Stormy weather

Poor beans after the storm :O(

Beans a few weeks ago, making big leaves. Too big as it turned out!

Well, I thought last week was a good time to plant, but the winds turned into storms. Definately the worst wind we've had here in the 16 months of living here. The peas clung onto their sticks for dear life and did very well but the beans were stripped of almost all their leaves and are looking very sorry for themselves. Never mind, they should recover and I've planted more indoors. The meddlesome wind also threw the cold frame across the garden, lifted Holly's trampoline and pushed it into the fence and banged the tiles on our roof up and down all night! But I am grateful that it's warmer at least, we've only had one frost in the past week.
 

First pea pods!

Purple sprouting broccoli is ready!

With the warmer nights, things are coming to life outside, the pea plants have made two pods, the potatoes are peeping up above the ground, while salad and spinach are germinating in the raised bed and the broccoli is ready to start harvesting.

Inside I have planted more dahlias, beans and asparagus peas. I have also got some skirret seeds which I want to try, this is unusual in that it is like a sugary parsnip (though much thinner and oddly shaped), however like parsnip it is difficult to germinate so I've put them in the same cupboard as the hot water tank.

This weekend we've been luckier with the weather and grateful for some sun, I've been out digging up the bed which is earmarked for the quinoa. Have also planted some Phacelia (green manure) which is a attractive purple flowering plant beloved by bees. You are supposed to dig it into the soil before it flowers to enrich the soil, but I probably will find that quite hard so as it's my first time growing it, I'll let it flower and dig it in later even if it does mean less goodness.


Who needs the gym when you can dig? This bed is earmarked for the shallow rooted grain, Quinoa. Should be interesting later in the year when the grains develop as I've bought a colourful variety.

It's quite interesting looking at the rate that some plants grow, I've been impressed this last week with the dahlias and the peas, but the courgette plant wins for monster growth.
The pictures below show it shortly after it germinated last week (why oh why did I plant it in the propagator?) to this weekend in its new pot. 

We're having to net or cover a lot of the new plants because the local cats think our raised beds are giant litter trays, including our cat Rain! So my next job is to research good organic cat deterrents. So far I've watered with a garlic, onion and chilli concoction, will see if that one works, it's certainly smelly.

Peas, Beans, Beet and Carrot all planted out!

Last weekend I didn't get much done in the garden because it was my parent's 70th birthday, but that's worth mentioning here, because it's quite an age to reach. Although both have suffered ill health and my father has only recently had heart surgery, we made it out for a little family meal, minus my sister's family because she was ill .

It's not warm yet, but with the temperature above freezing for the last few nights and the peas and beans beginning to flower indoors, I've decided to start spring myself. Today I planted out the peas, French beans, beetroot and carrot seedlings into the raised bed. After that I sowed some seed (spinach, more peas, assorted salad leaves, salsify, parsley and basil) directly into the raised beds in the hope that it will be warm enough for them to germinate outdoors.

It's supposed to be quite warm tonight (10 degrees celsius) so it's the ideal first night outside for the plants. I've been gradually hardening them off by putting them outside so that it won't be too much of a shock. Unfortunately the slightly warmer weather has brought stronger wind so I've had to put a fleece over the French beans tonight as they have big leaves and are more likely to get damaged.

The peas and beans who started life on my bedroom windowsill are now outside at last!

You may have noticed that I haven't sown a huge number of plants in one go. This is because I've decided to aim for:
1) Successional sowings rather than one big planting. By planting a new batch of seeds every month, there will be no gluts and a longer season of produce
2) Variety, I want to plant more than twenty different crops this year (some being new to me and unsusual too) and so will have a smaller number of each sort.

To help protect the new plants from slug, snail and insect attack and hopefully also from marauding cats who use the beds as a litter tray, I've made a garlic spray. This is easy enough to do with a few cloves of garlic cut up and crushed into water and left to marinate. It smells very strong, let's hope it works!

Rain our cat, has been asked to guard the garden and not use the raised beds as a litter tray!

 

The purple sprouting broccoli is coming on well and will soon be ready to harvest. I've enclosed it in a cage of netting this year to prevent cabbage white butterflies from laying their eggs on it. Last year it was completely decimated by them and they ate all the nasturtium too. This year it's our turn to have some broccoli!



Last week there was an unusual bird visitor to the peanut feeder. It was a very hungry male Siskin which stayed for ages on the feeder, so I got to take quite a lot of photos. This was probably a bird that was migrating to breeding grounds as they winter here but they don't breed here. It may have been heading for Scotland or Northern parts of Europe, but it had a good fill of peanuts before leaving!

I also have a photo of House Sparrows sunbathing from last weekend. They had just taken a dust bath on what was probably the most spring like day we've had. That's the life! I also made the most of the sun that day by cleaning my car, it wasn't quite warm enough for me to sunbathe! It was still very cold at night at that point with frosts almost every night.

It's late at night now and it is raining, but so far at least, the wind hasn't been too bad. It's time for me to take a book to read in bed as my feet are cold. Goodnight :O)

Potatoes now planted in the lawn beds



Brrr, the coldest March in 50 years has ended and now it's April... and still cold. Have got some photos of birds visiting the garden for food though with my new camera.





Blue Tits love the peanut feeder





The Collared Doves visit every day



The Robin is now a regular visitor





Plans to plant out seedlings at the end of March have had to be put on hold because of the cold. However I decided to go ahead and plant the early potatoes anyway, in the hope that by putting a black sheet over them, the soil will be kept reasonably warm and the frosts will be over by the time they come up through the soil in about a week or two. It's a risk, but if it stays cold I'll just have to invest in more cloches or a polytunnel! I've also put black sheets over the two new raised beds in order to kill off the grass, which will make digging easier.

Potatoes going in, planted 27 in all.

There are also some radishes, spinach and salad leaves growing quite slowly outside at present, due to the cold. Indoors the beans and peas have gotten quite big on the window and the Electric daisies and Quinoa have germinated. Now that it's April, there's a whole load of seeds to plant but I'm going to have to wait until we get some April temperatures!

Beans and peas waiting to be planted out

Ah well. To keep the seedlings healthy in their limited space, I've been watering them with left over tea bags, including camomile tea which is useful for limiting fungal growth (a common problem indoors with limited air flow). They seem quite healthy anyway.

During the snowy weather last week, one of our shrubs in the side garden snapped under the weight of the snow and was in a poor state, so Gavin pruned it right back and did the same to the overgrown evergreen next to it. This helped open up some space and we discovered a tree by the fence that we didn't even know we had! It was good to do this as overgrown shrubs really crowd out the light in a small garden.





This picture shows the scruffy corner where one of the overgrown shrubs had snapped in half and took a nosedive.



 And this shows the area after a some serious pruning. There's the new tree in the corner, not clear in the photo as it's quite slender and without leaves. Not sure what it is yet, but will identify it when it comes into leaf. This area could also have potential for growing some more of our edible crops, though as it's east facing it'd have to be plants that don't mind some shade.

Writing this has reminded me that I need to move some of my seedlings out of the propagators now, as they need more space.
Let's hope it gets warmer soon!