The seasons, they are a turnin'.

It’s been pretty undeniable that spring has been coming, and as daffodils are now about, they trumpet it’s arrival like tiny yellow heralds. During the week I spent a lot of one particularly sunny day at work thinking how much better it would be if I could just be at home, hanging out washing and enjoying the actual nice weather by being in the garden rather than waiting for whatever dubious weather was being forecast for the weekend at the time. 

A few weekends a go I managed to make a start on the border in the back garden, a full wheelie bin and a whole heap of scratches later and I’d cleared about half of it, and discovered two rose bushes (one had a tag still attached so I know what to expect) and some daffodils ready to flower. I’ve also had a man in to drastically cut back the giant buddleia that have been over shadowing the entire garden (and the bloody things keep popping up all over the place).  

Yeah, that fence needs repainting.

A couple of weeks later, and importantly a green bin collection later, and I’ve managed to finish clearing the massive tangle of bramble and honeysuckle that was growing. Another surprise rosebush was hiding underneath, and even better, an apple tree! Not the biggest tree, but hopefully if I can keep the climbers under control it’ll have a bit more room to grow and produce more than the single apple that I found rotting underneath it.

An actual apple tree was completely covered in honeysuckle and brambles.

Next step is to buy some border edging and a giant bag of topsoil, and I’ll be a happy bunny. The lawn needs a mow and some holes need seeding as it has gone a bit bare where it didn’t get a lot of sun light, but it’s all feeling manageable again, which it didn’t during the week.

For Christmas I got the Otter Farm “The New Kitchen Garden” book, and although I’d had a look through at the different plants I hadn’t read the introduction. Mark Diacono, the author, talks about making your garden work for you, to grow things that actually get you excited, that you want to eat, and only require the time you have spare to give them. I’d been feeling a bit down before I read it, but afterwards I felt better about the garden. I’ve decided to grow some weird and wonderfuls this year, I may still grow carrots (although rainbow ones, obviously) and peas, but I don’t need to grow these as they also come from shops, and I'm not aiming for self sufficiency . Odd squashes, tomatillos, and unusual herbs don’t come from the shops how ever, and they’ll have a space in the veg beds. Also going a bit out there and trying melons. Not really what you expect to find in the fens, and maybe they won’t work, but then what if they do… ?

Not much now, but will soon be brimming with more small black trays.

I also received at Christmas what the box describes as a “pop up cloche” but when I set it up this morning it’s a mini green house (I knew it was 1mx1m when I asked for it, but the size is still surprising). And now it’s got a handful of seed trays in it, a few herbs and veg that I had seeds for from last year, and flowers I never even opened as I did nothing with the garden last year. My plan to have a D&D garden may not be realised, I have some Black Knights and Goblins but other than Snap dragons I’m running out of suitably named plants, but I will have plenty of flowers for the butterflies now I’ve put a serious dent in the buddleias.

Yellow!