Easter Weekend

To be honest its not been much of a weekend for the garden. Really heavy rain leading up to Easter weekend and continuing until Sunday meant the garden was a bog until today, Easter Monday. Finally today we had a nice drying wind and I managed to get out and do some of the jobs I had planned.

We bought a couple of climbing roses so they got planted against the trellis. (David Austin Falstaff) I'm hoping we can keep them pruned sufficiently to stop them catching the worst of the winter winds and bringing the trellis down next year!!

I've planted out further additions to the soft fruit area .... four gooseberry bushes (Hinnomaki Green) which I'm hoping will provide enough fruit for regular gooseberry crumble next year. They say they wont fruit until then but secretly I'm hoping we'll get a small taster of future bounty .... enough for one pie!!

I've planted out the broad bean plants that I brought on in the propagator and then the greenhouse. They were starting to get a bit too tall so they've gone straight outside, after a few days of hardening off. I'm hoping that neither the wind so, frost will get them otherwise I'll have to plant more seed and run the risk of being second to Mr Welch in the annual broad bean race.

I bought a tray of spring cabbages a week or so ago that were also getting a bit pot bound so they have also been planted out under some netting to keep the pesky pigeons off.

I planted some lettuces in the greenhouse. a few weeks ago. I have now put a few of these out in the new raised bed under some old cloches that I really thought were ready for the dustbin but which I managed to rescue for yet another year with some good old duct tape. I've had them for 20 years I reckon!! There's also room for a dozen Pak Choi seedlings that were also in the greenhouse. I'm hoping the cloches will keep the frost off these tender little plants for the next few weeks!! I've also planted half a dozen in the bed in the greenhouse - Nick likes it so it would be good to have some early!


So that's the deal for the weekend. Not a great deal done but but some progress made. i had wanted to plant half a row of beetroot and carrots but unfortunately when I checked in the box I found I hadn't bought anyseed and there was none left from last year. in fairness, i also found that someone had stolen most of my wine gums, again!!