Random Writings

I come from a fairly green-fingered family. My mum is an enthusiastic gardener and her parents were also very keen. Perhaps its because I’m getting a bit older, perhaps it’s because I have my own space to work with, but I’m slowly getting into the whole gardening thing.

Last year I tried growing baby plum tomatoes (a variety called “Rosada”) in pots on the foredeck – and they did really well, despite a certain amount of neglect during my absence! This year, with the boat in the much more public environment of Midsummer Common, I decided to be a bit more ambitious.

I bought four 60-litre growbags and four giant plastic trays for them to sit in. The idea of the trays is that they catch excess soil that escapes during watering and avoids it making a streaky mess down Innocenti’s paintwork. Not that the paintwork is normally all that pristine, but hey, it’s the thought that counts. So I now have two growbags on each side of the boat above the kitchen. Whilst in my local DIY emporium buying the growbags, I was also tempted by various special offer bedding plants – some trailing lobelias and some impatiens. Now, Mum reckoned that these plants were possibly a bit tender to plant out in case of the risk of a late frost, but I’ve stuck them in anyway this evening because: a) I’m going to a conference next week and they’ll stand a better chance of survival in the growbags than in their plug trays; b) the river seems to create a slight microclimate that reduces the incidence of frost; c) the impatiens were beginning to flower and it seemed a bit daft not to plant them out.

So, I’ve cut little flaps in the growbags and planted a row of trailing lobelias along the outside edge of each bag. The two bags on the boat’s port side (which is against the bank) will have flowers in them and the other two on the starboard side (facing the river) have strawberry plants and will shortly gain some salads and other edibles – the idea is to reduce the temptation of passers-by to help themselves to my fruit and veg!

I’ve ordered myself some watering gadgets and I’ll write about those once they arrive…

This entry was posted on Friday, April 17th, 2009 at 9:25 pm and is filed under Narrowboat.