Through the garden gate--April

Back in October I celebrated my 70th birthday and my daughters gave me garden vouchers, which is one of the best presents to buy me. Stocking a new garden with plants can be expensive and although I brought a lot of plants with me from my old garden there are still other plants which I would like.

I really wanted another tree for the garden and after much time spent looking at trees in garden centres I finally decided on a crab apple--crab apple 'Evereste' is the one I bought.  I like crab apples because they have blossom in the Spring, good autumn colour and fruits which the birds love.

When we planted the tree a few weeks ago it had lots of deep pink blossom buds on it. It finally burst into flower at Easter with beautiful white blossom. It has been the star of the garden during April and is still looking good.

Underneath the tree are two pots of tulips which I planted up last autumn.  They are lovely shades of white and pink and look lovely next to the white apple blossom. It's funny how sometimes plant combinations work well even when they were unintentionally put together.

The amelanchier has also been flowering during April and was a joy to see.  Outside our house on the grass verges lining the road are trees full of pink blossom. April must be the month for blossom.

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

spring sowings and plantings

It's getting to be a busy time on the allotment now.  After weeks of tidying up and getting the plot ready for the new growing season suddenly everything seemed to burst into life in the flower areas bringing some lovely colour to the plot. The weeds are growing too, which is a sign that the soil is warming up and its time to start planting and sowing seeds.

Over the last few weeks my kitchen has been full of pots of seedlings and propagators. I started in February with chillies, then tomatoes followed by cabbage, kale, brussels sprouts, cauliflower and leeks. Now I am sowing flower seeds for a cutting bed in the garden or for filling in gaps in the other borders. Also for the allotment to attract the pollinators.

Down at the allotment I have two greenhouses but they are not heated so seeds which need warmth in the early days are sown at home where I can give them some extra care in the kitchen. Once they are potted on I then take them down to the allotment greenhouses.

Weeks ago I sowed broad beans and pea seeds. I planted the broad beans and peas out in the ground last week. They are looking good and its great to see something growing in the allotment beds at last.
Over the Easter weekend I sowed another lot of broad beans directly into the ground.  I shall be sowing peas soon too.

There's so much too do now. The greenhouses are filling up with seedlings. After weeks of bare soil the allotment is beginning to look like its coming to life and soon my kitchen will be clear of pots and propagators.

Through the garden gate--March

We've had some lovely days out in the garden recently. At this time of year as the new growth starts to come through I always think it's like meeting up with old friends. I'm so pleased to see plants again and look forward to them flowering later on. There are others which I remember planting last year but where are they? Then when they appear at last I am so pleased. Last year everything was newly planted in our garden, this year there are bigger clumps and more flowers. It's good to see that they are happy in their new home.

There are lots of spring plants in bloom now and each day more buds appear on different plants. Down in the bottom border which is very damp, the marsh marigolds which came as cuttings from the allotment pond garden have buds about to burst open.

There is lots of blue and yellow about in the borders at the moment from the Brunnera and pulmonaria, the primroses and daffodils.

Last autumn I planted up pots with blue violas and they are now coming back to life. The tulips I planted in containers have got big fat buds and I am so looking forward to them flowering to see if the colour combination I chose works.

A few weeks ago I bought a tray of mini daffodils and a tray of muscari and planted them in a container hoping that as the daffodils started to go over the muscari would be coming into flower. And that's exactly what happened!

The Amelanchier tree is about to burst into blossom. We planted another tree recently--a crab apple. I spent months researching trees and deciding which one to buy. It has lots of pink blossom buds and will be flowering soon. 

The bees are busy, we have seen butterflies and I don't think I have ever seen so many ladybirds so early on in the year. There have been quite a few in the house over the winter, they have been hibernating in the bedroom window frames.

I love this time of year when everything in the garden is so fresh and new. It's all about new life, growth and change and there's so much to look forward to.

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

Tidying up the strawberries

 Last year the strawberries on the allotment didn't do at all well. There were other allotment people whose strawberry crops had failed too. They blamed it on weevils, which apparently eat at the roots and so destroy the plants. I think my strawberries failed because they were old. Strawberries work well on a 3/4 year rotation. It's usually best to get rid of them by the third or fourth year as they start to flag and don't produce much fruit. My strawberries had seen better days, when I thought about it I realised they were probably about five years old.

I grow my strawberries in big tubs and the bath and usually have year 1, year 2 and year 3 tubs. Each year I take cuttings from the runners to start a new year's crop. Well, that's my plan, but I haven't been very good at working to it for the last couple of years.

Last year I bought some new plants and planted them up in the bath, but being their first year there wasn't much fruit, they should do better this year. So this year I decided to get rid of all the old  plants in the other containers and start again. Back in February when we had that lovely weather  I potted up lots of plants from the runners of the old strawberries which were rooting themselves all over the plot. I had a good clean up, getting rid of the weak ones and selecting the healthy looking ones. 

I also tidied up the strawberries in the bath, getting rid of the dead leaves which looked such a mess. 

All the new potted up strawberries have been in the greenhouse for a few weeks now and are looking really good. This week I moved them to the cold frame. Soon they will be ready for planting in their big containers.

Remembering a few years ago when I couldn't pick the fruit fast enough and I made lots of strawberry jam, I'm hoping for a better strawberry harvest this summer.

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.