Through the garden gate--March

I can't believe we are now at the end of March, where did it go?  There has been a lot of wet weather around, in fact I often wondered if it would ever stop raining. But now at the end of the month we are finally seeing sunshine.  So I have been hard at work getting the garden borders tidied up of debris and weeds. There is so much to do now.

It's a lovely time of year as things start to grow and the garden becomes more colourful. The green of the new growth is a sharp contrast to the blues and yellows of the flowers. The mini daffodils are going over now and the big daffodils are out. There are a lot of blue flowers emerging--chionodoxa, saponaria, brunnera, vinca which are looking really well with the lime green euphorbia. My tulip pots are not flowering yet but won't be long I'm sure.

I had a lovely surprise when I opened the cold frame last week. I found several auricula plants which I had forgotten about.  I had put in there in the autumn. I don't know if they really need to be protected overwinter, but I think I was just having a big tidy up session at the time. The auriculas were starting to flower so I have now taken them out of the cold frame and put them on the garden tables where I can enjoy them.

This month I am linking with Sarah at Down by the Sea for her monthly 'Through the Garden Gate ' slot.

Growing pea shoots

I remember a few years ago talking to a fellow allotmenteer about growing pea shoots. He couldn't get his head round the concept of sowing pea seeds and eating the shoots but not the peas. Much as I tried to explain that they make a very tasty salad he thought it was a waste of pea seeds. Pea seeds are grown for peas not leaves was his thinking.  But then he wasn't a salad person. He was a big guy who could lift a paving slab onto his shoulder and carry it without any effort from one end of his plot to the other and the top of his plot was up a steep mound. He was a steak or beefburger man and salad was just a thing that went on the side of the plate for decoration.

However, I love pea shoots in a salad, the intensity of flavour from those little shoots is amazing. Grown in the winter time, to munch on a pea shoot takes you back to the summer when you pick the first young peas and eat them straight from the pod.  They can be grown throughout the year are so easy to grow.

I started some off at the end of February on my kitchen windowsill using supermarket bought dried marrowfat peas. You can also use the seeds that get left over in the packets from your garden sowings. I grew them in recycled plastic food containers and added some multipurpose compost. Then I sowed the seeds quite thickly and covered with more compost. I was amazed at how quickly they grew.

Within a few days they had germinated and now into the second week they are ready for cutting. I cut just above a leaf about halfway down the stem. They will continue to grow and then I will get another cutting from them.

I think I probably sowed too many and just one container would have been enough. They grow so quickly that you can sow another lot a couple of weeks after the first to get a succession of them.

Muddy work in the pond

This is our allotment pond as it looked last summer, but it has been neglected over the last few months. It has been on my job list to 'sort it out' for a while now.  It had got into a mess, full of mud, in fact there was more mud than water, so I decided it was time for a good clean out. This job had been put off many times because of the weather. I didn't fancy putting my hands into a cold muddy pond in freezing cold temperatures. Although the pond is only an old tin bath, so not very big, the job was still unappealing. However on a fine day when it was dry and not too cold, with rubber gloves and wellies I set to work.

First job was to get the pond plants out and these were well and truly stuck in the mud. They were in pond baskets and they had grown so much the roots were poking out of the baskets and had got embedded in the mud. Well I managed that with a bit of help and they were placed on the side of the pond to be dealt with later.

The next job was scooping out the mud.  I used a plastic jug for this and it took ages.  The mud had to be got rid of--there were two or three bucket loads. Also in the pond was an underwater plant.  I can't remember it's name but I realised soon after I had planted it that it was not meant for small ponds.  It had almost taken over with roots all over the place. So all the roots were pulled out. I decided not to put any of it back in the pond, but to look out for something more suitable for small ponds.

Once the pond had been cleaned out it was refilled with rainwater from the water butts and the stones were put back in. I left the pond plants at the side of the pond for a few days to enable any little pond creatures to crawl out.  On another day I took the plants out of their baskets and split them up.

Some of these went back into the pond. They are plants which I am quite fond of. There's a lovely marsh marigold, an iris with variegated leaves, an Acorus grass which has green and yellow foliage, a water forget-me-not and a Geum Rivale. It was looking much better by the time I had finished. The plants will soon grow again and provide shelter for the wildlife.

We've had quite a bit of rain recently and the pond has overflowed into the surrounding area. But as this is a  bog garden, that's OK. The bog garden is another area which now needs a bit of a sort out. Having split up some of the pond plants I would like to replant some of the spare plants in the bog garden, especially the marsh marigold which I love. At the moment though, the plants in this area are only just starting to come through again so I don't want to start digging and planting  as I might disturb something which is yet to emerge from the ground.  Every time we go down to the plot there are more shoots appearing so I'm sure it won't be long before I can start work.

 The good news is that since I cleaned out the pond, in the last week the frogs have visited us and there is a big clump of frog spawn clustered around the marsh marigold.

Wrest Park

We went down to Bedfordshire recently to visit our daughter and family. She suggested we went to visit Wrest Park which is not far from where she lives and was also a place she had wanted to see. I'm always glad to visit anywhere with a garden.

Wrest Park is a Grade 1 listed mansion house and gardens.  The present mansion was built  in French style for  Thomas de Grey in 1834-39. There was a wedding on that day so some of the rooms in the house were closed to the public, but the rooms we were able to see were quite magnificent.

There are over 90 acres of gardens with parterres, woodland, long avenues, statues and sculptures, lakes and canals.

 

The gardens were modified between 1758 and 1760 by Lancelot 'Capability' Brown.

A cold February day was not a good time to visit but the gardens were vast and a good place for the grandchildren to have a good run around to keep warm. Although I am not a fan of formal gardens I was quite impressed by the parterres and I'm sure that in the summer months when the borders are full of flowers, they will be even more impressive.

There was plenty to see as we wandered around. From the parterre, long tree lined walkways fanned out leading us to statues, pavilions and follies. We didn't count how many statues there were, but there were a lot.

The children enjoyed the woodland, especially when we found the big tree which had massive pine cones and was perfect for climbing.

Wrest Park would be a good place to visit at different times of the year to see the seasonal changes.  On that day the cold weather got the better of us and we didn't stay to explore the whole of the gardens.

#mygardenrightnow

This post is linked to Michelle at Veg Plotting who has created the challenge for us gardeners to post a photo of ourselves in our gardens or allotments this weekend which shows how our garden or allotment is looking right now.

So here is my contribution. Here I was in my garden on Saturday morning on my hands and knees clearing the leaves and dead plant material from the beds. I am doing this bit by bit as the weather and time allows. It's hard work on my back, but I always feel good when it's done and I can see some progress.

In the afternoon we went down to the allotment and did more back breaking work. My husband was cutting the hedge back which involved climbing up the ladder so his knees were suffering by the end of the day. I was hoeing the vegetable beds which over the winter have looked good topped up with manure and quite weed free. But in the last week the weeds have been popping up in the form of those wretched spinning jenny seedlings which fall from the sycamore trees. There is one tree across the lane in front of our allotment and another at the top of the plot. The good thing is that the seedlings  are quite easy to get out of the soil with the hoe, but there are so many of them, they are everywhere. So here I am again down at the allotment.