Garden Bears' World - Tomatoes and Triffids

It's wet again today but, on Monday, the two smaller bears had a great day in the greenhouse together.  

At first, Endon went out to help Polar pot up his second batch of tomato plants.  These had grown from the very out-of-date seeds, and twelve had germinated, so they transferred these small plants into their own little pots. 

Some of them are still very small and might not grow very well, but Polar says she will look after them and, when we are safe from late frosts, she might plant them outdoors on the allotment.

Endon helped to 'prick out' some salad seedlings too, which takes a lot of care and concentration with paws.  The plants are very small and fragile, but Endon is a very gentle little bear.

He made sure he picked equal numbers of red-leaved and green-leaved seedlings to go in the big modules, for growing on to plant outdoors, and put the spares in small trays to grow on window sills or in the greenhouse for baby leaves.

There were even more mizuna seedlings.  It's just as well that Endon is a very patient small bear.

Then he and Polar checked on his first tomato plants.  Polar had transferred them to bigger pots a week earlier, and they were now ready to go into their big pots in the other greenhouse.

'Can another bear help us?' asked Endon, who had already worked very hard.'

'Of course he can,' said Polar.  'I'll fetch Hanley.  Sonning won't mind having a quiet half-hour in the window on his own.'

She was right about that.  Hanley had been making up another of his unlikely international football victories for Stoke City, who had just beaten Ajax in a 5 - 4 thriller, but his post-match celebrations were getting rather noisy.  

Hanley Bear was excited about going to the greenhouse, because he could check on his bean and see if the 'triffids' were flowering too.  He and Endon were very impressed with all the roots the tomato plants had made. 

The small bears took it in turns to dig planting holes in the compost and after Polar had tipped the plants carefully out of their little pots and put them into the big ones, Hanley and Endon shovelled extra compost around them and jumped on the compost to press it down firmly around the roots. 

'The others will go in the allotment greenhouse,' said Polar.  'but you'll be able to come down and check on these four whenever you like.'

 'I have to check on my bean too,' said Hanley.  He was pleased to see it was even taller than him and had grown an extra leaf.

Then the small bears climbed across to look at the Sarracenias.  Lots of their flowers were now open.

'I can properly identify which varieties they all are now,' said Polar.  'And make some new labels for them.'

'That's a Sonning sort of job,' said Hanley.  'He's got the neatest paw-writing of us all.'

 As you can see, the Sarracenias have very unusual flowers indeed.  The flowers open before most of their new feeding-tube leaves develop, because they wouldn't want to eat the insects that are pollinating them!

After checking on the triffids, there was still time for the small bears to have a run in the garden before tea, although they needed their back paws brushed to get the compost off.

Polar and I are going to identify and label all the flowering Sarracenias soon, then we can try and match the leaves on the non-flowering plants, to work out which ones they are.  

It might take us a long time.  Hanley was right when he said there were over fifty in his blog post - there are actually more than eighty!

In the Front Garden

Every morning, when we go on Bear Hunt duty in the front bedroom window, we look down onto Polar and Grizzly's front garden.  We have often seen it from the car as we've gone out on our adventures, but we'd never been out to play there until last week.

Hanley Bear had a little run out there on his way to the bluebell woods, and he told us there was a springy lawn with wild flowers, climbable trees, and a pond with a fountain. 

So we asked if we could all go out to see, and Polar agreed.

Hanley was right about the lawn.  The areas that had been cut were perfect for jumping and rolling on, as they were very springy, but our favourite part hadn't been cut, as there were wild bluebells growing there. 

There were several small fruit trees growing there too. 

Polar said most of them were planted the year she and Grizzly moved in but they were dwarf trees, so she could pick all the fruit and do pruning without climbing ladders. 

That meant we could climb right to the top and still be rescued if we got stuck!

Then we ran along one of the little stone paths to look at the little pond and fountain.  The fountain works from a small solar panel, which Hanley Bear found fascinating

There are tulips in the top flowerbed, that gets plenty of sunshine, which are taller than bears.  Polar says there are lots more flowers later in the year, which we can look out for from our window.

We had another run on the grass before it was time to have tea, and I had an idea.

'Polar,' I asked, 'Would you let us give away some spare plants to our delivery people?'

'Since I can't do my CAB plant sale this year, I think that's a very good idea, little bears,' she said.

So we made a sign and some labels for some of the herbs, and put them out by the front door.

While we were by the front door, I was curious to take a closer look at the basket where the milkman leaves our milk, eggs and butter to keep the morning sun off of it.  But I was a clumsy small bear, and I fell in!

Hanley Bear had to call Polar to lift me out.  She laughed and gave us all hugs, then took us inside to have tea and cake with Grizzly.

Polar says we can play in the front garden whenever she is working out there but we mustn't go out there on our own, in case any human cubs take a liking to us and we get bear-napped!