Through the Garden Gate--February 2020

The wet weather continues and the garden is still very soggy, there seems to be no end to this bad weather.  I know I am not alone in longing for some better weather.

There are some bright spots in the garden though as bulbs start to appear.  Earlier in the month it was the crocus, now it is the tete a tete daffodils.

I planted them so they can be seen easily from the house windows--in case bad weather prevented me from getting outside. Good planning there, I think! On the patio are containers of daffodils which we can see from the window at the back of the house.

When I have managed to brave the weather and walk around the garden I have spotted clumps of flowers down in the bottom border nestling under the trees.

Here you can see how wet the ground is.

These primroses have been flowering for weeks and weeks.

Down in the woodland border the hellebores are out. These have also been flowering for a few weeks now.

This one is a lovely colour. Its called 'Anna's Red'.

Most of the helebores hold their heads down so you can't see the front of them, but these are better.

  I cut some to bring indoors and I could see their faces better then.

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

Stormy weather

We got a few jobs done at the allotment last week before storm Ciara arrived. I finished cleaning out the two greenhouses and then started on the shed.  This is a job which I hate doing and had been putting it off for weeks, but it needed doing. I decided to put everything from the shed into the
greenhouse. This was a good idea as it took me two days to clean it out completely. There were lots of cobwebs and massive spiders. I managed to evict about four of them, but I know they will return, I think they sneak back in when I'm not looking. Now its all clean, tidy and smelling fresh and I feel much better for having done that big job.

Another job I have been doing is digging up clumps of poached egg plant ( Limnanthes douglasii) which have been taking over the fruit beds.   This is a very pretty yellow and white annual flower which the bees and hoverflies love. I sowed the seeds several years ago, it self seeds and then takes over. Every year I try to get rid of it but it just keeps coming back.

We went back to the plot yesterday to see if there was any storm damage and were pleased to see that the greenhouses and shed were still standing upright with no broken windows.

There's a conifer hedge down one side of our allotment which was planted by a previous tenant many years ago. We cut a lot of it back when we took the plot on, this reduced the width, but not the height. The height takes a lot of light off the beds so Richard has decided to try to reduce it. Its  difficult as the branches are quite thick, so it will be a long job.

You can just see the conifer hedge at the top left of this photo and right and left below

My next job is to clean out the pond.  Some of the plants are getting too big and there is a lot of mud to get rid of. I want to get this done before the frogs start spawning.  They always arrive earlier than I expect, usually on a nice sunny day in March. But with Storm Dennis expected this weekend and a lot of rain predicted for next week I don't think it will get done for a while yet.  It's going to be a race between me and the frogs.

Back to work on the allotment

We had a break from allotment work in December and with bad weather at the beginning of January it was a few weeks before we could get back to doing some work. When we eventually had some dry enough weather to be able to get down to the plot we wondered what state it would be in, there had been some very heavy rain and storms. So we were pleasantly surprised to find there was no storm damage and no water running down the paths as there often is after heavy rain.

Richard has a project on now to edge all the beds with wood to stop the soil from spilling out all over the paths. He has managed to do two of the big beds in the last couple of weeks and they are looking much better.

We have five compost bins on the plot, three of them are used in rotation to make compost--one to put all the compostable materials in throughout the year, at the end of the year it is then left to compost down for a year, then the third year it is ready to use as compost.  The other two bins are used for manure when we can get hold of any. Usually one contains fresh manure and the other has manure which is rotted down and can be used to mulch the beds. So we started off a new compost bin with grass cuttings and kitchen peelings brought from home as well as some plant material from the allotment.

We also have a bin for leaves to make leaf mould and one of the first jobs I started on recently was sweeping up leaves from the paths which had fallen from a big sycamore tree at the top of the plot. What a mess they were.  Once I'd cleared the leaves the paths seemed a bit slippy, they get like this in the winter time with mud and moss. I scraped off the mud and swept up then swilled the paths. So I'm hoping they are a bit safer to walk on now.

I was pleased to see that there were some brussels sprouts ready to be picked, there was kale and there were leeks although I would like the leeks to be bigger.

I had cleared most of the beds of dead plants in the autumn but there were still a couple which needed sorting out. I cut back the dead stems in the asparagus bed, weeded and then mulched the bed with manure. I cleared the sweetcorn which didn't ripen in time and dug up the rest of the beetroots and parsnips.

The rhubarb is growing really well and I'm sure it won't be long before we can start pulling some of the stems. One thing I will be doing soon is to give it a mulch with manure.

