Monday 8 March 2010
Even when if it is too cold to sow seed direct there are many useful jobs you can do in the vegetable garden. Turning your compost, adding this to the raised bed, sorting out plants and planning your area is a great way to spend a sunny yet cold day.
What a glorious week of fine beautiful weather we have had. While the temperature has been struggling some mornings to pass freezing, when the sun is shining as fabulous as it has recently who cares if it is a bit chilly.
Saturday was a day of errands, so we didn’t get a ton of stuff done in the garden, but Sunday was a different story altogether. Stephen and I were up at the crack of dawn and straight out into our little oasis.
One job that hadn’t been done for a year was turning the compost. Unfortunately we don’t have one of those posh compost rotating bins so we just emptied the whole thing into the wheel barrow, used what we wanted for the vegetable garden and put the rest back in. One point to note while doing this exercise - those recyclable bags that you can buy from up-market grocery stores that you pop your vegetable peelings in aren’t really that bio degradable, the one I put in a year ago was still there, almost fully intact. A slightly smelly job, but well worth the effort. As it was a bit too cold to sow some of our seeds direct, such as the radishes and seed potatoes I opted to sow another batch of sweet peas, this time some Mr Fothergill’s Tall Mixed we got free from the Gardeners World magazine. These are not in the study/hot house and should see germination in a couple of weeks.
We bought a vast amount of summer bulbs, tubers and plants a couple of weeks ago from Homebase and took advantage of their money saving offers of 3 for 2 etc, so with a variety of dahlia’s, gladioli, red hot pokers and lupins we set about planning and planting the flower bed. The ground was a bit compact from when we last worked the earth so we dug it over again and loosened the compacted soil, and planted what I hope will be a glorious display of colour. It was lovely to see our little visitor – the robin shoot down into the garden as soon as we started working; they really are a gardeners best friend. While I was digging a hole for some alliums Stephen shouted at me to watch my step as right by my foot was Mrs Frog, who looked like she was full of spawn. We carefully put her back into the pond, but not before taking a picture – great one isn’t it. Sadly the robin didn’t hang around for a photo.
2 comments:
It's great to have the weather to finally be able to get out in the garden. Your flower border should look lovely and colourful in the summer. It's lovely to have lots of wildlife around, they should give you lots of help in clearing the garden of pests.
Hello! I stumbled into your blog today because I have been looking for Londoners to share hints and experiences with about vegetable growing. I live in Borehamwood and am now entering my third year of vegetable growing. I take the "if it doesn't produce food, I am not growing it" approach. I grow my vegetables on raised beds and containers. I have garlic and onions in the beds planted last summer, am chitting my potatoes and have just sown tomatoes and aubergine last weekend.
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