This time last week I was worried about my tomatoes. A month after sowing and still no sign, so I got Mick to pick up some more seed on his way home - "Sungold" this time. Then ,of course, i sowed them and all the original seed started germinating - i've a feeling i've been here before ;o)

It's all happening now. As a quick run down, here's what we've got so far....


Cucumber 5 germinated out of 5 Unfortunately though 3 were eaten by slugs, despit the slug
prevention gel! I have sown 3 more.
Courgette 2/2
Pumpkin 1/1
Squash 1/1
Garlic chive 0/12
Parsley 0/12
Brussels 14/22 Although i would say only 2 of the seedlings look healthy - not quite sure what the problem is with the others.
Leeks 30/50 Sowed 2 to a pot and in most pots both have germinated
Tomatoes 3/16
Carrot 2/6
Beetroot 0/11 One set i soaked before sowing to (hopefully) aid germination
French Bean 5/6
Pea 22/29
Sweetcorn 6/9
Lettuce 2/11 plus the tray of cut and come again which i have thinned a little and is doing really well.

We were really busy throughout the Bank Holiday weekend getting the beds sorted and now have two ready for planting up this weekend.

I think I will plant out the courgettes/pumpkin/squash under fleece as they are getting a bit leggy. It's worth the risk as they are so fast growing but I'd better get the copper rings out to protect them from the slugs!

I have been given 4 tomato plants from my neighbour (after hearing my tales of woe over the non germination!) so looks like we won't be short ;o)

Other exciting news is the strawberries in the green house are in flower. This was an experiment really as we had to get rid of some of our plants so i just put them in pots in the greenhouse. I hadn't expected them to do very well, but so far at least they seem to be loving it :o)

On a rather less exciting note we have a wasp's nest right in front of the shed door...

I've been so busy in the garden of late that come the evening i am too tired to blog my achievements!

So as a summary here is what i have been up to the past week:

Sowed peas, sweetcorn, lettuce, courgette, pumpkin, squash, beetroot, carrot, French bean, cucumber, garlic chives and parsley... think that's it.

9 of my Brussels seeds have now germinated and 3 of the leeks. No sign of the tomatoes yet though.

Mick bought me one of those temporary greenhouses and has put it up on Bed 5.

It should prove useful - as long as it doesn't blow away in all this wind!

I've moved my climbing rose which has been in one of the veg beds since i moved it when the builders started their work last spring. I've put it outside the extension, in the new bed, so we can see it from the kitchen/diner. I also moved the echinacea here. Not sure if this will upset it's flowering but i needed my veg beds back! Next task is to move all the giant snowdrops (???) and Lily of the Valley once flowering is over as they are taking up too much space in Bed 5.

I guess i got excited too soon :o( It has gone really cold again. We had torrential hailstorms and snow here today!!!
On the plus side my cut and come again lettuce has emerged - now safely tucked up in the warmth of the mini greenhouse.

I didn't bother sowing anything this weekend but did plant up a nice pot for the front step of primroses and heathers. Mick managed to get another of the raised beds finished.

Springs almost here, the butterflies are out!

Well i have been busy in the garden since i last posted but just never got around to blogging it!

My seeds have arrived and i have sown some already, but only in the little greenhouse. I have leeks, Brussels sprouts and tomatoes. I have also sown a tray of cut and come again lettuce to keep on the patio. A pack I bought on a whim that is supposed to be ready in 3 weeks so we'll see!

Mick was busy in the garden at the weekend and has put together the first of my new raised beds. It's looking good :o) I think we will need a bit more topsoil though.
I spent my time sorting out the very neglected fruit bed. Apparently you are supposed to get new strawberry plants every two years, or something like that. Well we've been here nearly five years and have the same ones the previous owners put in. They still seem to crop ok, despite the fact i never even take the runners off. So anyway, i decided to thin them out a bit so *hopefully* if i've done it right we should get a bumper crop this year....Just incase it all goes wrong i bought some new plants too but will keep these on the patio for the time being. I'm still unsure whether or not you are supposed to remove the flowers in their first year, i've read mixed things about this so will chance it and not bother ;o)


The new bed outside the extension is looking very springlike...

Primroses just shout *spring is here!* to me.

The frogs have been busy too...

Lots of frogspawn!

The sleepers arrived on Friday for the new raised beds in the vegetable garden. They look ok, i think they will do the job well.



We had the fun of moving them from the front to the back of the house, very heavy they were too.


The bulbs i planted before Christmas in the bed behind the new extension and pots on the patio all seem to have poked their heads through. It's very exciting!


I ordered my veg seed at the weekend too so double excitment :o) It will be an incentive for us to get a wriggle on with sorting out those raised beds.

