2 April
The plants that I chose as a prize after being a runner-up in the competition organised by Spalding Bulbs arrived today. I was pleased with the quality of the plants and the packaging - read more here. The plants are destined for my sister’s garden but for now they will stay under protection in our greenhouse. The asters and osteospernums were already potted up by the bare rooted aquilegias have also been planted in pots to grow on a little before planting out in the garden
Frogs have also made their annual pilgrimage to our pond where at the moment there is plenty of activity and frog spawn - read more here
4 April
The sun put in an appearance and although it was still cold outside it was very pleasant in the greenhouse so we managed to get a bit of pricking out and sowing done. The seedlings sitting under our grow light desperately needed moving on. I pricked out the rather pathetic looking onion seedlings into a set of module. WE are still trying to find out how to grow celery and celeriac successfully and so six of each set on seedling have been planted up into individual small pots and left in an unheated propagator in the greenhouse and a further six have been pricked out into a couple of small pots and returned to their position under the grow light.
We also sowed some broad beans and leeks. For a full list see our April sowing and planing schedule here
One of the light tubes has failed in our grow light. We sent for a replacement but that doesn’t work the problem must be elsewhere, Until we sort it out we would have been without so we’ve bought a second system. We really need some indoor seed germination space this year. We had thought about having two systems but this forced our hand. Let’s hope we can fix the first one.
6 &7 April
The sunshine encouraged us to make the first trip to the plot after a month’s absence. There are plenty of jobs to catch up on but it is still very debatable whether we should start planting potatoes. In general everything in the garden and on the plot is a fortnight to a month behind the stage it would be at during a normal year. I’ve written one or two posts on my blog detailing how this is affecting our garden and plot. Visit my blog to read the more detailed posts.
We mainly concentrated on tidying the beds destined for the potatoes and cutting back various shrubs and fruit bushes and canes that should have been sorted out much earlier. I cut back the tayberry and tied in the retained stems but chickened out of tackling the spiky blackberry. One battle with vicious thorns is enough for one day. I cut out last year’s fruiting stems from the the thornless blackberry and also cut down all last year’s canes from the Joan J autumn fruiting raspberry. The gooseberries are being treating to a light pruning to preserve the desired open goblet shape. The Japanese wineberry has so far proved to be a disappointment but I am persevering and cut back all the weedy stems produced last year.
I also pruned all the buddleais hard to encourage new bushy growth.
Moving on the the strawberry bed - I removed the weed control fabric which had done its job well in keeping the strawberries weed free. There was just some weeding required around the edges of the bed. Many of the plants of the early variety Marshmarvel have died but I have some spares to replace them with. The problem is that I am not sure whether it is the soil in that quarter of the bed that is at fault as it does seem to get wetter. Whilst the weed control fabric was off I tidied up the plants. loosened the compacted soil around the plants and fed with fish blood and bone fertiliser. Read more on my blog here.
We have even managed to plant some seeds - the list is here and we also managed a mini harvest see here
13 April
This was the start of some really serious seed sowing. Some seeds have been left in the cold greenhouse and others are under the grow lights (we have bought a second unit) in a spare room. Our full sowing list is here.
15 & 16 April
At last we have managed to do some serious work on the plot. A good start has been made on tidying up the fruit beds and I have managed to carry out some belated pruning of gooseberries, jostaberries, the tayberry and some of the autumn fruiting raspberries. Read more here.
We also managed to plant the first lot of potatoes - plenty more to go! Read more about our planting method here.
18 April
Gale force winds and the nectarine chooses now to open its blossoms! I doubt there are any bees brave enough to be around to pollinate so I have been out with my soft brush to try and help things a little!
19 - 23 April
Lots more potatoes have now been planted and the carrots and parsnips have been sown. Details of varieties here The carrots have been protected with fleece to try to prevent the carrot fly from infested the roots. I think this is the only way to limit carrot fly damage.
I’ve also weeded and generally tidied up around the summer fruiting raspberries and cut all last year’s fruiting canes from the autumn fruiting varieties. The summer fruiting ones are at last beginning to sprout new leaves.
I’ve also tidied around the base of the kiwi where I found that the native primroses planted along the edge of the bed had produced lots of seedlings. Some if these have been potted up to plant in the garden
Fruit tree flower buds are finally swelling so it looks like it will be a late harvest - if we manage a harvest at all. The fig that has over wintered in the cold greenhouse has surprised us by producing lots of tiny new fruits.
In the garden I have cut all the old growth from the ferns so now it’s a case of waiting until the new fronds unfurl.
24 - 30 April
The magnolia and camellia is flowering now in the brighter weather but the flowers seem to be going over and dropping petals much quicker than usual - almost as quickly as some flowers open. I hope the same won’t happen to the late fruit blossom and that the insects have chance to pollinate.
The greenhouse is also filling up quickly as we try to catch up on all the sowing and pricking out. More details of what we have sown in April is here The cold frame is also filling up as young plants and seedlings are moved out of the greenhouse to harden off before planting out.
I’ve mulched around the summer fruiting raspberries with straw and cut down last year’s autumn fruiting raspberry canes. New shoots are now growing strongly. I’ve posted about our raspberries here on my blog.
The dead growth has been cut from herbs growing both on the plot and in containers in the garden.
Some activities are described in more detail on our blogs - links below
