well not blasted exactly but pretty bleak............it's been a long cold winter so we are way behind. today was only really the second day of working outside because it's been too cold, but a little mild spell has suddenly brought all the bulbs out and the days are, very slowly, getting longer. the bird life is down stuffing itself with bits of fatsnax and bread, and it does seem that at last spring is on the way. everything has obviously just been hunkered down against the icy blasts waiting for a chance, a week ago there were no flowers and now the irises "harmony" have suddenly appeared, the clump of mini-daffs in the woodland are out and even one mega-daff at the front, snowdrops and lots of crocuses. and one pink chionodoxa just appearing, buds on the honeysuckle and clemati, paeonies pushing up..............yes, it's time to start the Staring. the Staring is the most important garden activity............it involves touring round the garden peering closely at the ground where the plants used to be and where now is a morass of dead leaves, weeds, old bits of plant label, sweet wrappers etc............but lo! in among it all some old friends are actually still there and fighting their way up through the mess. it's really quite amazing to see what has survived. and of course there is always the process of staring hard at a little embryonic clump of something obviously meant to be there and thinking: what the hell's that? all will be revealed within the next few weeks, but some things are not included in the mental garden map..........
......somehow we seem to have acquired enough pots to start our own garden centre and it's unlikely that we'll need them all so what we need is someone starting a new garden who can take some of them................Carrie has cleared the greenhouse and conveyed to the cats the bad news that their indoor winter litter tray has been decommissioned and yes, they will need to get their sweet little paws wet to answer calls of nature..........today i finished more clearing and planted some salads..............weeded the static pots and moved some things into the greenhouse for a head start. last year's geraniums are still indoors but starting to sprout so hopefully we can get some cuttings. despite the cold winter, the prostrate rosemary has been flowering merrily since the middle of January, so much for being a Mediterranean herb...........
...........we haven't yet planned this year's growing, but of course gardening being what it is, nothing we plan will turn out as we intended anyway............some lessons were learned though, like: don't grow cabbages because they grow beautifully but we don't actually like them. also, the outdoor tomatoes did just as well as the greenhouse ones and tasted better, so it's worth keeping the greenhouse space for other things, like more cucumbers because they were lovely. peas and beans are a lot of work but really only the sugar snap peas gave much of a crop, and asparagus peas have beautiful flowers but are like eating an emery board so best grown for decoration........ the purple sprouting broccoli is still going strong and tastes lovely, and we left the runner bean roots in as suggested so we'll see what they do. flower-wise the amazing organic rose is well on with new growth.................the jasmine arch has broken right through and deposited the jasmine in a heap which is not a good start to the season for it, or for the fruit garden it fell into, so we need to replace it quite soon. however the fruit bushes are sprouting already and the rhubarb is poking up, i've weeded the dwarf apples and blueberry in their tubs and given them some fruit food.......................and off we go!
No comments:
Post a Comment