A new year, a new greenhouse (since last year's greenhouse cover suffered some damage), two new fruit trees and some new seeds.
My Lidl pear tree (the Beurre Hardy) didn't seem to have survived the winter so I ordered two new trees from Blackmoor Nurseries. Another Beurre Hardy and a James Grieve apple tree. These are both cordons which I think means they are older than the usual and will perhaps bear fruit earlier. We'll have to wait and see on that but for now, they've been planted and are not dead.
Today I set to with seed planting. Lots of veg (at least I hope there will be lots of veg):
- swiss chard
- roma tomatoes
- scarlet kale
- yellow pear tomatoes (heritage variety: found them in Oxfam ,who are doing gardening stuff)
- tetona spinach
- sweet green basil
- thai basil
- kailaan (chinese broccoli - new this year from Real Seeds)
And some flowers:
- Various sunflowers: Giant single, Autumn Beauty and Teddy bear
- Echinacea
All in pots and all now in the greenhouse.
Out in the garden I threw in a row of Burpees Golden beetroot (notoriously low levels of germination for these so I was generous with the seed distribution) on the sunny side near the redcurrant and a row of White Lisbon spring onions (I have never had any luck at all with spring onion seeds!) by the Lidl raspberries. Over by Sigmund I threw in some cornflower seeds. These are essentially wildflowers so they shouldn't need any coddling to grow.Already in the garden are three rows of oca: one right by the shed in the vege patch at the back of the garden, one near the spotted laurel and one up by the redcurrant (now near the beetroot and spring onions). When I was digging up some dirt to use for the seed pots today I found a massive oca clump - somehow this missed being harvested last year but has gone back into the ground to grow more oca this year.
Snowdrops and crocuses are already out in the garden. Tulips and daffodils are up but no sign of flower buds yet. The winter heathers are still in flower.
We made some changes to the planting around the pond. We've pulled out the lavender that was on the fence side and planted there "big heather" - a white flowered heather that had been living in a pot for years. And on the path side we dug up the straggly sage bush, some lemon balm plants and some other miscellaneous grassy weeds and put in some of the baby strawberry plants I cultivated from runners last year. There are still loads more in pots which I might give away at gardening club or to people at work.
The fruit trees are swelling and should have leaves visible by the end of the month. The berries are also swelling and should be bursting into leaf as soon as the weather picks up. Glad to see nothing seems to have died during the long cold winter (except the Lidl pear tree). The little heucheras are not doing very well but they are still alive.
