Hello, it’s Jonathan here from Potting Shed HQ at Laam Lodge. Um, I just wanted to have a chat with you all about uh a charity event that I’m doing in September, September 26, which is a Friday. I’m doing McMillan Brave the Shave. Now, uh I’m going to get my head shaved completely bald, you know, with a razor and everything like that. So, I’d like to think that maybe people might consider giving me a hand by um you know supporting me uh with uh some sort of sponsorship. Um I’m going to try to run a Facebook live event so that everybody who has contributed has been able to see what’s going on. And um you know I’m I’ve done it before but to be honest with you um I don’t really like doing it but I mean what’s a bit of hair to sacrifice for the sake of um a good cause? Um McMillan really helps people when maybe they don’t have anyone else that they can speak to about things that are really you know difficult with family members and just gives support so that they understand what they can get in the way of help. Um, as you can see, I look like I’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards. Um, what I’m doing as well is, um, before September, I’m going to try to grow out as big a beard as I can. And, you know, hopefully I’m I may either contribute it to that or just keep the beard so that I’m just not, um, completely baldheaded all over. So, um, we’ll see how it goes. Um, I’ll give you a little tour around of the place and we’ll see what’s what. So, um, let me just tell you what I’ve been doing today. So, uh, I’ve set up my potting area and I’ve planted out a lot of peppers. I’ve got hundreds and hundreds of them. So, I’ve done that. Uh, today I’ve also um grown some lettucees and some various things. I think it’s romaine lettuce and then two different types of lettuce here. And I’ve had enough to be able to um put some in the staff canteen to say um, you know, help yourself. And I’ve also repainted the sort of help yourself sign that I have so that it looks a little bit more decorative. Um so let’s take a stroll around. I’ve got to get this um bracket fixed up soon that goes on the back of the common room area. Um I’m hoping that when we come around to the um winter season or autumn winter that I should be able to plant up some baskets. So, I’ve got a couple of baskets over there, but depending on the money I get, I might well do something more with that. Um, so let’s have a look here. So, some of these uh daisies are coming back quite well, and some of the plants that are in uh the pots at the front that have been doing badly are a little bit better. Um over here we’ve got some of the strawberry um runners. Um it looks like maybe a couple of them are doing all right. So I’ll have to think again or do a bit of research on that. Make sure I know what I’m doing of um I’ve got some we’ve got some uh wild flowers still here. Some of them have, you know, gone over a little bit, but there’s still some very beautiful flowers on here. Um, all the usual. I uh sweet peas are in their pot and they are hopefully going to go up the frame. I don’t know. I’m being a bit ambitious with that, but we’ll see where we are with that. I’m just um taking a lot more runners off of here. And look at all these peppers I’ve got going. I’m hoping I might be able to sell them in order to contribute to either charity event or further gardening items. So, I’ve still got a load of peppers to spread out up here. Little uh lemon tree um which uh my neighbor gave me. All the pansies I that the residents did during our gardening club have all spread out. I’ve put them all out. That’s that was a bit of a major job to do. And over here, carrots. There are some tiny little carrots. Look at how tiny they are. Um, there’s a few that are a little bit better. Look, that’s not so bad. But I think they’re overcrowded. Um, I might get some sort of crop off of them. As you can see now, the runner beans are heading towards the top. Um, which I’m really pleased with. And I think I saw the starts for red flower. Yes, the flowers here. So hopefully we’ll be having some um, runner beans soon. Uh, again, these are all peppers along here. That’s a chili pepper. You can start to see the the ends of the chili coming out. Uh caterpillars seem to be eating all my plants, which is really irritating me. But uh unfortunately, there’s not a lot I can do about that. Um I think, you know, because I don’t want to put any chemicals or anything on this, I’m going to have to just choose things that are doing well and seem to be resistant to pests. So, I’ve moved some of these plants down a bit and I’ve taken some of the potatoes out of their buckets that I had them in and hopefully we’ll get some potatoes off of that. I’m not sure whether that’s going to work, but um certainly adds a lot of uh foliage to everything. Cabbages are ridiculous. It almost makes me laugh. They’ve been chewed to pieces, so don’t think I’m going to get a lot off of that. Beetroot don’t seem to be developing much of a ball at the moment, but we’ll see. Um, this looks great. I am going to be doing corettes again next year. I really want to try to do they do like a tempura batter coated corette flour and that’s something that I would like to try. Uh, just something different. We’ve got um the remains of the lettuce left. Um, I’m going to be sort of taking them out and then I shall put some more of the potatoes in that section there just to give them a bit of a start. Uh, sweet corn seems to be going all right. I don’t know whether I’m going to have to space them out a bit. We’ve got this remain lettuce which I’ve um taken some from the south for um tonight. So, I’m going to try that. See if it’s um nice or not. Um some of the other runner beans here not doing very well in the little pot. So, that’s probably nothing. I’ve