It’s that time of year when gardeners are full of hope and possibilities. Trays of young seedlings
are bursting into life and the Great British Grow off has started.
But seriously folks, Spring is a wonderful time when life just seems to ooze over into abundance and after the sleepiness of Winter, quite rightly so.
Loraine has moved up into full production in the growing room and not only are there seedlings everywhere, she has already been busy planting in our new beds laid down last year in the Autumn.
Part of the new vegetable beds with onions and garlic from Autumn 2019.
Seeing that this will be our first full year in The Stables, excitement is already high and we are seeing so many things bursting into life we do not know where to look first. The trees around the sand-ring are budding with new leaves and the pussy willow is already flowering. Hawthorns have burst their new buds and will soon be green and lush in the new year's sunshine and there are so many hollyhocks we cannot count them.
The pussy willow is blooming now, not so good for those who suffer from hay fever!
In the orchard the fruit and nut trees are waking up and producing the new season's growth, although we had the incident with the pony in November, most of the trees seem to be recovering with only two showing no signs of growth as yet. The Elder trees are forming their flower heads and will soon be resplendent in their white canopy which seems to invigorate our bird population who have gone into full song and are gathering materials to make their nests for this year. We have been putting out lots of wool packing from our deliveries and they are making good use of it to line their nests for the new babies when they arrive fairly soon.
Redcurrant bushes.
Our fruit bushes are bursting with new growth and at present, we have 3 large cultivated blackberry plants in a long bed. Next to them are 4 redcurrant plants all of which are budding. Then comes the blackcurrant plants of which there are 3 at present but when we came back from a shopping trip a while back we found 6 new plants which someone had dropped off on our doorstep and we still do not know who put them there!
We will bring this on in pots this year and plant them with the others in the autumn. Alongside the blackberries, we have our first row of Autumn raspberries which have not woken up yet but will no doubt make an appearance soon.
In our vegetable beds, Loraine has planted up Onion and shallot sets, radishes and lettuce, cauliflower and cabbages, carrots and beetroot, and more to come. The broad beans from last Autumns planting are growing strong and will soon flower. The onions from last year will soon put on growth for an early crop although the late planting of peas was not as successful as we hoped there are some that made it.
Part of the new vegetable beds built in Autumn 2019.
To save space in the vegetable beds for this year, we have put our potatoes in bags and pots and will test how they grow. If they do well, we may grow them this way each year as the planting is considerably easier as will be the cropping. We have also put our new strawberry plants into pots and will be growing them on the sand-ring next to the potatoes. In the Autumn we hope to transplant them and their off-shoots into new beds when we order more compost.
Potatoes in sacks and pots should be coming through very soon.
The strawberries are 3 to a pot which should give a good crop this year.
Next to arrive will be the Asparagus which are due from the nursery this month (April), and as the beds are ready for them they should be easy to pop straight in. We have 3 varieties to plant, 10 of each, and will put them in 10 to a row. We shall not be able to harvest this year though and will have to wait until 2021 for our first harvest of these wonderful vegetables.
NB. Update! We have just found out that the person who left the Blackcurrant plants was one of our new neighbours, Simon, who also works for the local St.Stephen council and tends the graveyard next door to us.
What a kind gesture.