Through the garden gate--February

 The garden is starting to wake up, little clumps of bulbs and primroses are flowering in the borders. Crocus, daffodils and cyclamen which I planted last year are looking bright and colourful.

There are some lovely blue pulmonaria flowering now, they are always early and bring some welcome colour to the garden at this time of year. I brought these from my old garden and they have taken well to their new home.

Last year I planted 50 snowdrops in the green and planted them around the garden. But 50 snowdrops doesn't go very far. So this year I ordered 100 and I have planted them all in one place, under a big weigela in the front garden. This should give me a better display. It's a shame that I have to wait until next year to see the result. 

I've started tidying the borders, cutting back the dead flower foliage which I had left over the winter for the wildlife. February is a bit too early to start disturbing the soil as the new plant growth is just starting to come through and I didn't want to damage anything. I'm still trying to remember which plants are in there as it was all newly planted up last year and I don't always label my plants.  As I worked my way around the beds I was doing a bit of planning as some of the plants were planted in the wrong place last year and will need to be moved. That's a job for March when everything has grown a bit more.

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

Spring cleaning the allotment

The fine weather we have been having in February has been a great chance to catch up with all our winter jobs on the allotment. It's given us time to get straight before the rush of spring jobs gets under way.  I have had to keep reminding myself that it is still early in the year for planting and sowing outside.The beds are now cleared, manured and covered ready for growing again, the fruit beds have been weeded and manured.

There have been lots of bark chippings delivered to the allotment site and everyone has been  to and fro with their wheelbarrows using the chippings to mulch their paths. We have found these chippings really useful to cover different areas of our plot, hopefully this will help to keep down the weeds.

One important job to do was to clean out the greenhouses. They were still full of the old tomato plants so those needed clearing out first. Then they needed a good sweeping out before I gave them a scrub down with disinfectant to get rid of the moss and algae. Whilst I was doing the inside Richard went round the outside cleaning the windows. I'm always so glad when this job is done, the greenhouses feel really fresh and clean now. The staging is back in and its all ready to start sowing seeds.

The next job was cleaning out the shed. Now this is a job I really hate doing. It involves brushing down cobwebs and chasing massive spiders out of the shed. But once that was done the shed was all tidy and organised again. Once I had the bottle of disinfectant in my hand I was well away, cleaning the cold frames, pots and seed trays too.

It won't be long now before the frogs arrive in the pond. I'm always surprised when we arrive on the plot to find the pond full of frog spawn. So I decided to get the pond ready for them by getting rid of the dead leaves and pond weed and generally tidying up the bog garden around the pond. The bog garden is one area which had a layer of bark chippings spread over it.

Now at the end of February it looks like we are in for a spell of rainy weather, but at least the plot is  looking much better and we are all ready to start sowing and growing again.

Our new garden project 8--a shed and a gate

During the summer we had the back wall of the house rendered so put our garden plans on hold until it was finished. I couldn't wait to get the next stage of the garden sorted as it involved a shed! I just love a garden shed.

The shed was to go at the top of the garden near the house wall.

 Once it was in place the inside needed organising--shelves, a bench to work on and hooks to hang the tools up. I really enjoyed getting the shed organised.

Now it is done it is lovely place to spend time. I can work at the bench looking down at the view of the garden. Everything is where I can find it, instead of being all over the garage in different places as before. It is my own little space.

The other job was to put up a fence across the back of the drive with a gate leading in to the garden. Rather than buying fence panels, Richard built the fence and gate himself. This has really made a difference to the garden now providing us with some privacy and also makes the patio area into a little secluded space.

That was all done last autumn, so we have had a break from gardening work during the winter. Now the weather is improving and we are able to get out into the garden we will be starting work again soon.

Through the Garden Gate--January

January is that month in the year when gardeners are feeling restless. they want to get outside to do things,  but the weather is not good, the soil is usually too wet to be able to plant anything and it's best for the garden to just leave things alone for  a few weeks.

It's a time to rest, to plan ahead and look forward to the Spring.  That's how |I have been feeling these last few weeks, I have been longing to get out into the garden and when I have been out there I've realised that there is nothing I can do yet.

We had some fine dry days early in the month, but then the cold set in and we had our first snow of the winter. The garden takes on another look when it is covered in snow. Much as I don't like the snow I love to see how it changes the look of the garden.

I didn't cut back in the autumn, I left the dead plant foliage and seed heads to give some winter interest and provide food for wildlife. When the seed heads and grasses are covered in snow they look lovely.

