm itching to get my hands on - is full of it.

Laurie, your greenhouse is brilliant! You're so clever!

Wow! That is the very best sort of upcycled allotment construction. I love it!

Oh thank you

I've a teeny shed too and have got them painted in both the same colour - a sort of duck egg blue. The shed is the size of one of those bathing huts from Victorian times - absolutely miniature - just enough for a wee table and chair if it rains plus the tools.

I'm also thinking about melon plants in the greenhouse as there was an article and offer in Gardeners World magazine - has anyone had any luck growing them ? You have to hold them up with socks or nets when they grow

Lovely greenhouse laurie do you have a maximum minimum thermometer ? My non drafty greenhouse is dropping to 4 degrees at night but the tomato pepper and cucamelon seedlings are ok.

A propagater would keep the seeds a bit warmer, what about cosmos, Zinnia, Nigella, sweet peas ?

I got the greenhouse windows from EBay for 15 quid (24 of them), they're edwardian leaded glass ones. I need to make a cold frame with the rest really and am scouting Pinterest for ideas

I grew melons last year, I got 3 -very tasty but won't bother again as they are cheap to buy.