Sunny days

The days are getting more spring like now, it's lovely to be outside in the sunshine. It's only a few weeks since I was enjoying the snowdrops in the garden and now they have gone over making way for the daffodils.  The tulips are starting to flower in their pots on the patio, in fact only last week the first ones burst into flower, an amazing orange which made me stop in my tracks to admire them. 

And this week these tulips started flowering. I planted them last autumn,  I don't know the name of them but they are amazing.

The garden is looking lovely at the moment. The borders have been cleared of all the debris from the dead flowers and most of them have now been mulched. I have been putting ornamental bark down on the stumpery area in the back garden and the hosta bed in the front. All the hostas are grown in pots which seems to help keep the slugs away although not completely.

I love to see the garden looking like this at the start of spring, like it's ready and waiting for the explosion of flowers in the next few weeks.

As I walk around I can see how clumps of flowers are getting bigger. At this stage I have to be careful not to plant anything where I think there is a space, because that space is likely to get filled up soon with plants as they start to grow bigger

Through the garden gate --March 2024

 

Well, Spring has arrived, but it hasn't brought any good weather with it. We continue to have lots of rainy days. The garden is starting to look more colourful, lots of yellow and blue from the daffodils and pulmonaria. The trees all open up their buds at different times. The Amelanchier is the first to flower, it looks attractive even before the blossom comes with  a haze of pink buds. I can see it will be flowering in the next week.  

We have had some dry days and I have been very busy trying to get the Spring jobs done. Pruning is a job to do in March and I've gradually got most of that done. I decided that the twisted willow tree needed a prune too, it grows very quickly. One branch which was growing very tall needed some attention and it involved Richard up the ladder with his saw and me holding tightly onto a rope tied to the branch to stop it falling over the fence on to our neighbour's car. I don't think we would have been very popular if it had! I cut the branch up afterwards, it's twisted stems will make good supports for the peas at the allotment. Other smaller stems look good in a vase and the remaining thick stem was sawn up and put in the bug hotel. Other very small bits of twig are left on the lawn for the birds to help with their nest building. Nothing wasted. Holly enjoyed playing with all the branches too.   

I started tidying up the borders and mulching. I have almost finished the back garden and then will start on the front and side gardens. It's a long job and hard work, but the garden looks so much better when it's done. The mulch shows up the emerging plants well, I can see what is coming through as I go along and decide if any need moving or thinning out. 

The tulip pots are starting to flower. I planted some in the autumn which were a mix of purple and orange and I am quite pleased with them, although the orange ones look more red than orange, but the colour combination is quite good. I have another pot which looks like they are going to be white although the label I put in says orange. Either I have labelled them wrong or the garden centre did. It will be interesting to see what they turn out like.

I love the pulmonaria which are flowering now and how they self seed around the garden. They pop up in unexpected places. I usually leave them unless they are in completely the wrong place. 

The euphorbia are in flower too now, growing well in the shade of trees or shrubs. I have been cutting them and the pulmonaria for the house, they go well together. Also starting to flower are the brunneras and primroses --more blue and yellow.

This weekend is Easter and after a rainy week it looks like Saturday and Sunday will be sunny days then we will be back to rain next week. So wishing you all a very happy Easter and enjoy your gardens.

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

Mulching, pruning, and getting ready for Spring

Its been good to get back to working on the allotment after the rain and snowy weather we had early on in January. It was drier in February and we had sunshine, but it has been quite cold. We've been working at a slow steady pace, with about two or three visits to the plot a week for about two to three hours. We both struggle with pain in our joints and we now have to be more careful about how much we do in one session. Lots of tea breaks! Last year when I was first diagnosed with Rheumatoid arthritis I thought I would have to give up the allotment and we said we would give it a year to see how we got on. Well we did really well I'm pleased to say, so we'll carry on as long as we take it at a slower pace.  And with the latest shortages in tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers I think we're best to grow our own.

Over the last few weeks I've cleared all the dead plant material from the veg beds and weeded. Then I spread a manure mulch over the beds. There are some vegetables still growing, leeks and parsnips. I dug some of the parsnips up at the weekend and there are some really big ones. I brought a bagful home but there are still some in the ground. Spicy parsnip soup could be on the menu soon. I've cleaned both greenhouses out so they are ready now to be filled up with seedlings when I start those off.

The next job was to prune the fruit bushes. There are blackcurrants, redcurrants, gooseberries, blueberries and raspberries. I gave the apple tree a bit of a trim but I'm never sure if I'm doing it right. The fruit bushes and rhubarb then got a mulch of manure and a feed of blood fish and bone. I mulched the blueberries with the shreddings from the Christmas tree as they like an acidic soil We do this every year and they seem to like it.

I started off onion sets in cell modules. I'm growing two varieties, Sturon and Turbo. Red onions never do very well for me so I've decided not to bother with them this year. Shallots do well but I find them difficult to peel because of the arthritis in my hands, so I won't bother with those either.

The potatoes are chitting at home. I'm growing Rocket and Charlotte. I've also sowed broad beans in cardboard tubes and those are on the kitchen windowsill.

With regular visits to the plot I feel pleased that we are on top of the work. There are some bigger jobs which are on our to do list. Like repairing a section of fencing, mending the strawberry troughs, relining the pond and sorting out the leaf bin area. These will keep Richard busy for the next few weeks. My next job will be to start sowing seeds at home to grow on the kitchen windowsill. 

Chippings, mulching and clearing beds

 We've had  a spell of dry weather recently with the occasional frosty morning.  I always get quite restless when the weather is fine but can't get out. There's not always much can be done in the garden at this time of year, but down on the allotment  there are winter jobs which we can be getting on with, so we did a few visits there in the last week or two. When the weather has been fine we have managed to get down there about twice a week.

We get a lot of leaves falling from the big tree at the top of the plot so clearing these from the paths was one job to get on with.  Then a good sweeping and swilling with Jeyes Fluid to stop them getting slippery.

I cut down the asparagus stems, a job I hadn't managed to do in the autumn. In the bed next to the asparagus had been annual flowers which I grow for cutting. I cleared all the dead stems from there too. On the asparagus bed I spread a mixture of manure bought from the garden centre and home made compost. Another bed which needed clearing was the sweetcorn and beetroot bed. The sweetcorn stems were quite hefty and needed a big tug to get them out. A mulch of compost finished the bed off nicely.

There was a delivery of bark chippings at the dump so Richard did some barrowing and started topping up the paths and non growing areas with the chippings. It always looks so clean and tidy after we have done this.

I made a start on pruning the fruit bushes by doing the gooseberries. I gave them a mulch of  a mixture of home made compost and manure. The rhubarb is starting to grow again so that got a mulch too. Then we spread a layer of bark chippings over.

The seating area is well used, for rests and cups of tea and to sit and admire our work or decide which jobs to do next.

There seem to have been a few new tenants on the site recently. A lot of people don't realise how much time and hard work is needed to keep an allotment going and soon give up. 

We're hoping they will stick at it.