5 & 6 December
One of the fruit beds on our allotment contain some blackcurrants and whitecurrants taken as cuttings. Although they are now mature they have never really produced any worthwhile fruit. It hasn’t worried us as we pick plenty of blackcurrants from our other bed but we did think it was time to remove them and plant something that would make better use of the space.
We wanted something a little different and to start with ordered four honeyberry plants from Victoriana Nursery Gardens. These have now arrived. They were already potted up and so will be kept in the greenhouse for a bit of shelter until we are ready to plant them out
The plot and greenhouse both survived this week’s gales but it is still very cold so our trip to the plot was confined to harvesting some fresh vegetables.
9 December
We had ordered some new raspberries to replace the ones that died last year from what we believe was a root rotting disease which was maybe a result of the really wet winter. We have bought two varieties the mid season Glen Ample which we had before and liked and a late season variety called Tulameen. These were bare rooted and so we decided to plant them on the plot straight away. Fortunately the ground was prepared and it wasn’t too wet. As raspberries shouldn’t be replanted in a position which may have been affected with disease we have had to resite our raspberries but we did manage to move the existing support structure. Read more here.
As well as completely the pruning of the gooseberries and jostaberries and tidying the beds they are planted in we also removed the currants from the bed in which we wanted to plant the honeyberries.
Last years I potted up some native primroses that had self seeded from one we had growing on the plot. I really love primroses and wanted some in the garden. They have been growing in pots all year and so I decided to plant them in a cluster around the base of the mahonia in the spring part of the garden. They are a bit nibbled but should hopefully produce new spring growth
10 December
Along with the raspberries that arrived yesterday was a bag of crocuses. They are a purple variety called Remembrance. I know it is a bit late to plant crocus bulbs which is probably why the company was giving them away. They already had shoots and as I haven’t really time to think about where I can plant them in the garden, they have been planted in a large plant pot for this year.
We managed another afternoon on the plot and planted the honeyberries. The lavender edging had become infested with grass and so this was also tidied, The honeyberry bushes have been planted through weed control fabric.
Some activities are described in more detail on our blogs - links below
