Through the Garden Gate--April 2023

The plants in the garden  have really grown in the last few weeks filling out in the borders. Everything looks fresh, green and bright, thanks to all the rain.  Looking at the flower beds now they have filled out I can see where I need to thin a few plants out. Weeding gets easier now; as the plants spread out more there is less to do. Shoots which were just appearing at the end of last month are now recognizable and I can identify them. There were one or two plants which I nearly got rid of thinking they were weeds, so glad I didn't!

 

The Marsh Marigolds put on a good display down in the damp border, but are going over now as are some of the Pulmonaria.  I can see buds on some of the hardy geraniums ready to open any day now and the Geum 'Totally Tangerine' is flowering.

 The Amelanchier blossomed and went over, it was lovely while it lasted. Now it's the crab apple's turn to flower. It's probably my favourite of our flowering trees.

 I love to grow flowers which I can cut for the house and with more flowers starting to appear I've been cutting a few now and again just for little pots around the house.

I didn't plant any tulips in the autumn, thinking I had enough in pots from the previous year. But they didn't put on a very good display, I think some have rotted. So I bought some ready potted ones and they are starting to flower on the patio. They seem to be mostly orange, which is not a colour I normally go for but I'm liking them a lot.

Our twin daughters had their birthday in April. Sarah lives some distance from us and we didn't get to see her for her birthday, but Helen lives just down the road from us.  She wanted some roses to plant in her front garden so that was her present from all of us. I suggested a visit to a local plant nurseries, Holden Clough which sells David Austin roses and where we often like to visit. Situated in the Ribble Valley on the outskirts of the village of Bolton-by-Bowland it's a lovely place  for an afternoon out. 

When we went they had an Artisan market on--something they do on weekends in Spring, Summer and Christmas.  There's always good quality stuff like, jewelry, candles, toiletries, woodwork, scarves, bags etc. from local craftspeople. The nurseries  also do good food so we had lunch too. 

The plants are very good quality and really well displayed in sections like-- sunny borders, damp shade, cottage garden plants etc. Although a bit more expensive than our usual garden centre, sometimes it's worth paying a bit more for a plant you can't get anywhere else and I've often been able to split a plant into two or three smaller ones. 

So we had a lovely afternoon browsing the stalls and buying a few things, looking round the plants and garden sundries and a nice lunch too. Helen chose two roses and a lupin and I bought myself some pots of tulips and a little Auricula. I have a small collection of Auriculas but have never got around to finding a good place to display them. They are all on the garden table until they finish flowering.

As the garden starts to come back to life I enjoy spending more time outside, either doing garden jobs or just sitting. We still haven't had much decent Spring weather, so I'm hoping for some warmer, sunny days in May. Hope you are all enjoying your gardens.

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

Getting started on the Spring Jobs

We're still getting a lot of rainy weather here and so we've not been getting down to the allotment as much as we would like. Easter weekend though was lovely and we made the most of the sunshine by getting some of the important jobs done. 

I've planted out all the onions now which were started off in cell trays.  There are two varieties, Sturon and Turbo,  I've grown both of these before. They have taken up about half of the bed. The rest of the bed will be planted up with leeks when they are ready. I usually struggle to find room for all of the leeks but this year as I'm not growing  red onions and shallots I should have plenty of space. I will probably grow some salad crops in this empty space until it's time to plant the leeks.

The first early potatoes (Rocket) were planted two weeks ago in potato bags.  This week Richard started planting the second earlies (Charlotte). Unfortunately we have had a visit from a baby rat this week who we think is responsible for nibbling some of the Charlottes which had been left in the shed. This meant we didn't have as many to plant as we'd thought.

I always sow my first lot of broad beans in cardboard tubes. They've been ready for planting for a couple of weeks and were getting quite big, but with the bad weather and trying to get other jobs done this got delayed until the Easter weekend. There was enough to plant a double row with a few left over for another row, the varieties are Super Aquadulce and Witkiem Manika. Once they were in the ground I then sowed another double row directly into the soil, Super Aquadulce again and The Sutton.

The greenhouses are filling up with plants.  I've been starting seeds off at home to grow on the two kitchen windowsills. We don't have many suitable spaces in the house for seed pots and trays so as soon as the seedlings are potted on I take them to the allotment and put in the greenhouses. I cover them with fleece or bubble wrap so they are nice and warm. Seedlings growing in the greenhouses are:

Beetroot (Boltardy)    salad leaves and lettuce (Little Gem)  Cabbage (Kilaton)    Tomatoes (8 varieties)  Sweetcorn (Swift)      Aubergine (Black Beauty)  Basil    Parsley    

Also flowers, Asters, Zinnia, French Marigold and sweet peas at the moment, but others will join them soon.

I made the mistake I always do with sweet peas, they were slow to germinate and I thought they weren't going to grow so I bought a pot of seedlings from the garden centre and within a couple of days the ones I'd sown in pots  were finally coming through. I should have lots of lovely sweet peas this summer then!

The first peas are sown in lengths of guttering in the greenhouse--two varieties, Onward and Meteor.  They are just starting to come through.

