Finally getting on with the garden.

We've been here over three years, and the garden has been neglected. I've mowed the grass, clipped the edges and the hedge, sort of, but not much else. I started to dig out space for growing but the weather got in the way, and there is all sorts of rubbish just below the surface - every time I put in the fork it came up with plastic, lino, pieces of metal, glass, wire... even the still recognisable base of a cooker, with electrical wires hanging from it. Nails, corrugated plastic, carpet... You get the idea, it's soul destroying to spend hours working on it only to have a full bin and barely any ground cleared.I've told you about it many times before. It seems to be getting better, slowly. The more I dig, the more rubbish I remove, the better it gets. It's hard work, but it's getting there.
Today, the sun shone, the breeze was cool, and I ended up home alone all day - this seems to be a frequent occurrence lately.
Job 1: Fill the second veg bag-bed and sow something. Half dehydrated coir compost and half multi-purpose compost, mixed together with some from my compost bins - which are full now and I'm waiting for them to do their thing and make more for me to use. It takes time, compost, but it's like black gold to a gardener.
I sowed a mixture of pea seeds in three rows - one at each end and one in the middle. Then I scattered a mix of carrot seed in between the pea rows, and stuck some twiggy sticks in for protection from the cats, and for support when the peas grow.
Job 2: Relocate the big daisy things that are outgrowing the temporary pot I put them in when I was given them in Autumn last year. I meant to get them in the ground in Spring, honest.
There's a half empty flower bed toward the back of the garden and it took about an hour to clear it of weeds, turn over the empty part and pop in the daisies, along with the pink hardy geranium, a small primrose, and a random cornflower. I scattered some flower seeds around there as well, you never know... If they all come up there should be a riot of colour down there. That bed already has lavender, rosemary, some daffodils (all gone now), some blue bell like things (not bluebells, might be some sort of cultivated harebell) and some BIG, LOUD, flowers - think they're gladioli. I'll get some pics when they flower.
Job 3: Get the roses out of their temporary pots and into the ground. One from last summer - might be a red or a white, I can't remember and I lost the label! That one is in the bed I was working on in Job 2.
The other 2 roses are from March this year, I got them for my birthday. One is a sort of lilac-y blue, and the other is orangey-red. I've put one by my gooseberry bush, and the other at the end of the veg bed where I've started putting pumpkins, courgette, and squash. Both are by the main garden path, and I've lost the labels for those too, so I have no idea which is which.
And now I'm aching and tired. Cuppa?

Paper potters, seedlings and digging.

For Christmas I got a large version of the Paper Potter. I've had the original for years and it's brilliant, but sometimes I need a pot that's just a bit bigger. Now I have potters in 2 sizes, and this makes me happy. Armed with the large potter, a pile of newspaper, and some seedlings in need of potting on, I set to work. And the pots stuck on the potter, the wood was just a bit rough, unlike the original which was smooth and perfect straight out of the box. I dug out some furniture wax, and gave it a polish and that did the trick, the pots then slid off and stayed whole. I only made about a dozen, just enough for today, but they worked out well.

The gardener's delight tomatoes were ready to be split and potted on from the seed tray, so they went into paper pots. But the tigrella tomatoes aren't big enough to handle yet, they need another week or 2. The sprouts haven't germinated as well as I'd hoped but there were enough decent seedlings to pick 6 nice healthy looking ones to pot on.

The courgettes are in plastic pots, they need a much bigger pot! There are 3 long yellow, 4 long green and 3 round green, plants. I wasn't expecting them to do so well! I may still lose some to slugs and other things, but they're all looking well at the moment while they harden off outside.

They, and everything else, need to be much larger and more robust before they go into the allotment.The allotment site is quite exposed, a bit higher up than my house, and fairly windy. All this growing is happening at home for now, while we get the allotment ready and the plants bigger. Having said that, we have got 2 rows of potatoes, 2 rows of onions, a row of carrots and almost 2 rows of peas up there so far.
Rhubarb at the allotment isn't doing well, but the crowns in the garden here seem to be thriving, along with the other fruits. Pic below, rhubarb at the back, stick of a gooseberry hiding in the middle, tayberry at the front. Unlikely to see much, if any, fruit this year, but next year...

The other fruit bed at home has the black and red currant bushes and the raspberries - and that one is much greener! Should see some fruit from that this year, and even more next year.

It's getting there!

First day of Spring.

It's the first of March, the first day of Spring, allegedly, and the weather is living up to the day with blue skies and sun. The washing machine is full of bedding, the line is full of drying clothes, and the garden is still sodden. It'll take a long while to dry out to any workable level after all the rain we've had. We've not been flooded, and I'm grateful for that and feel nothing but sympathy for those who have been flooded. But the garden is still swamp-like and there's standing water in places as there's nowhere for it to go. Drainage is very poor.

