Easter

Leaf report: there are leaves on the gooseberry, the redcurrant and the raspberry bushes. The Cox Orange Pippin apple tree has leaves but the other fruit trees and the blueberries aren't there yet.


Things to eat: the kale survived the winter well and is in good eating condition, and will probably remain so until the insects wake up or it goes to seed.


Flowers: daffodils are coming out and there are buds on the tulips. The winter flowering heathers are still flowering.


Seeds : planted up a big load of seeds today.

• A whole tray of zinnias using the last of the seeds in the open packet
• Beans: fasold and opera (in toilet paper tubes since I have no peas it seems)
• Chillis: wenks hot yellow and pretty in purple (from http://www.realseeds.co.uk/)
• Waltham Squash (also Real seeds)
• Musk Melon (Real seeds again)
• Cabbage: savoy and red although there were not many seeds left in the packet

Seeds growing:

There seems to be quite a bit of stuff growing in the greenhouse. The kailaan are going great guns, I just hope when they make it out into the garden they don't get eaten by bugs. The basils are hatching and growing slowly as are some of the flowers. The yellow tomatoes are doing well and the kale is showing promise.

In the beds:

No sign of the oca yet (probably too early and not been warm enough). There could be signs that the yellow beets and spring onions are coming up but I'm not being too optimistic.

If we get any more good weather this weekend (in between the heavy rain showers) I might try and plant up some rows of beetroot in situ but where?

I've had some offers from colleagues at work to take the baby strawberry plants which would give some extra space on what was a greenhouse last year and is just shelves this year since the cover ripped itself to pieces (well it was a cheapo from Lidl).

Waiting for three sunny days in a row so the yard dries out enough for me to mow the lawn.

First sunny Sunday

Today is the first sunny Sunday of the year, or at least it seems that way.

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.

Mid Season

This is the hard work time of year. The easy bit (plant seeds and sit back for a week, two weeks while they hatch) is done. Now there is a whole nursery fully of baby plants that are crying for attention.

However some plants are already doing their thing - as the pic of the Honeoye strawberry shows. We've had our second harvest (second ripe strawb) from this plant this morning, and still more to go.

New in town this week, hatchings from the cucumber, squash, sweetcorn mangetout and borlotti bean seeds.

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V borlotti bean triffids

I have been vigourous in my potting on of seedlings... more or less. Chillies, tomatoes, patty pan squash and the asparagus have all been moved into bigger containers to help them develop. The asparagus are doing OK. I should really do something about getting a bed for them but the area I was considering needed a run over with the strimmer (whipper-snipper) and I ran out of strimmer string today.

In the garden bed, there are now only four cabbages remaining. The sweet peas are not dying, but neither are they gaining in size. The peas I so carefully grew in the toilet rolls have been reduced to sticks by evil snails (liberal application of slug pellets seems to have cured that problem.

I need to get on top of the weeding - there are weeds taking over all over, and bindweed coming through the fence from next door. Today I took the unusual step of weeding my plants-in-pots (I'm not usually so diligent) so the poor plants can breathe a bit. (There were all a bit swamped).

It's not too far off raspberry season - the first of the berries is already faintly pink. Looking forward to that. However I think only the old bushes will fruit this year; the Lidl "from stick" canes are growing well but probably not up to fruiting much this year.

And we have blueberries! I did wonder if they were fruiting but while checking the pots today I saw that yes, there are some blueberries. And here is a picture to end on. (Sorry about the fuzzy focus).

Planting out

Last Saturday I planted six Savoy cabbage seedlings out into the garden proper. Today I went to water then and found only five!

I've planted out about 20 sweet pea seedlings in various spots around the garden. Some are doing well, some are looking a bit brown.

The oca are doing well - seven plants up at the back, and at least five up in the other two beds. I didn't earth them up; mostly because I'm not sure what earthing up is?

The leaves on the Williams Red pear are still curled. I hope it doesn't have some sort of "leaf curl" problem.

Four of the purple passion asparagus seeds sprouted. I've potted them on into individual pots but for the sake of preserving them, I had better get an asparagus bed sorted in the garden soon.

The helipterums need to be planted out soon - they are outgrowing the seed tray.

I transplanted some of the beetroot seedlings on advice from a friend. There are about 20 of them in the garden now, they're doing OK. Give them another week to see how many survive.

Last weekend I planted up more seed trays: sweetcorn, cucumbers, borlotti beans and pumpkins/squash. None of the beans I planted earlier have done much. Of the two beans I got from Amanda, one has been eaten to death and the other one is struggling.

The plastic cover on my cheap Lidl greenhouse is splitting (already). When I do up or undo the zips on the plastic roll at the front, the zip splits a bit more from the plastic, so there are huge gaps letting the cool air in.

The Honeoye strawberry has one big fat red strawberry on it. With luck, and if the snails don't get there first, it will be ripe for the weekend!

Good, bad and ugly news

Its great to come back from holiday and see how much things have grown... or not...

