2 May
Sowing and pricking out continues and we have also spent time tidying the garden. The growing season seems to have at last started with the garden starting to colour and flower.
Optimistically we have tidied the summerhouse and placed garden furniture outside in the hope that we will start to use both.
5 May
Half of the onions and shallots that were grown on in modules have been planted out on the plot. We are using weed control fabric on the onion and shallot beds in the same way as we have done for the carrots. The aim is to try to cut down on time spent weeding so we can concentrate on renovating other areas that are in need of attention.
6 May
The first lot of broad beans - Witkiem Manita have now been planted on the plot and as for the carrots and alliums these have been planted through weed control fabric.
We also decided to use the fabric on a couple of our fruit beds. The two beds have been difficult to manage in the past and so we wanted to try to keep them tidy. The beds have been covered with the fabric - cutting slits to wrap around the existing trees and bushes. The fabric has been mulched with some well rotted manure which hopefully can be allowed to stay on the ground if we remove the fabric to feed the trees. We have another couple of fruit beds where we are considering whether to use the same method. Read more on my blog here.
14 - 16 May
A couple of the hostas that we have growing in pots needed repotting. Not only had they grown too congested but they also had been colonised by weeds that had managed to grow in the middle of the plant meaning the only way to remove them was to split the plants. The problem as always is once yyou split a plant what do you do with the extra pieces. We didn’t want any more hostas in pots and so some have been planted into a border. Undoubtedly these will fall victim to slug damage but they will have to take their chance.
One of the repotted plants had nibbled leaves quite quickly and so I am experimenting using a ring of poodle wool around the base of the plant. To read more go to the article on my blog here.
At last things are starting to burst into life on the plot. Sift fruit bushes are setting fruit, the quince and apple trees and strawberry plants are now flowering and the potatoes are starting to come through. The shoots have been earthed up to give some protection from any late frost.
Plants in the garden are also starting to put on a display and things are looking good.
17 -21 May
The living lid which suffered from what I think was blackbird attack has now been renovated adding some new plants and replanting some that had been uprooted. Hopefully this time they will be allowed to survive and spread.. I’ve also added a few more alpine plants to the Pebble Garden (A full list of varieties bought is near the bottom on this page)
The ferns are now starting to grow quickly so I have mulched the fernery with bark before the fronds spread out and make this difficult.
A second batch of broad beans - Masterpiece Green Longpod - have been planted on the plot along with more potatoes and the first lot of peas. The peas - Meteor - were started in pots in the greenhouse and as with the broad beans we have covered the planting bed with weed control fabric. The broad beans have only a very small amount of weevil damage but I’m not sure whether this is down to the control fabric or not as a plot neighbours beans look very similar.
The quince tree is loaded with flower buds - they just need to go on to produce lots of fruit as we have developed a taste for quinces. The female kiwi has buds too but unfortunately the male show no sign of a single flower bud. More on my blog here.
I have cleared out the weeds in the Joan J raspberries and also tidied up and replanted some of the alpine strawberries. Maybe these old plants will provide us with a little fruit until the new ones being grown from seed develop into maturity. Read more on my blog here
Foxgloves which seen happy to self seed on the plot but not in the garden have been transported from the plot and planted in the garden. More will need moving around on the plot as they rarely seed themselves into the positions where they can stay . More on my blog here
21-31 May
Unfortunately the weevils now seem to have homes in on the broad bean plants but they are growing away and of a size that should be able to cope. More on my blog here.
The garden in now full of the sound of young birds that have fledged - the young starlings are particularly raucous.
All the onions and shallots have now been planted out. The sets that hadn’t been started in modules have been planted very close together - just about touching. This way we use up the surplus sets and usually end up with a crop of useful small onions..
Taller growing mangetout and sugar snap peas have now been planted out using weed control fabric. A climbing frame of long hazel branches - that were by-products of our coppicing - has been made.
The carrot and parsnip seedlings have been weeded. As weed control has been used between the rows the weeds had only germinated into the trenches where the seeds were sown and so this wasn’t a major task and it will give the seedlings a head start over and subsequent weed growth.
We still have beds to clear and the grass paths are really romping away in the cooler conditions.
Although the strawberries are producing flowers and growing well, I am concerned that the summer fruiting raspberries seem to be making little effort to send shoots. The Glencoe raspberry is way ahead and loaded with flower buds.
In the garden the perennials seem to be thriving in the damper conditions and are romping away.
We also made a couple of rather surprising discoveries. The first is that our ‘dead’ tree fern stump has developed new shoots at the base of the trunk. Obviously the roots were still alive - this is one advantage of our reluctance to discard plants that appear to be dead. The fern that I planted in the top of the stump has also survived over winter.
The second even more surprising discovery is that our palm - trachycarpus wagnerianus - has produced several flower buds. We didn’t even realise that it would flower!
On the plot the quince tree is looking beautiful and is covered in blossom
Maybe even more surprising is the fact that the hostas planted in the garden borders have so far avoided slug attack even though a ligularia growing right next to one of the hostas has been devastated. I’m sure it;s only a matter of time though!
Some activities are described in more detail on our blogs - links below