Although the January days are dark and dreary, I love to walk around and see what's growing. Our garden was only created last year so all the plants were newly planted. I've been keen to see how everything has survived in the new garden. There are buds on trees and shrubs. New growth is appearing at the base of perennial plants and there are bulbs coming through. The snowdrops I planted last year are flowering--there aren't many yet but I hope to add to them this year.

The witch hazel (Jelena) has grown really well and now has lovely orange flowers which seemed to pop open overnight.

The hellebores which I planted last year are flowering too. I really like these pink flowered ones

We have had more snow so still no gardening for a while  yet.

What's your garden looking like at the moment?

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

Brightening up the winter

 

There's a lot of thinking ahead and planning required with gardening. Way back in October I bought bulbs, some for the garden some for the house. I planted tete a tete daffodils and crocus in pots for outside and hyacinths for the house. The hyacinths were put under the bench in the shed where it was dark and cool.

In December when the shoots were starting to grow I brought them out and put them on top of the bench in front of the window to get some light. I had several pots and bowls of hyacinths and I have been gradually bringing them into the house. As one plant starts to go over I bring another pot inside, giving me hyacinths flowering over several weeks. The smell is lovely and they brighten up the house so well.

Every year when I plant these bulbs I always think it seems ages before they will be flowering, but it is worth the wait. Outside the narcissus and crocus pots are starting to grow and I know there will soon be spring colour on the garden table.

Winter jobs on the allotment

After a busy December when all work on the allotment stopped, I have been wanting to get back to work on my plot. December is always busy at home and I don't think I ever get to do any allotment work during that time. We have managed to do a couple of visits since the start of the New Year and it's been a case of carrying on where we left off.

cabbages looking messy

When we arrived for our first visit we were greeted by a strong smell of rotten cabbages.  The cabbage bed still had two or three cabbages left in, but they were very slimy and slug eaten. I got rid of them and weeded the bed.  The rest of the bed has kale and purple sprouting broccoli growing and they looked quite healthy, but not ready for harvesting.

the asparagus bed in need of clearing up

Next I tackled the asparagus bed, cutting down the dead foliage stems and weeding. There were some Rudbekias which had kept on flowering well into November, but had finally gone over, so they got pulled up and thrown on the compost heap.  At the other end of the asparagus bed are some rows of leeks.  I weeded and earthed up the soil around them.  The bed looked very clean and tidy after all that work.  All the beds which I had weeded then got a feed with chicken manure pellets.  We normally put a layer of well rotted horse manure on the beds during the winter once they have been cleared, but our manure bins are empty.  We need to find a source of manure so that we can start storing it again.

a tidy seating area overlooking the asparagus bed

Down the lane some bark chippings have been dumped for the allotment holders to help themselves to.  Richard brought a few barrow loads of the chippings and spread them out where our table and chairs are.  It looks much tidier now and will help to keep the weeds down.  There were also some bags of leaves on the car park so we helped ourselves to some of those and put them in the leaf bin to rot down.

After clearing the vegetable beds my next job was to start weeding the fruit beds.  I made a start with the rhubarb and apple tree bed, but there is still the blueberry and blackcurrant beds to weed yet. I was pleased to see the rhubarb showing new growth already.

the rhubarb bed

There are plenty of jobs still on my to do list and the list never seems to get any shorter.  But as the days start to lengthen we can spend more time on the plot.  The weather has turned cold now and we have had snow in the last day, so we can't do any more work at the moment.  We look forward to better days.

Through the garden gate--November

The garden is slowly settling down for the winter. As I look around there is still colour to be found, from stems, leaves starting to go over and flowers still struggling on. There were some amazing leaf colours from trees which I gazed on briefly only for them to have blown away a few days later.

I have done an autumn tidy up. Just a little one as I like to leave a lot for the wildlife over the winter. But the garden looks better for it. I love to see the seed heads of plants gone over, a reminder of their summer display.

There are still some plants which are making an attempt at flowering again, little flashes of colours amongst the foliage-- a bit of blue lavender and campanula, pink geranium and as for the Rudbekias, well they are still going strong as is the fuchsia in the front garden. The grasses are looking good, this time of year they give some welcome colour and interest to the garden borders.

I'm feeding the birds most days now and they are often to be seen perched on the fence in the morning waiting for their food. In the back garden there are groups of starlings, pigeons, doves and magpies with the occasional blackbird. In the front garden the sparrows and blue tits are active in the shrubs. 

I bought some white hellebores this week to make some Christmas pot displays on the garden bench, they seem to be becoming a popular plant for this time of year. They are lovely.

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