My great find the night before flying out was to discover that my cheap Lidl pear tree, the one I had been whinging about, is not dead! I had been studying the woody stalks branching out from the main trunk - and truth be told, I do think they are all dead. What I hadn't been looking at was the trunk itself. And there, lo and behold, is where the leaf buddage has been occuring!

There were several other happy things to return home to.

Tulips! Still in bloom, lots of them, although by now they are starting to look at bit tatty but the black and white (purple and cream) ones looked stunning at their peak. They probably had a name, I may even still have the bag with the name on in the shed, but for now I am not going to bother with names.

Oca! Tough clover-leafed stalks are now poking out of the ground, signalling that my yams are starting to grow under the soil. All three types have sprouted, but I'm only seeing evidence of two or three in each bed. Better than none I suppose.

Asparagus! Not in the trench, but the seeds planted in the greenhouse are starting to sprout. Or at least, two of them are. Only tiny now, but in three years time, they will be featuring heavily on my dinner plate.

Strawberries! It's not quite Wimbledon yet, but by the time it is, I'm sure these Honeoye strawberries will be long gone. Thankfully all the strawberry plants look to be thick with flowers, so lots of yummy red fruit to come....

Now for the bad news: the zinnias all died. I don't know why. They were looking good when I went away, but I came back and they were all shrivelled into brown plant corpses. But I won't be deterred - I will plant more seeds. I will have zinnias!

The ugly news: with the onset of spring proper and the bursting of new growth came the return of the unholy trinity: the gastropods, the bindweed and dandelions. Yes, as fast as the little seedlings are poking their heads up out of the soil, the snails are appearing and chewing them down to ugly stumps. From a relatively bindweed-free garden two weeks ago, the weaving weed is wriggling its way up through the heucheras, the strawberries, the lavender - even appearing in the lawn! Dandelions - while I've had some luck pulling plants out with roots intact while gardening after rain, I can't see I'm ever going to beat this problem while my neighbours yard is awash with dandelion puffballs and yellow flowers.

As predicted, the chard has gone to seed and been removed. This is all part of the plan, because the chard was growing over one of the oca beds, so now the oca can grow freely.

I have savoy cabbage seedlings and peas and sweet peas all ready to plant out. I think I have the tallest savoy seedlings in the world - not sure how they will heart up but we'll give it a go. Some of the tomato and chilli seeds have sprouted, and there is evidence that at least some teasel seed was still good.

It's a long weekend ahead, I hope for lots of sun so I can get lots of weeding and seed planting done.

Pink hot tulip action

Hooray! Tulips in bloom! The bright pink one that might be called Angelique, and also the Queen of Night, in its velvety black-purple. (Queen of Night is suffering a bit with aphids, I had to chase the little sap-sucking buggers off with the hose.) Around the garden I can see other tulips with reddish bulb tinges ready to go off... I may miss those as they look a few days away yet.

I'm glad the tulips survived the winter after their unexpected unearthing in December by some demented squirrel.

Other flower news - the Honeoye strawberry plant has two flowers on it. That means two potential strawberries! Not enough to make jam with but good news all the same.

The apple tree definitely has blossom pending. I sniffed at the little red buds and they smelt lovely, not appley but very nice all the same.

And now for the "It Lives" report from the greenhouse:

• 11 tips sprouting amongst the two types of sweet pea (sown 23/03/09 - fast!)
• 4 Echinacea, some celeriac and 1 lonely chilli (sown 13/3/09)
• 3 teasel, 7 zinnia, 1 Roma tomato (sown 10/3/09)

Manny is always keen to help out when he can.

My greenhouse is now almost full, as I got full swing into seed planting early today seeing as how this is my last weekend around the garden before my holiday. Today I planted:

9 x Meteor Peas (in the cardboard centres of toilet rolls - to give the roots more room to develop, Amanda tells me); 10 x beans: 5 each of Opera Dwarf and Fasold climbing (irrelevant aside: fasol is the Russian word for bean. At work there is an Italian consultant whose surname is Fasola who I now always think of as Mr Bean); a pot of snapdragons (why use the very dull latin name of Antirrhinum?); Heuchera pulchella (which I am disappointed to see is green, the whole point of Heucheras is the beautiful range of non-green colours they come in, but then I bought the seeds so I must have known what I was getting?); Helipterum Pierrot; Achillea Summer Berries (one of my very few perennials, I should grow more perennials); a selection of Rudbeckia from a multi pack bought at the 99p shop who knows when: Gloriosa Daisies, Marmelade and Rustic Dwarfs; 2 types of Cabbage: Savoy King and Red Jewel; patty pan squash Sunburst; and two more types of sweet pea: Royal family and Royal blue.

Helipterum seeds - cute little fluffy bundles!

That's just the greenhouse! I then went out into the garden proper and planted up two pots of specially sieved soil with parsnips (Avonresister: which makes me think of Blake's 7) and Carrots (Chantenay - received free with a Boden catalogue). I have already had to move the carrot pot from its intended resting place because the cat was about to mistake the pot for a nice place to sit.

Down in the patch between the established raspberries and the bottlebrush, I planted up still more seeds: a row each of Spinach tetona, Scarlet Kale, dwarf green Kale, Sweet william and some nasturtiums.

