Looking forward to Spring

 

I love this time of year on the allotment. It's a time of tidying up, preparation, planning for the new growing season. and looking forward to what's to come.  As time goes on there are signs that Spring isn't far away. Under the big Sycamore tree the bulbs are starting to emerge and flower. I have planted up a few pots with crocuses and tete a tete narcissus to give some colour. Soon the birds will be nesting and frog spawn will be appearing in the pond.

When I wasn't well before Christmas I thought I might have to give up with my allotment, but one of the things I was told about managing my pain was not to give up doing the activities that I enjoy, just don't overdo things and take regular rests.  Since I've been feeling better I've really looked forward to getting down to the allotment and have really enjoyed the time spent there. 

So we have been making plans for this year, knowing that I might have flare ups and will need to take it easy sometimes. It's quiet at the moment, we've managed to get down to the plot regularly and do some work. We don't have to rush the jobs, but as the year progresses and we get into Spring and Summer there could be lots more to do. We have been putting lots of bark chippings down on the paths and non growing areas.  This helps to keep the weeds down and makes it easier to keep the plot tidy. From a growing point of view I have decided that I will only grow the vegetables which we like and eat a lot of and those which grow well for me.  

For years I have tried to grow carrots--I sow the seeds, they grow, produce what look like lovely carrots, but on closer inspection I find they are riddled with carrot root fly. I have tried different ways of growing them, but they are always affected. So I'm not going to waste my time this year and I won't be growing them again.  Cauliflowers are always a disappointment, Brussels sprouts are hit and miss.  So this year I will just be growing all our favourites--peas, broad beans, climbing beans, cabbage, kale, beetroot, sweetcorn, courgettes, onions, shallots and leeks.  Lettuce, radish and spring onions will be squeezed in amongst them. We'll continue to grow potatoes in bags, but not as many.  In the greenhouses I will still grow tomatoes and cucumbers. I won't be growing chillies again as we don't eat many and sweet peppers have never done well for me. I will continue to grow annual flowers for cutting and sweet peas

So with all this in mind, last week I went through my seed boxes and ordered new seeds for this year. It's always an exciting time as I look forward to a new growing year. I just have to remember not to get carried away and do too much.

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.

Through the Garden gate--January 2022

It can sometimes be difficult to find anything to good to say about the garden in January.  It's a pretty bleak and dismal month.  I often sit at the window looking out at the garden for colour and signs of life and nothing seems to change much.  But really, there is colour and interest.  There are shades of brown and green from fallen plant material and tall gangly stems with seed heads still clinging to them, providing homes for wildlife. Sometimes I've seen little birds balancing on the stems trying to find food from the remaining seeds.

The grasses are giving colour too.  Some are straw like now, the evergreen ones giving splashes of bright green along the border. Down in the woodland bed the Witch Hazel is in flower. This one is Hamamelis 'Jelena'. The spidery flowers are a bronzy, orange colour, but I have to get close up to really appreciate it. I'm always a bit disappointed in its colour which seems a bit dull. I may have just planted it in the wrong place to show it off.

In the border alongside the path near the kitchen door is a Sarcococca (Sweet box). Its little white flowers giving off a delicate scent which wafts around this area. It has taken a few years for this to get established and produce these scented flowers.  This year it has excelled. It was growing in a pot at our previous house and we brought it with us to plant up here.

On finer days I have been out walking round the garden, looking closer for signs of life and spotting little bulbs just poking through the soil. Last year I planted more snowdrops, these are always the first to appear. It's always a delight to spot them--the first flowers of the new year and a sign that Spring will soon be with us.

After not being well and fit enough before Christmas to do any gardening, I am now feeling a bit better and  trying to keep active. I am aware that with Rheumatoid Arthritis there will be times again when I won't be able to do any gardening, so I am making the most of this time whilst trying not to overdo things. I have been slowly pottering around the garden doing jobs. I started clearing soggy leaves and plant material from the front garden flower beds and was pleased to find more spring bulbs underneath. When last year's bulb pots had finished flowering I stored them down by the side of the shed out of the way. I thought they might have rotted but after clearing the weeds out of the pots, there were the little bulb shoots coming through. So I have set these out on the outside potting bench, hoping for another good display soon.

In September we had a holiday in Cornwall and I bought some Cornish daffodil bulbs--St.Keverne and Fowey. I planted them up in the autumn into big pots and then forgot about them, but these too are now coming through.

So really there's been plenty of interest in the garden in January--even if I've had to search around for it. And there 's much to look forward to in the coming weeks.

Hope your garden is coming to life too.

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

A New Year on the allotment

After a fairly mild spell of weather, it has now turned very cold. We made our first visit to the allotment of the new year this week. It was a lovely day, although very cold. I needed veg so we went mainly to dig up some leeks--they are doing really well this year and are a good size. I cut some kale leaves too--those are not as good this year as in previous years. Next to the kale I noticed that the little cabbages which I had planted in the summer were growing well--still quite small but plenty of new leaves coming.  They should provide us with some nice early spring greens or small cabbages, as long as the pigeons and slugs don't get them first.

