The weather has been brilliant the last week, very warm and sunny, it feels like summer rather than spring. We saw the first swallows yesterday but so far no sound of the cuckoo. Everything is growing so fast in the garden you can almost see the plants emerging. Easter was spent mainly in the garden, the main crop potatoes are now planted, the first earlies are well up and have had their first earthing up,
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| First asparagus shoots. |
even the asparagus has pushed it's first shoots up. Sunday we went to a plant swap, exchanging two types of seed potatoes, spare strawberry plants and sweet pea plants for more snowdrops, 'now in the green', Verbascum (mullein) and a twisted willow tree. It was a well attended event, with lots of like minded people there.
Over the weekend I found time to make our hot cross buns
and scotch eggs,
they made a very nice evening meal served with purple sprouting broccoli and asparagus, not ours I'm afraid, that will be a couple more weeks before it's ready.
Most of this seasons seeds are now planted, either in the garden or in modules for the more tender things, ready to plant out when there is no longer danger of frost.
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| Daffodils. |
The flower gardens are looking very colourful now with most of the spring bulbs blooming, it wont be long before the first summer flowers appear, they all seen to have survived the winter. A few more photos of the spring flowers.
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| A very pretty bulb but I can't remember it's name. |
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| A special dwarf tulip. it's highly perfumed. |
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| Toad lily, it's beautiful and has a wonderful scent. |
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| Tete a Tete. |
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| Fritillary's in bloom. |
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| More daffodils. |
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| Hellebores and blue anemones. |
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| Yet more perfume. |
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| A blue version of the bulb I can't remember the name of. |
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| Just coming into bloom. |
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| Our eldest and youngest, Freddy the kitten on top, Tommy being sat upon, he's twelve. |
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| Part of the rockery. |
I wish there was "Blog Smell" so i could enjoy your garden as well. Im at the opposite end and planting bulbs this weekend. Your scotch eggs look so yummy. Its been ages since i had one.
ReplyDeleteThey are simple to make Lynda and far nicer than bought ones. The perfume from the various bulbs is lovely, I'm so glad I took time when selecting what to plant.
DeleteEverything looks beautiful!
ReplyDeleteHave you any opinions on Seedaholic? I see they´re in Ireland. The list of heritage seeds looks interesting. http://www.seedaholic.com/about-seedaholic
I had not heard of them Coco so I phoned a friend, she say's they are a great company to deal with and the seeds are very good quality. I normally get my seeds from the Organic gardening catalogue or from the Organic Centre, here in Ireland but 'Seedaholic' have a far better range of seeds and they are cheaper, I will use them next year.
DeleteAhhh! You're back! I was a bit worried after your 'gremlins' post and a few days' silence. Good to hear from you again.
ReplyDeleteWe are too busy with the garden to blog more than once a week Matt.
DeleteLovely photos Anne, such a cute photo of the cats :)
ReplyDeleteI love this time of year Chickpea, you can never be sure what is going to come up. Tommy the oldest cat has always loved kittens, he is so patient with them and even at his age love to play with them.
DeleteGreat blog , looking forward to reading the posts , newbie gardener here on a massive garden challenge in the west of Ireland, enjoying all the lovely weather today , trying to find the best place to buy some black plastic need a good bit to cover a large area we cleared yesterday, if you know where is the best place to buy some it would be great.Happy Days Kathy
ReplyDeleteHi Kathy and welcome. The best place to buy black plastic is in farmers stores such as Connaught Gold, now called Aurivo. Ask for silage covers, they come in a variety of sizes Just let me know if you have a problem finding what you need.
ReplyDeleteIs Asparagus easy to grow? It's something we have thought about as I much prefer the green fresh asparagus to the bland mushy bottled white ones they sell here. I love the idea of a plant swap...
ReplyDeleteWe used to pick wild asparagus when we lived in Catalonia, it grew all over the place and was highly sort after in farmers markets, I seem to think the wild was pickable in March but we never found it in Galicia.
ReplyDeleteTo grow asparagus you need to prepare your bed in the autumn, lots of instructions on the internet. you buy in the crowns around March, you can buy 1- 2 or 3 year old crowns, one year old is the cheapest, the crowns must not dry out so they have to be planted as soon as you get them. Year 1 they get established, year 2 they should give lots of fern like fronds which puts the strength into the crowns, year three you can cut the spears, always cut about 1 inch below ground. Feed the crowns every autumn with well rotted manure and the asparagus bed should keep producing for well over twenty years. If your land is heavy plant them on ridges rather than in a trench as they don't like wet soggy soil. You can grow from seed butt I don't know much about this, we bought , or rather were given the crowns which had been grown from seed.
We both love asparagus but had never grown it before as we always knew that we would move again from wherever we were, but now we are in our forever home so we decided the time was right. I guess the plants will outlive us!