At last we have passed the Spring Equinox and this weekend will put the clocks forward which will give us all a precious extra hour of light at the end of the day to spend in the garden. The ground has been dug over, all of our structures have been cleaned and the garden is ready for growing. A whole new season lies before us and we can’t wait!
We are continuing to prick out seedlings in the greenhouse and this week it is the turn of the tomato plants. They will be put into individual small pots and put back into the heated propagator with the aubergines and peppers. This week we will also be sowing more lettuces, sunflowers, spinach and chard. Hopefully it will not be many more weeks before we can take down the bubble insulation from the greenhouse windows and open up the view to the garden from within. For now, it will remain until the weather becomes a little more consistent with no threats of extreme cold weather. Keen as I am to remove the insulation, I have to remind myself of the old saying ‘Ne’er cast a clout……….’
Outside in the garden the shallots have been planted out and are nestled under a layer of fleece. Our leek and parsnips, sown a few weeks ago, are also covered with fleece and checked periodically for signs of life. Our overwintering broad beans, which looked decidedly sad after their brush with the snow, have perked up and are starting to grow. Their spring sown counterparts arecurrently hardening off in the cold frame and will be planted out in the next couple of weeks. We also have peas that are nearly ready to be planted out alongside them.
Despite the awful recent weather, we are still harvesting our winter crops. The kale is providing some good leaves, we still have a few celeriac ready for harvesting and we have a lovely supply of spinach leaves from the raised bed inside the greenhouse. We also have leeks left over from the winter crop and these will be harvested very soon before they run to flower.
In the wider gardens we are applying moss treatment to our lawns and will be scarifying them in the next couple of weeks. This week we will prune our hydrangeas. We left these with the old flower heads on whilst the severe cold weather was here to protect the new green shoots from being frosted and damaged. Now is the time for them to be removed and the plants to be tidied ready to leaf up. It’s a busy time in the garden!