But, it's my birthday next week and I've wanted apple trees in the garden since we moved here 2 years ago and had to leave my beloved Spartan apple tree behind. This week the kids took me out to choose varieties and we came home with a Braeburn and a Cox, both lovely eating apples but firm enough to cook if we want to. For now they're in large pots until the garden dries out a bit and I decide where I want to plant them.
I have apple trees! That makes me so happy.
My tiny soft fruit patch is expanding as well. Today I trimmed some tangled blackcurrant branches because they would have messed up the bush if I'd left them. Instead of just chucking them I stuck them in the ground. I know it's the wrong time of year, but if they grow then I have 2 more blackcurrant bushes. If they don't then the dead sticks can rot down where they are. It's no gamble really, either I gain bushes, or I lose nothing.
Grabbed a redcurrant bush in Lidl this morning and put that in at the other end of the soft fruit bed. I've wanted redcurrants for ages, just one bush so I have a few for jam making. Redcurrants are fabulous for jam, full of pectin. A handful of redcurrants added to bramble jelly, or strawberry jam will help it set.
The raspberries seem to be spreading nicely too. I have to stake and tie them in soon or they'll collapse when they come into fruit.
There's not a lot of plants there, but the range is slowly growing. We might even have enough mixed fruit this year for home grown jam!

In other garden news, I think my big lavender is dying, but the cuttings in pots are doing well. Two of the rosemary plants died over the winter, but 1 is fine. Also, a few of the bulbs I put in are coming up. I have tiny little daffodils scattered at the far end of the garden.
It's St David's Day, I'm living in Wales, the sky is blue, the sun is shining, and I have daffodils in my garden.
Could it be more perfect?

Allotment

I appear to have half a small allotment.
The garden here is a shallow layer of topsoil over what looks like landfill. It's going to take forever to sort out and will be back breaking to do. And it's semi-permanently swamp-like and flooded. I keep looking at it and planning to dig, clear, and get parts ready for planting, but it never gets done.
Meanwhile, in the next village the community garden has run out of funding and has to make ends meet and they have a set of large raised beds they are renting out as small allotment/veg plots, and a friend and I have one between us. It needs clearing and digging over, but it's big enough to produce some veg this year!
The plan, amongst requests from the kids, is for a few potato plants, lots of carrots, a pumpkin, some onions, sprouts, courgette, garlic, chard, beans, lettuce, and peas. At home we'll grow soft fruits in the garden; peppers and maybe tomatoes in pots. I already have a blackcurrant bush and a few raspberry canes in the ground from last year - need to trim and tie those; and a red gooseberry and tayberry in pots. We've had an offer of a few strawberry plants too.
I'm already looking forward to the sun on my back and fresh produce on the table.

Getting organised.

It's not raining! Yet. The clouds are gathering and the sky is darkening, but it's not actually raining as I type and hasn't been raining since I got up this morning.The evenings are slowly getting lighter and there are spikes of green coming up in a few places. It's not spring, not yet, but the early bulbs are starting to come through.
This morning I have caught up with the laundry and braved the shed - which needs completely emptying and sorting before I put things away in there again. It's a mess, but I wanted my garden fork.
I'm not going to hang the laundry out, the threat of rain is there and the air is too damp for anything to dry or even air properly.
The reason for the shed expedition? In my garden I have 2 lines of raw compost laid as a mulch on the surface in the hope that it will kill off anything underneath and provide the basis of a semi-raised bed. More of a mound than anything more formal, but it's an experiment and it needed forking over to see how it's doing underneath. It's actually doing OK. A light fork through to aerate the mound a bit, mix it up, and I can leave it alone while I add more, and it should be good for late spring planting, I hope. If not, I can skim off the mound into a heap, dig over and plant anyway.
I have, in pots for now, a red gooseberry bush and a tayberry cane and I want to add those to my soft fruits patch which already has a couple of raspberry canes and a blackcurrant bush. All of those will multiply later this year and although I'm not expecting lots of fruit this summer, I should get some.
What I really want is a couple of apple trees, but I need the ground to be less swamp-like before I get them so I can plant straight into the ground where I want them to go. Once I decide where I want them. I say them, but 1 would do if I can find a self fertile variety that tastes good, with a firm, crisp texture. Failing that, 2 to cross pollinate and 2 varieties for eating and cooking. And I want to prune them to a bush, or fan, or something easy to reach and manage.