There is still no action in any of the oca beds. I cut back the rainbow chard that is growing around one of the oca beds - I think the chard is about to go to seed, it's looking not very good.

I repotted the bay tree, it's been looking a little shabby lately and that could be either that it's quite rootbound in its pot or because it has some kind of insect making nice homes amongst its leaves. I chopped the poor thing back quite a bit to get rid of the insect infestation, but I think it can take it. There are loads of leaf buds all over it so it has plenty of scope to generate new leaves.

I did some weeding along the shady side of the garden; didn't get very far but then I did have an almighty battle with the couch grass and the grape hyacinth. Who planted the bloody grape hyacinth in this garden I don't know but the blasted stuff just spreads and spreads and is not particularly attractive so I rip it up as much as I can but the thinness of the stems means they are more likely to snap when pulled, in which case you've left the bulb in the ground and the evil plant can continue to grow and propogate itself.

The penstemon on the corner of the pond where the lavender used to be has been struggling a bit since I moved it. I've built a nice little wall in the dirt around it now, so that when I water it, the water won't just run off down the hill but actually pool around the roots and do some good where it's needed. I did some weeding around the pond too, but unhappily, on the path side there is nothing growing but weeds, so once they're gone the area just looks bare and empty. I threw some marigold seeds in near the penstemon, so it won't feel so lonely and exposed on the corner.

Actually, I have referred back to my planting map and identified the seeds that have sprouted in this same area and they are the nemophilia.

And by this time it was almost the end of the day and the sun was still shining so I got out the lawn mower and gave the lawn the first cut of the year!

I spoke to Amanda and she cheerfully told me that her asparagus plant is doing well. I went and checked mine again and there is absolutely no action coming out of that trench. Then I noticed some marks on the fence next to it and realised I had found the shitzu entry point! A few pieces of scrap wood slotted into the gaps should fix that. But maybe not fix my asparagus if it's had evil shitzu jumping onto it several times a day. Still I live in hope that the seeds in the greenhouse will germinate and one day I will serve home grown asparagus at the dinner table.

Notes for self on return from holiday:

• Plant more carrots, plant more lettuce, plant more beetroot, plant more spring onion.

There's something very soothing about coming home from work on Friday evening and going straight out to fuss about in the garden. I really only wanted to check the seed status in the greenhouse, but ended up doing a full walk around and water.

News from the greenhouse: seed sproutings can now be seen in the teasel, sweet pea and echinacea trays. I want to believe there are seeds sprouting in one of the chilli trays but I think that's a little too optimistic. However there are seedlings popping up down below the transplanted Penstemon which are either Aster, Nemophilia or Scabious. In that patch of the garden, there has been no sign of activity from the mystery seeds, the sunflower seeds or the larkspur seeds.

I have sorted my seeds again, this time actually labelling them and using rubber bands to attach like seeds together. And in the time it has taken me to do this, March has become April, so the "plant now" and "plant in April" piles have become one... and become large. This is a little daunting because this is my last weekend at home before I go on holidays for two weeks. All I have to do is finish weeding the shady side of the garden, plant 40 types of seeds in the garden and in seed pots, and make the fence impervious to shitzus. (Another pile of shitzu was found and thrown back over the fence today.)

As first Friday in the month, it was Gardening Club night.
http://www.communigate.co.uk/london/whittinghamgardeningclub/
Our guest speaker was John, a local gardening enthusiast showing slides of a collection of just some of the plants in his garden. As his talk was about 1.5 hours, you can only imagine just how many plants he has in his garden, and this talk was only about SOME of his collection.

I did manage a word with him in the break, asking his advice about the pear trees. He assured me that as bare root stock, dug up and moved around and only planted a short while ago, the trees may still be having a bit of a sulk, and I shouldn't be concerned that they're not budding up. It's quite normal for them to do this as they've had a bit of a shock. So long as they get plenty of water to help them establish, he said, it's very unlikely that they will not grow. Although I shouldn't set any store on getting a pear harvest this year.

The apple tree, however, is going great guns. I'm very excited by a small red cluster which may be a flower bud! I just hope that I will be here to see it. I'm unhappy at the prospect of the tulips just about to start flowering just when I'm about to go away. The first tulips may open their buds this week (some buds already attracting an appreciative crowd of aphids which I chased off with the hose today). I just don't want to come home from holiday and find all my tulip pots contain leaves and green sticks where there once were petals but the blooms have all now faded.

I'm reading a book called Allotted Time by Robin Shelton. It's about him and his mate deciding to get an allotment plot together. I'm impressed that there are people out there who took on an allotment with even less knowledge of veggie gardening than Amanda and I had in our two failed attempts at allotmenting. The book is a good read so far, although perhaps no-one but another gardener could appreciate whole sections on the pain and tedium of trying to dig over a garden bed covered in weeds. In the rain. It almost made me want to go out and get an allotment again. Almost.

It's predicted sunny for Sunday so I hope to get up early and be out there sorting the garden and getting a last load of photos done to save here so when I get back I can compare then and now. I guess you'll hear from me again then.