Hello! The garden is waking up (and so am I, I always want to hibernate through the winter!). There's some blossom already, beautiful pink almond blossom and white on the new cherry plum trees.
The crocus have been and gone.
In the front garden I've planted a couple of patches of zingy yellow daffodils. Some by the new cherry tree just as you come onto the drive, a pretty little springy area with some snowdrops, muscari, daffs and a hellebore my mum bought me. The other in the corner by the fence, there's a new rose (a David Austen rose called 'generous gardener' that was my lovely valentines present) and some daffodils at the front of the bed. It's always surprising how a few cheap little bulbs can make a garden look pretty and well cared for in the spring.
The new raised beds have gone up in the front garden!!! I'm soooo pleased with them!
Joe's filling them up with the soil he dug out of the drive when he was levelling it, and I'm adding layers of garden clippings and cardboard to try to create a lasagne bed effect. The driveway soil is slightly clay-ish, so I'm wanting to break it up with some organic matter, and hoping it'll all rot down together into something nice. When I get nearer the top of the beds I'll add some bagged compost (I went to get some from Homebase the other day and there was some on offer for £2 a bag - so I bought 8 bags!) and some biochar (which is my new experiment this year).
We've had to have all our gutters replaced this month and I had to move my hotbin composter out of the way. So it seemed a good opportunity to empty it. About a million worms were living in there! My back garden raised beds have had a nice top dressing of compost ready for the new growing season.
I've started planting some seeds in the heated propagator (tomatoes and peppers), chitting some potatoes (Jazzy, Nicola, Kestrel and Swift, I have no idea what I'm doing with potatoes so I just bought a small packet of several varieties to try. The tray I'm chitting them in is the innards of Joe's Lego advent calendar and it's perfect for the job!) and I have my onions and some supermarket organic garlic ready and waiting to get going.
Here's the garden in full, for posterity!
How's your garden? Have you survived the winter? Are you ready for spring?
I love seeing your garden! I always gawp over the raised beds enviously! I should just get on and get some really, shouldn't I! My husband is loathe to let me turn the whole garden to veg though- more's the pity!
ReplyDeleteThank you Kezzie :) Just start small with one raised bed, then add a new one every year, he'll never notice! :)
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