The plot was looking quite tidy and we were pleased with that.  We haven't been to do any work since the middle of October because I have been quite poorly with Rheumatoid Arthritis and was unable to walk properly or do anything with my hands.  On this last visit we had cleared most of the beds of dead vegetation, topped with home made compost and covered with membrane.

There's still work to done but nothing urgent:

• clear away the dead sweetcorn stems
• cut down the asparagus
• clear the old tomatoes and cucumber plants from the greenhouses
• prune the fruit bushes
• sweep up leaves from the paths

and as the weather improves and I get a bit more mobile we will work our way through the jobs.

 We sat awhile at the garden table with our flasks of hot tea  and slabs of Christmas cake, watching the birds and admiring the plot.

It was good to be back.

Through the Garden Gate--July 2021

July seems to have whizzed by so quickly and when I checked my garden jobs list for July there seems to have been very little done.  I think though that this month is when you should sit back and enjoy the garden and we gardeners don't always do enough of that, we're always spotting jobs which need doing. Well we have had the weather to be able to sit and enjoy the garden. It has been very warm and sunny for most of the month and at times just too hot to work in. Finding a spot of shade to sit in isn't easy in our garden and I keep wondering about planting another tree in an appropriate place.

I always find that there's a bit of a lull in the flower borders towards the end of July as the earlier flowers have gone over and we wait for the late summer colour to appear. When it wasn't too hot I just pottered around deadheading and cutting back to tidy the borders.

The buddleia is now in flower--a lovely rich, deep purple called 'Royal Red'. In the front garden the hydrangea flowers are opening up, starting blue and gradually turning pink. 

Also in the front a clump of Rudbekias have come into flower.  These were sown last year as annuals and got left in the ground over winter.  They are a lovely bronze colour. 

The hot weather has caused a bit of stress to some of the patio pots. As I have such a lot of pots, the watering has sometimes got neglected. Looking at them I can see that the geraniums cope better with dry weather, so next year I might grow more of them.

One project we managed to get done was the wildlife pond, which is made out of an old galvanised bath. After much discussion and a few disagreements about where to put it, we finally found a good place in the woodland/stumpery bed. We sunk it into the ground and  arranged some stones around the outside. I put some gravel and a few pebbles in the base of the pond and some bigger stones which will provide shelter and easy access in and out of the pond for any wildlife. Then a trip to the garden centre for some pond plants was needed.  As its only a small pond I didn't want to overcrowd it so I have put four plants in, choosing carefully that they were slow growing plants which wouldn't get too big. One plant which I would like but haven't been able to find locally is a dwarf water lily. Two weeks later we were really pleased to see a frog in the water. 

Last September we had our 50th wedding anniversary, we didn't want a big fuss and because of all the COVID restrictions we couldn't do much anyway. Our daughter bought us a pot of pink lilies. I didn't know if they would grow back again this year, but they have. The smell is wonderful as you come through the gate into garden. 

Now at the end of July the weather is cooler and we had some storms a few days ago. The rain and wind has really battered the garden and those patio pots are in a really bad state.  I will have to do some more cutting back and deadheading We really needed all that rain though, especially at the allotment. Perhaps my patio tubs will perk up now.

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--June 2021

The garden has been full of colour throughout June.  The lupins started to flower early in the month followed by the foxgloves. 

Then we had the hardy geraniums, alchemilla mollis, honeysuckle, clematis, roses. 

My favourite of the roses is the Gertrude Jekyll by the archway.  The smell is lovely.

Two years ago I planted two roses down in the bottom raised bed--'Pride and Prejudice' and 'Rachael'. Unfortunately the labels got separated from their plants and now |I don't know which is which.  This one has been the first to flower, its a lovely apricot pink. 

Another flower which I've lost the label of is this gorgeous poppy--I'm good at losing labels and forgetting the name of plants.

These lovely blue geraniums in the wildlife garden are always full of bees.

At the beginning of June I finished planting up my patio tubs with summer bedding. Pinks, blues and purples are my favourite colours as I'm sure anyone who saw them would be able to tell. On fine, warm days we sit out surrounded by these lovely flowers and listening to the bees buzzing around them.

Early on in June when we were at last allowed to visit people, we went to visit our daughter and her family who we hadn't seen for a year. 

She lives in Stotfold, Hertfordshire and with lovely countryside around them we enjoyed some lovely walks with their Beagle puppy, Snoopy who we hadn't met before. Here where we live in Lancashire its very hilly and walking can be hard work, so it was good to have some walking on the level there. We went to visit one of her local junk/antique shops and I bought these............

I polished the lantern up and it has revealed shiny copper, it does need a bit more work doing on it, but my arthritic hands are a bit painful at the moment.   It was going to live in the garden, but I'm not so sure now.  The tin bath is to be our project for the next few weeks as we turn it into a wildlife pond for the garden.  That might be the subject of next month's garden blog.

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