Back from holiday and lots to do

We were away in the Lake District last week so this week it's back to work on the allotment and there's plenty to do. The weeds are trying to take over, they grow so fast at this time of year it's hard to keep up with them. The blueberry cage is full of ground elder. I cleared it all a few weeks ago, but it doesn't take long for it to come back. The other fruit cage is full of chickweed and bindweed. Different weeds grow in different parts of the allotment. The onion bed also gets taken over by chickweed, the asparagus bed has thistles and mare's tail. Richard has been tackling a bad area along the fence and the pond, weeding and cutting back some conifer and spirea, nettles and docks. It's not helped by plot neighbours who don't keep their weeds under control. They've had their plot for two years now and rarely ever do any work on it.

I have a few areas where I like to grow flowers for cutting. This week I have been planting these up with annual flowers, cornflowers lavatera, rudbeckia, cosmos, zinnia and more. 

The sweet peas are growing well and I'm hoping they will be flowering soon. 

Foxgloves self seed around the plot wherever they decide to put themselves. Sometimes I move them to better places, but mostly I leave them where they are. I do love them, and so do the bees. The one below is growing in the cold frame.

I've had poor germination with some plants this year. Cabbage and curly kale grew ok but after a couple of attempts with broccoli I only managed to get four plants. Tired of constant sowing with poor results I resorted to buying plug plants from the garden centre. I bought red cabbage and savoy cabbage.

Two rows of peas which were started off in guttering in the greenhouse before planting out are coming along nicely with pods starting to fatten up. I covered them well with netting this year after some poor years when they were got by pigeons. A third row I sowed straight in the ground and none of them germinated. So I have done some more in the guttering. That seems to be the best way to give them a good start.

Around the plot, the climbing beans are planted, onions need weeding, lettuce is doing well. Spring onions and parsnips-- guess what-- little or no germination. Perhaps it was too cold when I sowed them. In the fruit beds the strawberries are starting to ripen, rhubarb needs pulling regularly, there are plenty of blueberries to ripen.

In the next week or two I will be sowing fennel, purple sprouting broccoli, more spring onions and planting leeks. And of course tackling the weeding. 

Slow progress in the garden

The days are starting to get a little longer. It's coming lighter in the mornings and staying light for a little longer in the evening. The garden can look a bit drab and dreary at this time of year, but as time goes on plants are starting to emerge. Snowdrops are flowering, and other bulbs are pushing their way through the soil. 

The witch hazel has been in flower for a few weeks now. Next to it is a yellow stemmed dogwood and behind the witch hazel clustered around the base of the silver birch are a group of cyclamen. 

I planted these the first winter after we moved here and were making a new garden.  They seem to increase in number every year. Also in this area of the garden, the hellebores are starting to flower. This corner of the garden is definitely a winter garden, which was planned so we could see it from the house windows during the winter. Spring is not far off.

I'm trying to get back into doing some gardening work whenever the weather is good enough to go outside.  But with the awful cold,windy and rainy days we are having at the moment, that's not very often. I also have to divide my time between the garden and the allotment. To get my body back into doing the physical work of gardening I have just been doing half an hour or an hour at a time. I've been cutting back the dead flower stems and grasses in the borders. I removed the leaves from the hellebores to expose the flowers. On the little woodland/wildlife garden after clearing the debris I have put a layer of bark chips down. It looks quite good and it shows up the snowdrops and cyclamen nicely.

 

The crab apple tree produced lots of fruit in the autumn and made a beautiful display. In the last few  weeks the fruit has attracted interest from the birds, especially the blackbirds.  We have seen as many as four at a time pecking at the fruit. A lot of the fruit fell off onto the ground over the last few months and has made the patio a bit messy so I'm hoping that when the birds have taken all the fruit from the tree itself they will start on the fallen fruit.

I feel I'm making slow progress in the garden, but Spring is not far off and seeing all the new growth appearing makes me think of the better days yet to come.

Back to work on the allotment

There's a pattern to the work on the allotment. The same jobs are done at the same time of the year, which makes it difficult as I write my blog to find something different to say. It can become a bit boring. But I do like that repetition. I think 'oh here we go again, we did this last year'. It does make me feel good though and that I might be doing things right.

Three sessions on the plot last week made me feel good. I am making progress, but the weather at this time of year can put a stop to all that so I feel lucky that I was able to go three times in one week. Arriving on the site we saw that some wood chippings had been delivered and the path down to our plot was quite muddy as it often is at this time of year. As it's a job we often do at this time of year that was going to be Richard's job for the afternoon.  

Spreading chippings along the path is not actually working on our allotment but it does help if we get it done, it benefits some of our plot neighbours too. Unfortunately Richard ran out of time and energy to get the whole path done that afternoon, so  planned to carry on with it next time. Imagine our delight when we arrived a few days later to find that someone else had finished the job for us.

       
                                                   

I cleaned out the greenhouse, swilled the floor and left it to dry out. I have started sweeping up the leaves and scraping up moss from the paths. They get very slippy if the leaves and moss are not cleared. I didn't get them all done and realised it was a bigger job than I thought. So next time maybe.

Another job to do at this time of year is to sort all my seed packets out and order what I need for this year. So that has been done and the postman delivered  them this morning.

I also did a new allotment growing plan for this year. You can see it in the photo. It's not to scale and I might still change some things, but it's roughly what I will be doing this year.

New year on the plot

Our first visit to the allotment since early December was on New Year's Day. Well that's a good start to the new year, but it was very cold and  too cold to do any work. Nothing much had changed since that last visit in December.

But we didn't go to do any work, we went to dig up some leeks and cut some parsley. 

It was a good chance to check around and make sure everything was ok. The rhubarb is showing signs of new growth.

The fruit bushes need pruning and weeding needs to be done in the cages.

We had cleared most of the beds in the autumn and spread compost then covered with membrane, so it was looking fine.  

There are winter jobs to be done, repairs and cleaning, but they can wait for warmer weather.  The cold frame collapsed last year and needs repairing. The greenhouse and shed both need cleaning out.

Since that visit we have had plenty of bad weather, snow, rain extreme cold, so still not gardening weather.