Some cold gardening days

It's been so cold recently I haven't wanted to go outside for too long. So garden and allotment work has been limited to short spells with lots of layers of clothing. But so much needs to be done as we move further into February.  

On the allotment we have been sorting out the storage shed. Last year, late summer the roof caved in and as the whole structure has been needing some attention for a while, it was now time to do something about it. So over the autumn and winter Richard has been working on the roof, the sides and the floor. It's almost a new shed now. It was a good opportunity to sort out all the stuff we had been storing in there. All the things we'd saved because they might be useful, but they never were. So along with lengths of rotting wood, metal and plastic items have been disposed of, leaving much more room in this storage area. We will not be hoarding things again, I hope.

The weather although very cold has been quite dry recently and the allotment is looking much better now it's not as wet and muddy. I've nearly finished getting the beds ready. This week I pulled up  the few remaining cabbages, which are not very big but might make a meal. I left the kale in as it sometimes starts growing again in the spring. Richard raked up the compost and manure in the bins and there should be enough rotted manure to finish the beds.

 I went to the garden centre last week and bought seed potatoes and onion sets. A nice indoor garden job was to start chitting the potatoes. I bought Rocket, a first early which I've grown before and always had good crops. Also I bought Charlotte which is a good popular salad potato.

The onion sets I planted in trays in modules, varieties are Sturon, Centurion and Banana. These are now in the allotment greenhouse. I grew Banana onions for the first time last year and they did really well. Chitting potatoes and planting the onion sets are usually the first jobs I do so I feel I've now made a start to the new season.

I  had a tidy up in the garden shed, sorted out my seed box and ordered what I need for this year in vegetable and flower seeds. The pots and propagators are all ready now for me to start sowing. I'll be sowing broad beans and sweet peas in the next day or two, which I will do in pots then move them to the greenhouse. I don't usually start any other seed sowing until the beginning of March. Then things will get really busy. 

The garden is looking quite messy with grass bits all over the place. So I have started clearing debris from the beds and cutting back the grasses. I quite enjoy cutting back and gathering up bundles of plant rubbish and seeing the flower beds starting to look better. I can see plants emerging and then I try to remember what they are. There are more bulbs coming through and some unexpected ones, I remember that I planted more last spring. It's nice to get surprises like that as I work round the garden.

Through the Garden Gate--February 2024

The days are lengthening now which means more gardening time, but not when it's been raining as much as it has  in February. We wonder if it will ever stop, will we get some sunny weather soon?

There have been a few dry days when I've dashed out to get some work done. There's often a decision to make  "shall we go to the allotment? or stay home and do the garden?". It's which ever needs the most work doing. The damp, cold weather isn't good for me, it gets into my bones, but I try to keep going for the exercise. 

So in the garden I've started tidying up the beds. February is when I cut down the grasses. They were all very straw like, some of them still good looking but the new growth was appearing at the base so the old stems had to be cut back. 

The taller grasses had quite thick stems and could just be snapped off. I thought it would be easier than using the secateurs, but I'm not sure. Either way was hard on my arthritic hands. Last weekend I cut back the dead perennial plants foliage. The garden is looking a bit flat now with lots of the dead grass stems still lying around. They soon blow away or the birds take them for nest building. 

I can see now that the garden is slowly waking up as new shoots start to appear. The snowdrops have mostly all gone over but new spots of colour can be seen. Coming into flower now are crocuses, tete a tete daffodils, primroses and pulmonaria. 

The Hellebores have been in flower for a few weeks and are looking lovely. Hellebores 'Anna's Red' is a dark red and standing quite tall. It has big flowers but not many of them, whilst the other hellebores are low clumps of paler, smaller flowers. 

The patio is bright with pots of daffodils and the tulips pots should make a good show, that will be quite a while yet, but it's something to look forward to.

Well that was February in the garden, I'm hoping for some good weather in March, there will be much to do.

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

Through the Garden gate-November

Gardening work starts to slow down in November, not just because there's no work to do --there is always work to do in the garden, but because the weather and preparations for Christmas usually slow me down.

I've pottered about a bit cutting some messy plants back. I tidied up the stumpery/woodland garden and bought some bark chippings to spread over this area. I never seem to have enough chippings no matter how much I put down, I always feel I need a couple more bags.  It looks better now though.

The rest of the garden looks ok. There are plenty of grasses which give some colour and there are still some yellow berries on the Rowan. In the winter light they sometimes look like little yellow fairy lights.

In the front garden there's a little area under the adjoining neighbours wall between the lilac and the weigela which is quite damp and shady and which I've been wanting to do something with, but not sure what. Richard dug out some of the turf in the summer as it was in such a mess. Since then the weeds grew and it began to look really messy.  When we had the painters in to do the front wall of the house we moved some pots of hostas from around the front door out of their way and put them under the wall. I was pleasantly surprised to see how much they brightened up this little area. So in my autumn  tidying up  session, I weeded here, put some bark chippings down and put the hosta pots back. They don't look much at the moment but I'm hoping that when they start to grow again next year they will really brighten up this dark, dreary area.

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