May 2021

May was fairly busy with reasonable weather most of the time. In the vegetable patch the broad beans have been in full flower and started producing pods. The broccoli produced a good and tasty crop, and has now been uprooted and composted. The broccoli patch was then weeded and split into 15 'squares' (not very geometrically accurate!) and sown with lettuce, carrots, beetroot, Swiss Chard, land cress, spinach and other greens. The strawberry plants were left in and are flowering, and the chard from last year left to flower.

In the flower garden plenty of plants started coming into bud, and growing vigorously. The weeds joined in, so weeding has also begun! The mature compost bin was emptied and spread under some of the shrubs. The compost had a lively population of ants so hopefully they have relocated themselves. Some of the shrubs have been pruned back, and I had a fun time deadheading Dandelions - I love the way that the stems go pop when snapped!

In the lean-to I potted up lots of lavender seedlings, split up and repotted the parsley, and sowed French Beans, Honesty, Hollyhocks, English Marigolds, Hellebores and sunflowers. I also obtained some cuttings of Lampranthus and potted them in gritty compost, as well as some geranium cuttings. While weeding I uprooted a couple of rooted cuttings of Salvia 'Amethyst Lips' and potted those up to. The lean-to is overflowing with seedlings, plants and cuttings now!

The old tin bath was replanted with Lantana, two types of Bidens, red Verbena and nasturtium, with the existing foxglove seedling. The Nepeta cuttings from last month were planted in a hanging basket out of reach of the cats and have settled in and are flourishing. 

The neighbours cats are up to their usual tricks, but I am slowly becoming sanguine about it. Still swearing loudly, but progressing.

March 2021

The weather has been improving so I have been outside as much as possible. Lots is happening - plants springing up everywhere, quite a few flowers, insects, arachnids and birds all over the place. And cats, but you can't have everything I suppose. 

This year's challenge is to sort out the borders as I have lots of plants growing nicely in pots, seedlings starting to emerge, plug plants on order, and lots of lovely birthday garden vouchers to spend! I started on the side border by taking the plunge and stripping the conifer of all it's branches. It wasn't the most pleasing conifer I've seen, and wasn't really in the right place, so after fifteen minutes with a bowsaw the garden looked considerably bigger and brighter. I have left the 8 foot high stump in place and will probably grow a climber up it - maybe transplant the honeysuckle from further up the garden. After that I weeded the border between the conifer and the hydrangea, so there is now plenty of space for the thousands of foxglove seedlings to grow. Might need to thin those out perhaps.

I have made a start on the other side of the conifer, but am waiting for the kale to flower so that there is some food for early insects. After that (it won't take long) I shall take the main border by the path in hand; this contains various well-established grasses and a fern that predate my occupancy, as well as several things I have just bunged in to keep them alive. That's April's project.

The lawn needed some attention, so I gave it a quick scarify and removed a lot of dead grass. I don't think it was cut by the previous resident so there is a lot of stuff to remove. I will repeat in the autumn as that is the best time of year for doing it. I also transplanted a few daisies into the lawn because they're pretty!

In the lean-to I have been sowing various seeds: flat-leaved parsley, chives, garlic chives, Wisteria, nasturtiums, geraniums, Cercis, and Alexanders. Some are starting to germinate now, but it is still quite early. I have no idea which variety of Wisteria I took the seeds from, and they certainly won't come true, but it is a fun experiment.  Six of the Pink-spotted Hellebore seeds germinated and these have been successfully potted on. The remaining seed tray has been left outside to see if any more germinate - there are purple spotted too - so fingers crossed that they do as they are from beautiful varieties. I have also been taking cuttings of Hebes, Nepeta 'Six Hill's Giant', and a purple Tradescantia that has been failing indoors. Wrong compost I suspect. I bought the Nepeta completely forgetting that it was actually catnip, and left it outside the back door. Next morning I discovered it knocked over and damaged, so took cuttings from the damaged parts and moved the plant to a table top where it has been unmolested since.

In the flower garden, the primroses, crocuses, miniature daffodils and lungwort have been superb, and I have spotted huge bumblebees on the lungwort. Daisies, dandelions, hairy bittercress and sowthistle are also flowering. Not a great deal going on in the vegetable garden yet, although the autumn planted broad beans are flowering, and I have begun to harvest the purple-sprouting broccoli.

Another project is to create a beetle hedge out of dead wood, so will use the stripped branches from the conifer and the hydrangea prunings to get started. I will probably put it at the back of the wild flower border.

My friends have continued to be generous, and have given me a large rooted cutting of Rosa 'Brother Cadfael', a champagne rhubarb, Euphorbia seedlings, and an enormous (I can barely lift it now it's potted) Sanseveria for the house. Fantastic!

