welsh hills again

OK, roll up, roll up.  Here is a change and a chance to win something! You know me.  I am a bit selfish with this blog.  I blog about what I like and what interests me.  I get a lot of emails asking me to review this and that and most of them come from people who don't seem to have read my blog or to have any  idea of what I write about so generally they cheerily get dumped!  But I had a really nice email the other day from someone who works for Wish UK .  She had clearly read my blog and thought about it and how it connected to her company and she wanted to know if I would like to run a competition.  It's not often I have the chance to give away anything nice to you lovely people so I thought I would give it a go.   Wish UK is a gift providing company. You know the sort of thing: driving a Ferrari, having a spa break, hot air ballooning, learning to fly a bird of prey.  Oddly they didnt't want to offer any of these things as a...

I was a passionate gardener for ages before I got into seed sowing.  I bought plants, read gardening books, wandered round gardens and made notes but I felt that sowing seeds was for real gardeners, real experts, too tricky, too serious for me.  It wasn't helped by a few forays into sowing hardy annuals with those free seed packets you tend to get with magazines or thrown in when you are buying something else.  I know the spiel: sow directly where they are to flower, fine tilth, thin out and all that garbage.  In my experience seeds mostly fail to germinate and the glorious patch of colour of your imagination becomes a straggly weedy bit of the garden where one or two puny love in a mist fail to make an impact on the chickweed and the dandelions. Having a greenhouse has made a difference.  Under the controlled conditions of seed trays and watering and benevolent warmth, seeds do germinate and I do notice and I do look after them.  I have discovered that g...