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Hi All,
I arrived here yesterday and registered but am only now getting round to posting a 'hello' message
I'm Armorel and I've lived on Scilly for twenty seven years, having moved here with hubby in January 1981. We are 'islanders' as opposed to 'Scillonians' because there are extremely strict criteria for being a proper 'official' Scillonian, doncha know?
We have about half an acre of garden surrounding our house but it's a garden that pretty much looks after itself. We stick things in and if they grow, that's good. Mind you, with our climate, there aren't many plants that refuse to grow .... apart from rose cultivars
We've got five Bramley apple trees that produce a heavy crop each year and hubby made 14 gallons of cider from the fruit last autumn. Even with help from friends, he's still drinking it ...
Our soil is almost pure sand and the beach is only fifty yards away from our back gate. While the climate here IS mild, it can also be extremely windy (we had 80+mph winds in mid December 2007) and it's a rare day when there isn't a breeze. With virtually no atmospheric pollution, the UV levels can be very high and my young avocado plant got its leaves badly scorched sitting on a south facing windowsill a couple of weeks ago. My 12ft x 18ft Alton cedarwood greenhouse needs a good coat of shading paint early in spring every year to protect the plants.
I'm mainly a greenhouse gardener and I dabble in container plants too. I have to confess to being an enthusiastic propagator of all sorts of seeds both straightforward and challenging. My collection of plants includes a lot of named pelargoniums, herbs, bulbs both ordinary and exotic, succulents, aloe vera, stapelia, hostas, and an assortment of odds and ends.
I've recently volunteered to help out our elderly uncle with his little veggie plot (he has Parkinsons and dementia but the gardening is a good activity for him and he needs encouraging so I'm going to share with him) I'm planning to start simply with lettuces, tomatoes in pots, outdoor cucumbers and gherkins, courgettes, and squash. Thus my current mission is to find out how to use seaweed on the garden because, as I said, there's usually heaps of the stuff within a short barrowhaul of our gate. However most of the advice seems to include washing the salt off it ... and we have a permanent hosepipe ban from May to September inclusive
*waves from across the water* Nice to meet you all!
Armorel
I arrived here yesterday and registered but am only now getting round to posting a 'hello' message
I'm Armorel and I've lived on Scilly for twenty seven years, having moved here with hubby in January 1981. We are 'islanders' as opposed to 'Scillonians' because there are extremely strict criteria for being a proper 'official' Scillonian, doncha know?
We have about half an acre of garden surrounding our house but it's a garden that pretty much looks after itself. We stick things in and if they grow, that's good. Mind you, with our climate, there aren't many plants that refuse to grow .... apart from rose cultivars
We've got five Bramley apple trees that produce a heavy crop each year and hubby made 14 gallons of cider from the fruit last autumn. Even with help from friends, he's still drinking it ...Our soil is almost pure sand and the beach is only fifty yards away from our back gate. While the climate here IS mild, it can also be extremely windy (we had 80+mph winds in mid December 2007) and it's a rare day when there isn't a breeze. With virtually no atmospheric pollution, the UV levels can be very high and my young avocado plant got its leaves badly scorched sitting on a south facing windowsill a couple of weeks ago. My 12ft x 18ft Alton cedarwood greenhouse needs a good coat of shading paint early in spring every year to protect the plants.
I'm mainly a greenhouse gardener and I dabble in container plants too. I have to confess to being an enthusiastic propagator of all sorts of seeds both straightforward and challenging. My collection of plants includes a lot of named pelargoniums, herbs, bulbs both ordinary and exotic, succulents, aloe vera, stapelia, hostas, and an assortment of odds and ends.
I've recently volunteered to help out our elderly uncle with his little veggie plot (he has Parkinsons and dementia but the gardening is a good activity for him and he needs encouraging so I'm going to share with him) I'm planning to start simply with lettuces, tomatoes in pots, outdoor cucumbers and gherkins, courgettes, and squash. Thus my current mission is to find out how to use seaweed on the garden because, as I said, there's usually heaps of the stuff within a short barrowhaul of our gate. However most of the advice seems to include washing the salt off it ... and we have a permanent hosepipe ban from May to September inclusive
*waves from across the water* Nice to meet you all!
Armorel
---) CARL (----
now in blog form ! 
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