February 2021

 The garden has kept me going during the last six months during the ever-changing rules and regulations of Covid-19, giving me a bit of daily sanity whether weeding, deadheading, planting and sowing, or just sitting and listening to the birds and insects around me. I feel very lucky to have this resource.

It is looking a little drab out there now, but there is hope for the spring; my singular snowdrop has flowered, as have the many yellow and purple crocuses, and the dandelions. Pulmonaria is in bud, as are miniature daffodils, and the foliage of primroses, celandines and cyclamen is fresh and green. The borders are full of seedlings of foxgloves, hairy bittercress, daisies, sedge (grrrrr - removed as soon as spotted), and the foliage of chives and other alliums is appearing. 

The vegetable garden has provided delicious parsnips and carrots over the winter, as well as Cavolo Nero and chard. The cabbages are still growing, but are mostly being used as a decoy for snails as I'm not really very fond of cabbage as a food! The rhubarb is starting to shoot, and is covered with a Victorian forcing pot, although the top is open to the sky at the moment. I planted broad bean plants in the autumn; they are a bit leggy but have survived so far so hopefully they will flower and produce plenty of beans. There are also a few leeks but they're a bit skinny so I haven't harvested them yet.

I have plenty of ornamental plants potted up and waiting to be planted out when the weather improves, so I am looking forward to improving the side border and the border by the path this year. Plants include hellebores, doronicum, primula, and eryngium. There's plenty more but I can't recall the names off the top of my head!

This morning I sowed Nasturtiums, Alexanders, Sweet Peas and Geraniums in modules and put them in the lean-to to germinate. It's a bit early for everything else, but I have plenty to sow in the next couple of months.

I have also enjoyed watching the birdlife in the garden and surrounding area over the winter and have seen many species such as sparrows, blackbirds, robins, starlings, crows, mallards, gulls, buzzards, terns, bluetits, swans, white egret, and, on one memorable occasion at very close quarters, a grey heron - it exploded up from a stream as I looked over the bridge! They are huge. Wow!

The outdoors is awesome.

Dig for Victory

22nd March
Well, not quite, but we are in the middle of a pandemic and it seems wise to grow whatever vegetables that I can. Today was gloriously sunny with a cold breeze in the afternoon, so teenager and I picked up the seed packets and divvied up the prepared veg patch into rectangles and sowed seed. Small amounts of each variety, but we can do more later. We have started with three varieties of carrots, parsnips, two varieties of radish, spring onions, three varieties of lettuce, rocket, perpetual spinach, mixed salad leaves, leeks, and three varieties of beetroot. We then put netting up to try and keep the cats off. I sowed French climbing beans in pots in the outhouse too.

2nd April
All that is coming up so far is bindweed and ash seedlings, but we'll keep fingers crossed. The weather has been chilly but beautiful so am trying to get out into the garden every day. I have painted two sides of the shed in sage green, and trained the passionflower up chicken wire on the front. I have weeded the long border as far as the conifer, and now need to do the other side so that I have space to plant the seed potatoes and the vegetable seedlings growing rapidly in the outhouse.

There are plenty of flowers blooming in the garden, with a glut of dandelions and daisies in particular. Red and yellow deadnettles are also in bloom, as well as bluebells, cowslips, primroses, hairy bittercress, and celandines. Gorgeous! There is plenty of wildlife too, and I have seen peacock and red admiral butterflies, several species of bee and bumblebee, and can hear a multitude of birds singing in the nearby trees now that there is little traffic making a noise.

I have been busy planting in the flower beds too, and have planted Allium, Nectoscordum (both grown in pots), Peony, Sedum spectabile, Sweet Williams, Penstemon, and a pink-flowered shrub that I can never remember the name of, but the bees like the flowers! I have also removed the ivy and soil from under the back door step, so that the step fits properly in place.

Between the Storms

It has been a busy few weeks in the garden between the wind and the rain of February and early March, with the weeds, wildflowers, vegetables and garden plants beginning to grow rapidly. I took the plunge and cut the grass on a day when it seemed reasonably dry; the lawn looked awful for a few days but is now recovering. The clippings were mixed with shredded paper and put in the compost bin.

Borders are slowly being tidied; I have cleared a small patch near the fence and transplanted a Hemerocallis ("Day Lily") and an Iris to it from the vegetable patch where they had been overwintering. Another Iris has been potted up and popped in the mini-greenhouse as it hadn't sprouted. It has started now. The mixed border by the water butt has been cleared of pernicious Geranium seedlings, and everything remaining is flourishing, as is the Melissa officionalis ("Lemon Balm") by the compost heap. 

The Fuchsia 'Mrs Popple' that I bought in a sale last year has finally been planted in the flower border near the patio and is now sprouted. The Rudbeckia plants that were in the vegetable plot have been potted up until I have somewhere better to put them. On the opposite side of the patio I have planted, eventually, an Alchemilla that my Mum gave me last year, whcih seems to be taking, after months spent bare-rooted in a plastic bag in the lean to. I have put vine eyes and wire along the fence to support a thornless bramble I found there, which I hope that will produce lots of blackberries.

