I dunno, when i *do* finally get around to doing some gardening i forget to blog it!!!

I did manage to get my French beans in (finally) i planted the same last year (Neckar Queen knows whether it will work or not! and also some something Borlotta, i'v chucked the packet now but it is basically a borlotti type bean that you can either grow and eat as a French bean or dry the beans and use as borlotti. Don't know if they will do any good as they really should have been in about a month ago but we'll see.

I also planted (late) some cucumber and a butternut squash, both of which have germinated but are a long way behind the courgettes which i have already started harvesting

what the courgettes looked like a couple of weeks ago!

The sweetcorn and runners are also coming along nicely and the garlic is almost ready for harvesting

runners and sweetcorn a couple of weeks ago!

This was the first raspberry to ripen..

but we have had quite a few since this was taken

I tidied up the herb beds yesterday. Dug up all last years parsley as it had all gone to seed and discovered, once i'd got rid of the weeds, that some of this years parsley and coriander *had* germinated after all! i also found that i had a dill plant that must have self seeded last year, which was a nice surprise.

I shall try and post some updated photos tomorrow.

Bit of a sad note to finish on but since i last posted we have found two dead frogs in our pond, that makes three in total this year!!! We think it is likely that it is due to this virus as one of the frogs has sores on its legs and looked emaciated the other had haemmoraged(sp?)by the look of it :o( Really hope we don't lose any more.

Well i have been doing bits in the garden but have been so tired that i haven't achieved half of what i should have by this time.

I have planted sweetcorn and runner beans. This year i planted them together, the idea being that the sweetcorn will provide support for the beans. We'll see if it works.

I planted three types of courgettes, same as last year as that is what i had, Tando di Nizza (round variety, heavy cropping), Gold Rush (yellow variety) and Defender (standard green). I thinned out the extras yesterday and discovered a couple of hours later that one had been pulled up, grrr. Have replanted it but don't know if it will survive.

DP has been digging in some manure for me this afternoon, so as to improve the soil structure. I haven't gotten around to planting my French beans yet. It is a bit late now but i will plant them this week and hope for the best.

The parsley (italian giant) i planted has come up in patches but i see no sign of the coriander or the russian tarragon, which is annoying.

We have loads of apples on one of the apple trees (and none on the other). The most we have had in previous years has been a grand total of three, so i'm really pleased! I just hope they survive as the tree has been attacked very badly by aphids. I have been away the past week and so wasn't ables to tackle the problem in time. Have had to resort to spraying with soapy water as there were far too many to hand pick.


Another froggie. He doesn't look it here but he is only about 1.5cms long! V cute.

Time for an update i think.

I have actually been quite busy in the garden the past few weeks but keep forgetting to blog so here goes....

We have tidied up the front garden and it now looks quite respectable. Some of the larkspur i sowed last year has come up and i sowed some more. I transplanted the lavender seedlings i rescued from between the paviong slabs last summer to the front also.

In the back garden we have sowed calendula, clarkia, cornflowers and nastertiums(sp?). I have planted a few allium bulbs that i should have done ages ago, most were rotten but a couple seem to be coming up.

I have tidied the herb garden and sowed more flat leaf parsley, some coriander and some tarragon. Whether or not they germinate remains to be seen but dd seems to be doing her best to prevent it buy trampling over them and digging them up!


The newly tidied (though you wouldn't know it) herb garden

We haven't sowed any veg yet but have been preparing the beds as best we can (considering they are falling apart). Have just been digging out the worst of the weeds, digging *in* the rest and applying manure.

The tadpoles are now about an inch long and the water in the pond is a lot less green than it was, think the tadpoles have helped a lot by eating lots of the algae.

Oh and we are getting a greenhouse but will probably wait until later in the year, so very excited about that.

Good News and Bad...

First the bad...I was investigating the frogspawn in the pond when i noticed a dead frog :o( I thought i had seen one in there a couple of months ago after a particularly harsh frost but when DP went to get it out he couldn't see it! It couldn't be the same one could it??? Surely it would have decomposed by now. A mystery as it *was* in the same place i'd seen it before.



The good news is that we have a newt living in the pond. DP tried taking a photo but it was a bit camera shy so i'm not sure you will be able to see anything in this pic...


I have a feeling that newts eat frogspawn. Will have to look that up.

The pond itself is looking very green which i hope is due to the change in temparature over the last couple of weeks. Obviously things are still a little unsettled since we cleared out all the extra vegetation last autumn. We obviously upset the delicate balance somewhere along the line. Oh dear.

Look!!

In case you can't tell from the photo...we have frogspawn :o) We were out in the garden yesterday as the weather was so beautiful and counted at least five pairs of frogs so thought it wouldn't be long.

Haven't planted anything yet, still busy clearing up and doing all the jobs i should have done before the onset of Winter, ho hum.

Nothing much to report but we have been in the garden today and we have done a bit of work!!!!

The garlic is coming along nicely but the rest of the veg plot looks, well...a tip. DP went out a week ago and did a lot of tidying and it *does* look much better. Still got a long way to go though.

I'm really unsure what to do about planting this year TBH. Most of the raised beds need rebuilding, due to frost damage, we are due to have an extension built (fingers crossed) this summer and i will hopefully (toes crossed) be pregnant by then also. Sooooo, i think perhaps i should keep the gardening to a minimum this year...we'll see.

On the frog front....
We have seen quite a lot. Getting ready for mating i reckon, they all seem to be pairing up. Will have to check the archive and find out when we first spotted frogspawn last year.