I had planned to ditch this blog and just lump the garden stuff in with everything else but i think it's maybe time to ressurect it. We are going to be very busy this year, there is so much to do. Last year the garden was pretty much left to ramble as we were having building work done to the back and side of the house, making access difficult. So basically the garden is a huge mess!

We've started by ordering some sleepers to replaced the crumbled brick of the raised beds in the veggie garden - something that is long overdue. Mick was going to build new brick ones but having weighed up how much time it would take him we decided sleepers were the way to go. They are unused pressure treated ones, not the kind covered in creosote!

So now i just need to decide what we are going to grow :o)

Picked out first strawberry today :o) A high in a month of gardening lows - my seedlings were massacred by slugs :o(

I planted some more peas on Monday as none of the others i planted appeared to have come up. Then i noticed at least 3 as i was raking over the ground [sigh]. Still, i have done it properly this time and planted them in a trough. Last time i used the dibber and think i ended up sowing them too deep.

I have also planted my first row of French Beans, under the mini polytunnel, in case we have a late frost.

Feel like i am so behind already. Would have been nice to get out today, as it's fine, but dd is unwell and fast asleep at the mo.

Garlic is doing nicely 

Planted my peas at the weekend. I'm sure it is earlier than I normally plant them but then it is unusual for me to be ahead of schedule so I could be wrong! Anyway, i have planted one row and will plant another one later on. Can't remember the variety but its not one i have grown before.

The onions have come up and so have the lettuces though they look to have been nibbled a bit :o( Oh, and the tadpoles have hatched!

Well, the frogspawn is in the pond so it must be time to start blogging again.

Went to the garden centre to stock up on a few seeds i was missing and ended up buying one of those mini greenhouses. I *should* have had a proper greenhouse by now but what with the house alterations and one thing and another it had been postponed yet again. Anyway i'm pleased with my mini one and it is surprising how much stuff you can get in it!

Spent Saturday doing all the tidying we should have done back end of last year and mick cut the lawns. We look almost respectable now ;o)

In the veg garden...


Vegetable Plot


Sunday, i planted the onion sets that we got several weeks ago. These are in the bottom end of bed 2. The top end of bed 2 has the garlic that mick planted a while ago. I also managed to squeeze a row each of Salad Onions (White Lisbon), Cos Lettuce (Remus RZ) and Mixed Salad leaves into this bed - oh and some Nasteriums to (hopefully) stop the blackfly attacking my veg (worked last year, so fingers crossed).

We prepared Bed 1 for the peas and beans by puting the canes and netting up. I have also got a small poly tunnel here as i am hoping to plant some early beans. I'm doing French beans (Neckar Queen) as in previous years as they are lovely. Can't decide if to bother with runners. I have loads of seed saved from last year but we didn't like them as much as the French Beans so they just ended up in the freezer. Fair enough you might say but we didn't really enjoy them as they were rather stringy - partly because they hadn't been picked soon enough i think.


Beds 1 and 2

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.

Well what a long time since my last post!
BIL sent us loads of garlic in with Millie's birthday present so i planted it today. Goodness knows whether or not it will survive. The planting conditions were less than perfect (ie it wasn't quite sub-zero but not far off) TBH, for all i know that may be ideal, i have never planted it this time of year before. I planted 49 cloves in total so now we will just have to wait and see.

Quick update on the pond...
Well after several weeks of it looking rather dodgy, loads of algae etc the water is now crystal clear. Can't wait for the tadpoles in spring, we will get a much better view than last time.

the rest of the garden is a complete mess still. I haven't even planted a single bulb and time is running out!

Finished
Ok so it may not look that impressive but once the plants become established it will be fine...we hope.


Frogs seem to be quite happy though

Yay! Yay! Yay! We got the pond cleared. i say *we* but actually DP did most of it as it was REALLY hard work and i have weedy arms.


Hard at work

I don't think the Irises could ever have been thinned out before as they had taken over the majority of the pond. Their root system alone was about 15cm deep and had formed a thick matt over the base. Beneath that was a layer of stinky sludge, so the pond turned out to be a good foot deeper than we thought! We decided to remove all the irises (as it was easier) and we have hacked a few off to put back in. We will also get a few other plants now that we have the space - it looks about 3 times the size now!!! DP had to be very careful as there were so many frogs in there and we saw at least 3 baby ones.


Difficult to tell i know, but the baby frog above it is about 2-3cm long

We created a "beach" area, so the frogs can get in and out, with some pebbles as there wasn't one before (well they didn't need one as the roots made it much more shallow.) and we replaced the "frog house" so they have some shelter. Now we just need to replace the vegetation as soon as we can and put the water snails back and it will all be lovely :o)