got a few little plants. One of them is supposed to be a cucumber. I have no idea which. So, let’s see where that goes. And again, uh runna beans going up this um here. Um I think that might be a parnipet, but um if anyone looks on the comments and can tell me, I’d be very interested to see what I’ve got there. Um no radishes come up at all, particularly. Oh, we might have the start of a radish right down in the corner, but we shall see. Right, the next thing. So, the other thing that I’ve done is I’ve got these paving slabs. Now, I’ve got quite a variety of paving slabs. Now, what I want to do is this area with the trees above just gets full of leaves. So, I’m I’ve got a garden vac that uh is coming soon, and I will I want to have enough of a pathway in here. I’m going to do a mixture of things so that it’s like a paved garden with pots as much as I can. Um we’ve got a lot of other supplies. Um I’ve got um some soil that my neighbor gave me. Whole load of pots here. Load of tiles. I have no idea what I’m going to do with them. And as I say, we’ve got various pots full of bits and bobs. So, I’m going to decide what I’m going to do with that. I’ve got a few ideas of using the wood for an art project. So, I’ll have a little think about that. Um, one of the things I am doing is as I find nice containers, um, as I find nice pots, uh, you know, even if they’re plastic pots, I’m going to, um, dispose of the ones that aren’t so good. I’ll probably try to recycle them again if I can. Um, let’s go down the side here. As you can see, I think I showed you this before, but um, Ray the mainted chap has been digging that way. doesn’t want me to dig it in because he thinks I’m clumsy and I’m going to smash a hole in his uh plastic sheet in there, which is entirely possible if I’m being honest with you. Um, I think I’m going to move this rather aggressive palm tree, the one that spiked me, cuz that doesn’t seem to be doing well. I put the bulbs around here out the way, but they’re not going to be happening at the moment, but we shall see. This fern that I got from Facebook. Amazing. It says um in spring I’ve got to divide the root bowl. If anyone knows any difference because I would like to spread it out sooner than spring, but um I could really do with a few comments if anybody has anything to say about it. I’ve got the um Aaron lily here. It’s sort of collapsed over in places. I don’t know whether I’m supposed to cut them off um or whether they need they’re a bit popped down. I need to deal with it. And then we’ve got a few plants here um which are doing quite well. Just give them a bit of a water. I’ve got a watering can around here just to just to try to um save my legs when it comes down to it. So that’s those watered. And that’s that. Right. So, I think what I was going to say to you, if it’s all right, is um if anyone can help me with regard to um sponsorship or any good ideas of things, you know, I’m quite game for a laugh when it comes down to this sort of thing. You know, if someone wants to pay me a bit to go around for a couple of days with half my hair and half a mustache or something like that, I might do that. But it’s going to have to be something that makes it worthwhile. We’ve got I put a bit of water on the sunflowers because they seem to be drooping a little bit. So I don’t know whether I’m going to try feeding them again. This tree is going to go in the other tree eventually. Uh we had a lot of success with these. I going to get some of these um because I think they’ve given us all round color for a long time. I love some of these plants. They’re going to have to go more in a border next year. I think I’m going to have to figure out what to do. We’ve got um few tomatoes on the go. Some of them are not quite ripened yet, but I’ve got a few yellow ones which um I think might be quite nice. So um I might have them for my salad later on. Uh with regard to the blackberries, I don’t know whe they’ve all gone over now. Well, we still got quite a lot. I’m gonna try to grab a few tomorrow, but I think they’re almost um over. Okay. Well, it’s bright day. Um ple please communicate with me when you get a chance. I’m very interested to hear what people have to say. Oh, by the way, when I get my haircut, I’m my plan at the moment is that my mom, who is a hairdresser, retired, um she hates the idea of me having my head shaved world. So, um I am probably going to get her to cut my hair because she really won’t be very happy about it and it will make me laugh and hopefully everybody else too. um friends and family are going to um you know support me but it’s going to be part of the McMillan coffee morning and uh you know if you know me and you’re and you want to come down and um you know see it in the flesh just just come and just give me a message or phone me and let me know and I’ll be happy to have you guys along. Um I’ve spoken to the manager Kelly and she’s more than happy for me to you know make a bigger event of it that we can. I’m just waiting on McMillan at the moment to come back to me because their diary doesn’t allow me to do um September at the moment. Um it’s only allowing August for Brave the Shave. So I phoned them up yesterday and they said they’re going to get a priority um message to someone at the fundraising and then I can make a hopefully as soon as I’ve got that I can get it up on the notice boards. I can announce it on Facebook fully. But um you know uh any ideas just to make more of it if you want to I got to check and make sure but you know if this you fancy making a cake or something like that then we can look into that but I need to just check and that that’s all right with the care home. So uh I think I’ll make that for today and u I’ll see you all soon. Bye.
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