So the plot is looking quite tidy now and we're ready to get started on the new growing season. Its too early to be planting anything in the ground yet though  but there's lots of planning to do in the meantime and I'll soon be starting to sow seeds undercover.

Through the Garden Gate--January 2020

There's not much happening in the garden at the moment. January isn't really a good month to do any gardening and with all the rain we have had which has made the garden very soggy it's best to leave well alone.

I have been keeping the bird feeders topped up with seed and fat balls.  Last weekend I thought I would do the RSPB Garden Birdwatch.  When we moved here two and a half years ago there weren't any birds visiting the garden, but with no trees, shrubs or plants of any description it wasn't surprising that all the birds bypassed our garden. Now we have a lovely garden full of plants to attract the wildlife and we love to watch the birds. Most of our regular birds, however decided not to visit us in the hour I chose to watch out for them. In a short space of about ten minutes there was a sudden flurry of activity on the bird table and I managed to count three woodpigeons and fourteen starlings.  There was no sign of the robin, the blue tits, sparrows and blackbirds.

I still have some hyacinths in the shed which I potted up in the autumn.  They stay cool in the shed so  I can bring them in to the house gradually.

Last year I bought some snowdrops in the green and planted them around the garden late February so I have been looking forward to seeing them in flower this year.  I enjoy wandering around the garden spotting them coming into flower. 100 snowdrops seemed a lot at the time of buying them but they don't go very far and it will be several years before we can see lovely clumps of them. I will just have to enjoy seeing them in other people's gardens.

I  recently bought some pots of crocus from the garden centre and also found some pots of  mini daffodils down the side of the house left from last year. So I had a pleasant hour on a fine, dry day last weekend  planting these up in a border in the side garden. I will be able to see these from the house so hopefully they will provide a bit of colour in a few weeks time.

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

Making Christmas wreaths

 Gardening work usually stops in December to make way for all the Christmas activities. The garden itself seems to be happy having that rest.  We have had so much rain recently that the garden is absolutely sodden and it would be impossible to do any work even if I wanted to.

Last week was all about making Christmas wreaths, buying the tree and getting it into the house. I love making wreaths, it has become one of my Christmas traditions. I suppose it is garden work of a sort because it involves collecting natural foliage and it gets me outside even if the weather is not good. I cut some foliage from the allotment(conifer). I also cut ivy from my daughter's garden.  She is very happy for me to cut away at it as there is rather a lot.  Its the big dark leaved ivy with the lovely berries--ideal for Christmas flower arrangements and wreaths.  My garden was only planted up as a new garden two and a half years ago, so I am limited with what I can cut. I gather the grey leaved Senecio or Brachyglottis. I also use cuttings from Christmas trees which my local garden centre lets me take from their trimmings.

In past years I always used an oasis wreath base, but this year I thought I would have a change and use a different way to make the wreath. I used a wire wreath ring base which I packed with moss and secured with florists wire.  Then I attached sprigs of foliage around the moss with more wire.

I was quite pleased with the result. I always do two wreaths--one for the front door and one for the side door--which is where most people enter our house.  This year I did an extra one which I laid flat on the garden table with a pot of white Hellebores in the middle.

The Christmas tree was bought in early December and kept outside until we were ready to bring it indoors. After much upheaval of moving furniture round the tree was finally in place and the cat immediately took up residence underneath it in the far corner where we couldn't get at her.  But I know how to get her out from there--just switch on the vacuum cleaner and she's out in a flash!

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

Christmas foliage and a small harvest of veg

We popped down to the allotment yesterday, not to do any allotment work, but to cut some conifer branches for when I make Christmas wreaths in a few days time. There's a conifer hedge down one side of the plot which I really don't like as it takes a lot of light off the plot. We've hacked a lot of it back and tried to reduce the height but the branches are too thick to be able to cut it down easily. It comes in useful at Christmas though when I want some evergreen foliage. The  branches are also useful for hanging the bird feeders on.

I decided to pull up the remaining cabbages which were looking a bit slimy, but were big enough for the two of us even after removing lots of outer leaves.  I don't usually have much luck growing Brussels sprouts so I was delighted to see that there were some decent looking sprouts growing. They are a bit small yet but I picked some of the bigger ones.  There was only a small handful, but again enough for two of us and some kale too.

The plot is looking quite dreary at the moment, there are some jobs which need doing but they can wait until after Christmas. We filled up the bird feeders and left with plenty of veg to keep us going for a few days.

On our way out of the allotment site I cut some red dogwood stems and some branches of an unknown shrub which was full of red berries--possibly cotoneaster, all useful for Christmas wreaths and very colourful.

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