My Progress at the Weekend

Ah. That's more like it. A day like that, every weekend, would make me very happy. It was so warm and sunny in the garden, I got mild sunburn! I never even thought to put sunscreen on. Go figure, when two (three?) weeks ago it was snowing.

First up was some serious weeding of the left border. And some admiring of my tulips! They opened darker than I imagined, but I'm very happy with them.

I may possibly consider re-siting them to the back border next year however, as sitting next to the round dalek that is the compost bin doesn't really do them justice. And I'm not sure if that lovely Choisya is being a bit stunted in it's growth surrounded by those lovelies. Or perhaps it just grows slowly. Time will tell!





Apart from the normal weeds, I am plagued by these, which come from these seeds off the tree at the back (not in our garden, just behind). They are everywhere, left, right, centre. I guess that's how forests grow!

Things are coming along nicely on the left. The Delphiniumhas a lovely big flower coming already, the Geraniums are about to pop, and although the Lady's Mantle (alchemilla mollis) isn't as large and spreading as I had hoped in it's second year, (having grown them before), I'm sure with some sunshine it will grow, and hopefully spread.

And my gorgeous rose has some buds! The Euphorbia looks fantastic as well. The support you see was an absolute find. If it did not have that, the whole think would be sprawled on the ground like it was last year. Perhaps that's how it managed to self-seed so much (do you see? I haven't had the heart to take all of those out. I'd kind of like to see how that pans out) but it was something of a mess. I am all for plant supports like this. The delphinium has one as well. All of these can be moved up as the plant grows taller. I'm sold!

Left border duly weeded, it was time to tackle the next big but satisfying job - cutting the grass.

There's my baby there (the lawnmower, I mean), having just done it's job.

In the meantime, though, I went off to the garden centre to get that job done. But no! Bad news, no seed potatoes left! Now, when I was watching GW on Friday evening, Joe Swift, one of the presenters had just put his maincrop potatoes down this week. The lady at the garden centre was a bit sniffy and said "well, it's a bit late..." Hmph. Alan Titchmarsh in the brilliant The Kitchen Gardener says April is fine for maincrop.

I bought my few bits a pieces there (more supports!) and was making the trek home. First, I passed an outdoor flower stall, which also sells plants - oh, very naughty, I bought two peonies (two for a fiver!).

I love peonies! The problem is I have no place to put them yet as they are intended for the back. Yikes. I think I shall put them in some large-ish pots for the time being until such time as the ground is ready for them.

If I'm realistic I'm not going to be planting up the back now until October. I mean, look at it. And summer is not the time to be laying a border, in my experience. No, October is the target.

Then I thought perhaps I'd just pop into my 99p Store. Do not ignore your local 99p Store. Result! Four bags of seed potatoes, 8 in each, for 99 pence each, I think I went a bit nuts as that's 32 seed potatoes each producing a bunch (this is my first time growing potatoes so I'm not sure about the results of a crop); I could be having a right glut in the autumn ... that's if I can manage fit them all in! We'll see.


Grass cut, smell to die for. If next weekend is fair, I believe the lawn needs some TLC in the form of a "weed and feed", but that's not looking too bad for the first cut after a winter with no sun.



I tackled the much-talked-about vegetable patch too, but I believe I will save that for the next post. Too much to share all at once!

I'm pretty happy with what I did, though. I shall enlighten you very soon!

My hopes for the weekend

I think I can safely say now, given the weather forecasts on the radio, television and internet over the last couple of days, that the weekend will be fair, at least tomorrow. A proper, sunny, spring day. Yahoo!

So what I mean to do is the following:

Cut the grass. Mmmmm, can you smell it now? I can't wait for that. I think I will be hearing quite a few lawnmowers tomorrow!




Weed the borders. The plants are doing wonderfully well, and the tulips are about to pop. And the weeds are copious!



The tulips worried me a bit to be honest, as they were coming above ground since January. That surprised me very much, as that seemed so early. But true to what was promised on the packet, they seem to be ready to bloom, with no snow damage, thankfully. I thought it should be April/May, and it seems that is correct. I love the fact that the heads turn the colour before the actual bloom. Tulip bulbs are new to me.



This was the idea, so I don't think we're to far off. There were about 20 bulbs down, and some of the plants got a little bit trampled when husband was repairing that fence panel. Hey, it happens. Can't be too precious about these plants, and they are very hardy souls after all. Surprisingly so!

I have actually seen other people's tulips blooming (who else ogles other people's front gardens on a regular basis?) but I do realise now, the sun's traverse of my garden.


There is no denying, I have a north-facing garden. Now that I have had a chance to track the sun over a year, I know that we lose the sun almost completely in October, and it comes back late February, at least at the back. The right border, with the herbs (and soon to be vegetables) does get at least an hour of sun down the side through the year which was good planning, even if it wasn't intentional! I wanted the herbs to be close to the house so I could pop out and clip them for cooking. Well thank goodness, that worked out well.

The left border has recently begun to get the morning sun, as it's high enough over the houses to do what it does all summer long - half the day for the left, half the day for the right. But in the corner on the left border, it has taken a long time, and only recently has really had some proper sun (when there is sun!). It's quite sodden there, and also that is where the compost bin sits (and hello, there's Blackie on top).



I'm seriously thinking of re-siting the bin to get more sun as it needs the warmth to generate all that lovely, lovely compost I so dearly want to use when it is finally generated. A re-think there is needed, and I shall keep you posted.

Third thing will be to finally, finally, turn over the vegetable patch and plant onions (which I have), potatoes (which I have yet to buy, but will do Saturday morning from my local garden centre - goodness what a busy day that is going to be!) and the blackberries.




I've just had an inspirational, hour-long "Gardener's World" on the BBC to get me motivated. During which, of course, I took notes!

I shall be back with you all on Sunday, when it's supposed to rain, again ... but maybe that's a good thing for all I plan to do on Saturday!