One vegetable patch has been cleared of overwintering perennials and weeds, with a daisy transplanted into the lawn! The garlic and elephant garlic planted on the Solstice is going strong. Seeds have been sown, including Broad Beans, Sugarsnap Peas, Kale, Cauliflower, Spring Cabbage, Swiss Chard, Sunflowers, Sweetcorn, Echinacea, and ornamental Alliums. Many of these are now sprouting.

Finally, green paint has been purchased and I have started painting the shed - the wood is rather dry and sucks the paint straight up!

February 22nd

We seem to have got away with little damage from storms Ciara and Dennis, but the garden is sopping wet from all the rain. However, there are flowers, with the miniature daffodils and the crocuses looking particularly lovely and the English Marigolds still as bright and orange as ever.

As there's not much I can do outside, I spent a peaceful hour sowing seeds in the lean-to, before putting them in my shiny new mini greenhouse. Neither lean-to nor greenhouse is heated so I may have been a bit optimistic, but have left the more tender seeds until next month. Seeds sown include sunflowers, celery, Swiss chard, cauliflower, spring cabbage, French marigold, sweetcorn, flat leaf parsley, and Kale 'Cavolo de Nero'. I realise many of these can be sown directly outdoors but we have voracious slugs, so I like to give the plants a head start.

I also planted some Sword Lily bulbs in pots as I haven't space to plant them out yet. Earlier planted pots are doing well in the other mini greenhouse, including Alliums and Honeybells. Spring should be busy!

May Bank holiday to 13th

The garden is growing rapidly and looks rather nice, despite most of it being plants that will be getting removed! I am deliberately neglecting my pots of Sempervivums and they seem to be thriving on it. By the end of the summer they should be beautifully congested if all goes to plan. 

The lawn has been mowed and the dandelions deadheaded, with the cuttings mixed into the compost heap with shredded paper and wood ash from the chimenea. Not sure that's wise but the wildlife seems to be thriving in the heap. I have put some plants into the new border, but will have to add more as it still looks somewhat bare. The plants are Alchemilla mollis ("Lady's Mantle"), Helleborus ("Hellebore"), Salvia turkestanica ("Ornamental Sage"), Potentilla, Lavandula angustifolia 'Munstead' ("Dwarf Lavender"), and Viola ("Violet"). Rather a mixed bag but needs must for now.

On Saturday I weeded the first veg patch as it had a lot of bindweed and bittercress in it. I also removed the net covering and covered the bare patch in the middle with a piece of chicken wire to keep the cats off. Seems to be working so far. I then made tripods out of bamboo canes and planted the runner beans and French beans, followed by the sweetcorn. The runner beans have already started twining their way up the canes.

A friend of my Mum's called me yesterday and said she had heard I was in need of plants and offered me a selection, so I now have Golden Rod, Euporbia, more Alchemilla, two varieties of Geranium, and various other plants. How kind!

After work today I pottered about and sowed some seed in the first vegetable bed where the garlic had failed to do anything. There are now two rows of multicoloured carrots and another row of spring onions. I also thinned out the existing row of spring onions and replanted most of the seedlings in spaces by the shallots, garlic and broad beans. Not sure any of it will work but it is worth a try.

There is much wildlife in the garden. The birdsong in the surrounding trees is prolific and lovely. I keep seeing spiders carrying their egg-sacs - at first I thought this was a dark spider with a pale abdomen but it turns out that I was seeing females carrying eggs. Slugs and snails abound, but appear to be keeping off the vegetables for the moment. Fingers crossed that this continues. I have also seen ants, woodlice, and flies.

Beans and Sweetcorn

One of the feline visitors. Almost friendly!

First week in April

A gentle week, due to poor weather and other commitments. On Wednesday we decided to mark out the edges of the lawn with an edging iron and a rope (making a circle). This was successful but the handle snapped when we hit a buried plastic bag. Took it back to the garden centre and got a replacement with no quibbles. 

The rest of the week has been digging out diseased Aquilegias (mildew?), and sowing seeds in pots. I have sown Sweet Williams, Sweetcorn, Cerinthe major purpurescens, Echinacea, and Climbing beans. Another run to the dump occured so more weeds have been disposed of, as well as the remaining rubbish left by the previous owner. Finally, I started digging out the border near the path. That could take a while to finish!

Sunday
Finished weeding the area near the Gingko in preparation for sowing wildflower seeds. Seems ridiculous to be pulling up some wildflowers to make room for others, but these were particularly thuggish and pernicious (I love that word) so I don't feel too bad. Oh yes, I disturbed a wee common frog too. Very exciting!