Lockdown growing projects

My other love apart from crafting is gardening. I love the way your garden is constantly changing and evolving and nature has an amazing way of adapting itself to every extreme and at times,  against all odds.

So, my lockdown planting started with me planting on cuttings of succulents last year for the summer for a small garden project, which is obviously rather slow. 

I then remembered a conversation I had with my friend about an orange pip growing into a little plant, and decided that as I had a lot of time on my hands over the first lockdown to plant a few.

So, at the start of lockdown Pip and Pip junior were born from a humble orange from Aldi.  I remember that my mum would pop orange seeds down the side of her plants on the kitchen window sill all the time and they would just sprout up and then she would just replant them... I don't recall any orange trees as a result though.

As we go into the third lockdown, pip junior are doing pretty well, and my friend has his little brother pip who is also fit and healthy.

So, on the second lockdown that got me thinking of something else to grow. 

On my walk to co-op, I take a short cut, down the scenic route and pass this beauty and in the summer, its a stunner and they can grow pretty big.

A Cynara Cardunculus/ cardoon artichoke thistle. By the start of the second lockdown, the heads had gone to seed so I acquired one and thought I'd have a go a growing the seeds.

The thistle heads are really quite majestic, even when they have dried out, albeit still quite spikey.  I did put my gardening gloves on to retrieve the seeds which look like apple pips and these cream spines are really prickly.

I looked up online how to propagate these seeds and it was a bit hit and miss.  I potted them up in some compost and just popped them in my greenhouse where they get plenty of sunlight. I haven't needed to water them at all.

To be honest, I wasn't actually expecting anything to grow so was pretty excited to find that two of the 6 pots had shoots and one had a huge root growing through the pot already. Hopefully, they will be strong enough now to survive the winter.

Well, we've had orange pips, ornamental artichokes and now with the third lockdown its lemons!

So!  After watching a Utube video I decided to have a go at growing a lemon tree!...or two!

Ideally, I would have preferred limes as I love limes but there was not one single pip in my limes (not that I'm complaining) but I have had a few requests for lemon plants funnily enough (must be lockdown fever).

So here they are, poor little devils, seeds stripped of their shells and about to be sprayed with water and then wrapped in a paper towel before being placed in a jar and then placed in a dark place for 2 weeks to germinate.

Hopefully, when I return to these in 2 weeks time there will be signs of life. Hopefully, this will be the last lockdown we have..... but in the event of me needing back up planting projects, suggestions for future planting projects would be welcome.

Enjoy your day, whatever you have planned.