1 - 3 February
All our seed orders have arrived which doesn’t mean that we have all the seeds that we will plant this year. We always seem to be tempted into buying extras. At least this year we won’t have the added problem of free magazine seeds. We have ended our magazine subscriptions in favour of emags. The idea is to cut down on the mounting stacks on paper magazines and also maybe because they will be to hand actually read the articles too.
All our seeds are sorted and arranged in boxes but we will exercise restraint and not sow any seeds too early in spite of temptation and reports that other gardeners have made a start! We have popped some of our shallot and onion sets in modules so they can make a start but we will need to make sure they get into the gorund before they become root bound. They just don’t recover from any setback.
Some activities are described in more detail on our blogs - links below
The grapevine growing in the garden greenhouse has also been cut back to the main vine.
4 -26 February
We’ve continued to harvest plenty of fresh winter vegetables from the plot - leeks, parsnips, carrots, red and green cabbage and Brussels sprouts.
We now have braised red cabbage in the freezer and as the small onions in store were beginning to shoot I have also stocked up on picked onions to enjoy with our summer salads!
Other than to gather our harvests we haven’t spent much time at the plot but I did notice that the rhubarb had started to shoot.
In the garden the late winter/early spring flowering plants are coming into their own.
The area under our magnolia tree is well shaded in late spring and summer and so this are is planned to provide early colour with lots of hellebores and snowdrop. AS this area is directly outside of a house window we can enjoy it from the warmth of inside,
Many of the perennials in the front garden haven’t died back - if fact the penstemons have had odd flowers continually. The growth from these plants was interfering with the development of the bulbs growing amongst them and so I cut them back. The flowering bulbs have responded by starting into flower.
Mini daffodils are also beginning to flower in the back garden.
We have made a start sowing seeds - the grow lights are now raring to go but at the moment only contain a small tray in which I have sown some indoor cyclamen seeds.
Our greenhouse is a bit busier as our seed potatoes arrived and needed setting out to chit which they seem really eager to do.
The onion and shallot sets planted in modules in the greenhouse are also beginning to shoot
I wrote in my blog here that we are going to tidy up a problem area behind our garden greenhouse. A first step was been taken when a Woodblocx kit was delivered from which we will create a raised bed.
To try and avoid our peach, apricot and nectarine trees succumbing to peach leaf curl they have been sprayed with Bordeaux Mix. (Update - didn’t work)