    

As well as all this seed sowing and planting, there is much weeding to be done. The beds were all nicely prepared earlier in the year, but we have been plagued with hundreds of sycamore seedlings all over the plot. We have a big sycamore tree at the top of the plot which is to blame. Every year we have this problem but this year there are many more than usual.  Everywhere you look there are these little seedlings. So every time we go to the plot I spend some time hoeing off the weeds a different section at a time. I'm hoping they stop growing soon.

Before

After

Its good to get started on these early jobs and to see vegetables growing in the beds. 

Through the Garden Gate--March 2023

March has not been very Spring like this year. We've had a lot of rain, it's been cold, windy and we even had a bit of snow. The rain has been constant and stopped me from getting out into the garden to do jobs. I've had to dodge the showers and take advantage of the odd couple of hours of a dry spell or sometimes  I've been lucky and there's been a whole day of sunshine too good to waste. We are just longing for some fine, dry weather. 

Despite this bad weather we've managed to do quite a bit of work in between the showers.  Most of the borders have now been cleared of dead foliage and leaves. In the back garden we mulched the beds with a soil improver. We spread a bark mulch on the woodland wildlife bed in the back garden and on the hosta bed in the front garden. The garden always looks so much better when this has been done, it suppresses the weeds for a while and shows off the lovely bright green of the emerging plants.

Although the weather hasn't been very Spring like there are still plenty of signs that Spring is here. There are buds on the trees and some are starting to open up so there's a little haze of green as we look out the house windows.

In the beds the spring flowers are coming into bloom. There is plenty of yellow from the daffodils.

Clumps of primroses are dotted around under trees and shrubs and as a contrast blue pulmonaria and the forget-me-not like flowers of the brunnera are opening up now. 

The pulmonaria pop up all over the garden. This little one has turned out a pale pink, I've never seen one that colour before.

I bought some drumstick primula and planted them in the front garden.

The patio pots are mainly full of daffodils, but there are some violas too and the tulips have buds which hopefully will be flowering next month. 

The clocks went forward last weekend so we have longer days for gardening. There's lots to look forward to in the coming weeks. Hope you all have a happy  Easter. 

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

A few wildlife jobs on the allotment

Last week was a chilly week with snow again, but earlier in the week before the snow came we tackled a few wildlife jobs on the allotment.

The woodland area at the top of the allotment is an area where we can't grow anything because of the big sycamore tree which dominates. The good thing about this is that it provides a home for a lot of wildlife. I've written before about how we cleared the area to make somewhere for the grandchildren to play. They are teenagers now  and are no longer interested, but I still love this area. 

Our seating area is just below the big tree and when we sit there having our tea breaks there is so much activity from the birds flying in and out. There is a privet hedge behind the tree between our plot and the next one up. Also there is elder which provides us with lovely blossom in the spring and berries in the autumn. I pick the blossom  to use when I am making jam. It goes well in gooseberry or strawberry jam. 

When I first created this wildlife area I planted bulbs and shade loving plants. There are crocuses, snowdrops, Tete a Tete daffodils and bluebells. The bluebells do well and I am happy for them to spread. I've tried to get some foxgloves going too. 

The downside of the sycamore tree is all the leaves which fall all over the plot in the autumn and need clearing up especially from the paths. I don't clear them from under the hedge and around the base of the tree and any other nooks and crannies. Then in the spring the plot is covered with the little sycamore spinning Jenny seeds which fall everywhere then germinate and I am constantly trying to hoe them out.

The tete a tete and crocuses are flowering now and I can see the new growth of the  woodland plants I put in there.  Soon it will look more colourful like the picture below which was taken last year when all the euphorbias were out. I like them but they tend to take over, popping up all over the place as they send out runners underground. 

Last week I did one of the  jobs I do on the allotment every year at this time. That is to have a bit of a tidy up in the woodland area. It might seem the wrong thing to do, to tidy up a wildlife area, but it needs to be kept under control so that the weeds don't start to encroach on the vegetable beds and the rest of the allotment. And I pull up those euphorbias from places where they are not wanted. When it has all been tidied up I put bark chippings down on the pathway which goes around the tree. At the moment there are no chippings available to use so I am waiting for some to be dumped on the allotment site. Then it will be a race with our wheelbarrows as we and  all the other plot holders get their share of them.

Our other wildlife area is the pond. We built this a few years ago out of an old tin bath which was left on the allotment by the previous tenant. It was in good condition with no holes. We have had frog spawn each year which is always exciting. I give it a clean out every year in the spring to get rid of leaves and excess mud. 

This year I did the same, it was in a bit of a bad state with overgrown pond plants which I removed. Then I set to scooping out some of the excess mud and added more water as the water level was quite low. I soon realized that the pond was leaking because of a hole in the side where the metal had rusted. So we decided instead of getting rid of the tin bath we would leave it in place and put a pond liner in it. This was Richard's job last weekend. It wasn't as big a job as as I had thought and he completed it in one afternoon.

He needed to empty the bath completely of the stones and mud and to our delight he found frogs in the mud at the bottom and another one under one of the big stones around the edge. 

There must have been about four frogs and we think a toad. We kept them safe in a bucket while he finished off lining the pond and when the stones were back in place I gently popped them back into the pond. It must have been a bit of a shock to them, to be wakened up from their hibernation. We're hoping we haven't upset them too much and when the weather warms up will soon have  spawn back in the pond.