In the garden at the moment...

Tulip 'Carnival de Nice'

Tulipa 'Recreado', with the silver foliage of a cardoon behind

A frothy confection

Spring hedgerows, that is. A frothy confection of cow parsley, hawthorn, new grass, bluebells, jack-in-the-hedge, and so on.

Hawthorn

'Oh! roses and lilies are fair to see; But the wild bluebell is the flower for me' - Louisa A. Meredith

Aided and abetted by all manner of small creatures, such as shield bugs, orange-tip butterflies, weevils, hover flies. What's not to like about spring?

"I think that no matter how old or infirm I may become, I will always plant a large garden in the spring. Who can resist the feelings of hope and joy that one gets from participating in nature's rebirth?"

~Edward Giobbi

Memories of childhood, wilted

As a child, the arrival of Spring meant being able to go out and play in the evenings. Going out and playing in the evenings meant climbing my friend's lilac trees. A mere whiff of their scent sends me back to the carefree days of being eight, with all of the summer to look forward to.

For years I have embarrassed SomeBeans with my surreptitious sniffing of lilacs in other peoples' gardens. It's a bit of a bad habit, but mostly harmless. Overhanging lilac flowers have their aroma inhaled as I stop for a moment, for instant mental time travel.

I was delighted to inherit a lilac tree when we moved house. Well, lilac 'lollipop' may have been a better description; along with most of the shrubs in the garden, the lilac bush had been trimmed into a neat, round shape. It's taken two years to produce a reasonable number of heaven-scent blooms, and I sniffed my first sniff of the season on Saturday. Bliss.

Today, it looks as though someone has taken a blow torch to parts of the bush. Having experienced potato blight last year (as did everyone), it looked blight-like and I wondered if there was a similar problem for lilacs. There is. The effects can be seen here:
http://plant-disease.ippc.orst.edu/image.cfm?RecordID=732

I'm off out to prune and burn in the hope that I'll be able to sniff my history again next year, without having to resort to guerrilla lilac sniffing, if only to save the embarrassment of SomeBeans.

Need a garden related laugh?

Garden Monkey's blog, with acerbic wit and horticultural stars (the wonderful James Alexander Sinclair, Matthew Wilson, and also Jane Perrone) can be found here:

http://thegardenmonkey.blogspot.com/

Vote for an eclectic mix of gardening blogs at the Fork'n Monkey awards. Sadly, I woudn't win anything, as I lack poems, excessive cats and pictures of seedlings on this blog.

http://forknmonkey.blogspot.com/

And while I'm at it, the very entertaining and educational James A-S's blog is here:

http://web.mac.com/blackpittsgarden/Site_2/Blog/Blog.html

Spring in the garden

Erythronium

Double Hellebore

Tulip

Apple blossom

Peas, beans and roots

SomeBeans has been working hard digging the half plot over the past couple of weeks, giving me lots of planting space :)

The broad beans are looking neat and tidy (much to Somebeans' delight), but the spring cabbage which has been over-wintered has got damaged by devil pigeons, after the netting blew loose in the storms of the past few weeks.

I sowed some more broad beans last week (Bunyards Exhibition) and today planted:

• Onion sets: 'Red Baron' and 'Stuttgart Giant'
• Pea 'Douce Provence'
• Carrot 'Flyaway' (supposedly carrot rootfly resistant)
• Parsnip 'Imperial Crown'

It's still a bit too early/cold to be planting really, but I can always plant some more - I did a lot of seed sowing this time last year, but the spring was rather warmer (there's snow in some parts of the country today). I've not got any potatoes in yet, although the easter weekend is traditional potato planting time, I believe. However, with easter so early this year, I think it's safe to wait a week or two.

Seed sowing has begun!

First proper seed sowings of the year this afternoon. It's got me all excited for the forthcoming growing season.

Planted: Cabbages 'Hispi' and 'Primo', leeks, early sowings of lettuce ('Suzan'), broad bean 'Bunyard's Exhibition' (to complement the broad beans sown earlier directly into the ground).

Sown in the propagator: three types of tomato ('Santa', 'Czech Excellent Yellow', and 'Wapsipinicon Peach'; also Pepper 'Healthy' and a chili.

In flower:

• dwarf narcisssus (predominately Tete a Tete)
• various crocuses

The birds are singing in the morning - wonderful!

We had three frosty mornings of -5C or so last week - it is apparently warmer and wetter this week. I hope the Young broadies down on the plot have survived!

Rooting about

Down the plot for the first time in three weeks, we removed roots and got blisters.
We also saw the fox - at 10am on a Sunday morning! I used to think that foxes were crepuscular, but not this one.

Harvested: parsnips and a few purple carrots which I didn't dig up in the autumn as they were attacked by carrot fly and I was just going to dig the patch over and remove all the manky carrots. A few seem edible though.

No broad beans have sprouted, but it has been cold and wet, so I expect they have rotted in the soil. I'll have to get my act together and get them going in autumn this year. Still, I can plant some spring sowing beans in a few weeks time.

In the garden, the hellebores are starting to look good, and the Sarcococca is smelling nice. we have the first yellow crocuses up, and the miniature irises in the rose tub are flowering their hearts out. It's just a shame that I leave for work in the dark and come home in the dark, so see little of these small daily changes towards spring. The blackbirds have started singing in the morning now - a real move towards the longer days of spring.

"If you've never been thrilled to the very edges of your soul by a flower in spring bloom, maybe your soul has never been in bloom." ~Audra Foveo

New Year, New Tidiness

If this blog is to work as a means of reminding me what I've done and whether it works, I better write things a bit more frequently in 2008.

So, today, we went down the allotment and:

• dug 1 row and removed buckets of weed roots;
• SomeBeans dug up some more of the path sections and raked up stems and rubbish

I planted 3 rows of brad bean 'Aquadulce Claudia' - a bit late; I should have planted them in November but didn't. Most of two rows are covered by cloche - it will be interesting to see if they grow faster, or if any grow at all, rather than just rotting in the cold wet soil of January. It looks quite tidy!

We have a small head of Romanesco developing on the half plot. The black tuscan kale is still quite tiny but should be harvestable soon. The 'Bleu de Solaise' leeks are thickening up, and the shallots and elephant garlic are sprouting.