Through the Garden Gate--February 2020

The wet weather continues and the garden is still very soggy, there seems to be no end to this bad weather.  I know I am not alone in longing for some better weather.

There are some bright spots in the garden though as bulbs start to appear.  Earlier in the month it was the crocus, now it is the tete a tete daffodils.

I planted them so they can be seen easily from the house windows--in case bad weather prevented me from getting outside. Good planning there, I think! On the patio are containers of daffodils which we can see from the window at the back of the house.

When I have managed to brave the weather and walk around the garden I have spotted clumps of flowers down in the bottom border nestling under the trees.

Here you can see how wet the ground is.

These primroses have been flowering for weeks and weeks.

Down in the woodland border the hellebores are out. These have also been flowering for a few weeks now.

This one is a lovely colour. Its called 'Anna's Red'.

Most of the helebores hold their heads down so you can't see the front of them, but these are better.

  I cut some to bring indoors and I could see their faces better then.

I am linking this post to Sarah's blog at 'Down by the Sea' for her monthly 'Through the Garden Gate' post

Stormy weather

We got a few jobs done at the allotment last week before storm Ciara arrived. I finished cleaning out the two greenhouses and then started on the shed.  This is a job which I hate doing and had been putting it off for weeks, but it needed doing. I decided to put everything from the shed into the
greenhouse. This was a good idea as it took me two days to clean it out completely. There were lots of cobwebs and massive spiders. I managed to evict about four of them, but I know they will return, I think they sneak back in when I'm not looking. Now its all clean, tidy and smelling fresh and I feel much better for having done that big job.

Another job I have been doing is digging up clumps of poached egg plant ( Limnanthes douglasii) which have been taking over the fruit beds.   This is a very pretty yellow and white annual flower which the bees and hoverflies love. I sowed the seeds several years ago, it self seeds and then takes over. Every year I try to get rid of it but it just keeps coming back.

We went back to the plot yesterday to see if there was any storm damage and were pleased to see that the greenhouses and shed were still standing upright with no broken windows.

There's a conifer hedge down one side of our allotment which was planted by a previous tenant many years ago. We cut a lot of it back when we took the plot on, this reduced the width, but not the height. The height takes a lot of light off the beds so Richard has decided to try to reduce it. Its  difficult as the branches are quite thick, so it will be a long job.

You can just see the conifer hedge at the top left of this photo and right and left below

My next job is to clean out the pond.  Some of the plants are getting too big and there is a lot of mud to get rid of. I want to get this done before the frogs start spawning.  They always arrive earlier than I expect, usually on a nice sunny day in March. But with Storm Dennis expected this weekend and a lot of rain predicted for next week I don't think it will get done for a while yet.  It's going to be a race between me and the frogs.

Back to work on the allotment

We had a break from allotment work in December and with bad weather at the beginning of January it was a few weeks before we could get back to doing some work. When we eventually had some dry enough weather to be able to get down to the plot we wondered what state it would be in, there had been some very heavy rain and storms. So we were pleasantly surprised to find there was no storm damage and no water running down the paths as there often is after heavy rain.

Richard has a project on now to edge all the beds with wood to stop the soil from spilling out all over the paths. He has managed to do two of the big beds in the last couple of weeks and they are looking much better.

We have five compost bins on the plot, three of them are used in rotation to make compost--one to put all the compostable materials in throughout the year, at the end of the year it is then left to compost down for a year, then the third year it is ready to use as compost.  The other two bins are used for manure when we can get hold of any. Usually one contains fresh manure and the other has manure which is rotted down and can be used to mulch the beds. So we started off a new compost bin with grass cuttings and kitchen peelings brought from home as well as some plant material from the allotment.

We also have a bin for leaves to make leaf mould and one of the first jobs I started on recently was sweeping up leaves from the paths which had fallen from a big sycamore tree at the top of the plot. What a mess they were.  Once I'd cleared the leaves the paths seemed a bit slippy, they get like this in the winter time with mud and moss. I scraped off the mud and swept up then swilled the paths. So I'm hoping they are a bit safer to walk on now.

I was pleased to see that there were some brussels sprouts ready to be picked, there was kale and there were leeks although I would like the leeks to be bigger.

I had cleared most of the beds of dead plants in the autumn but there were still a couple which needed sorting out. I cut back the dead stems in the asparagus bed, weeded and then mulched the bed with manure. I cleared the sweetcorn which didn't ripen in time and dug up the rest of the beetroots and parsnips.

The rhubarb is growing really well and I'm sure it won't be long before we can start pulling some of the stems. One thing I will be doing soon is to give it a mulch with manure.

So the plot is looking quite tidy now and we're ready to get started on the new growing season. Its too early to be planting anything in the ground yet though  but there's lots of planning to do in the meantime and I'll soon be starting to sow seeds undercover.