mid April

Vegetables

A lot has been happening over the last week or two. Last weekend we planted the potatoes, at Easter as tradition dictates: Arran Pilot (first early), Charlotte (second early), Pink Fir Apple (maincrop). We also planted a couple of rows of samples given to us by Emma: eight Ratte, five Belle de Fontenay, and six Rooster. All these went into the new bed in the field between the raspberry rows where there will eventually be rhubarb, and in the new lower half of the cutting bed where there will eventually be flowers.

The first sowing of broad beans, peas and mangetout are coming along well in the greenhouse and will soon need to be planted out. I have also sown carrots (just showing today), celeriac (no sign) and beetroot (up and growing strongly). Yesterday I sowed chard and a couple of days ago two sorts of cabbage, Greyhound and Calibos. A couple of weeks ago I sowed some Little Gem lettuce and some mixed salad leaves and they are growing quite strongly.

Ian has sowed more tomatoes this week, together with cucumber and courgettes. So far there is very little outside except for the garlic and onions, all growing well.

I need to weed and rake the slice of the cutting garden which will have to take root veg. There is just no room in the kitchen garden.

Side garden

I have planted out the three fennel plants that I grew from our own seed, sown in October of last year and overwintered in the greenhouse. They are in the sunnier of the two beds in the side garden. I also planted out seven dianthus, also grown from seed and looking a bit sad and straggly having been in the coldframe for a couple of months, three pulsatilla and three more white foxgloves. Into there also went a phlomis from Great Dixter and three eremurus.

In the shady bed went the other three eremurus, three smyrnium perfoliatum , five arum creticum (these last two also from Great Dixter) and the other three pulsatilla. I know the eremurus really like full sun, but there is sun for a fair part of the day and just not enough room in the other bed for all of them.

The side garden is starting to look a bit more garden like now, although still with patches of bare soil. All these plants sound great but they are tiny! Once the alchemilla and the hardy geraniums have filled out it will be better. The grass seed on the resown lawn is a bit hopeless. Perhaps it will need to be done again.

The side garden

Further progress on the side garden today. I planted out 12 white foxgloves and lifted and moved 8 alchemilla mollis from the gravel in front of the house to the edges of the new bed. I also planted out two new hardy geraniums from Crug Farm Plants. Shamefacedly I have to admit that I don't know the varieties as I have had these in pots for about a year and have lost the labels.

The side garden is still looking empty but not quite as desolate as last month. I still have some potted tulips to plant out and some eremurus later in April. I suspect the eremurus will be happier in the other bed. This one is likely to be too shady but I have so many I will give it a go. It is a pain to plant things out in here at the moment. The soil as always here is stony and shallow. I wonder how much of what has gone in will survive.

In the greenhouse I sowed Clary and Orlaya Grandiflora, both hardy annuals. I also sowed some carrots and celeriac in guttering which, perhaps surprisingly, worked well last year.

A packed afternoon

This is the time of year when it all starts again, that sense when you walk round the garden that there is so much to do and you could be out there all day.

This afternoon I sowed some sweetpeas in the greenhouse, split snowdrops for nearly three hours and began planting out the new bed in the side garden. I have so many white foxgloves that there are 12 out there already and loads still to put in. The soil is only about six or seven inches deep though, stony as always round here and laid on a bed of rock. Will my bed grow? I hope so. I have tried really hard to avoid the temptation to grow things I love which need moisture and rich soil and to focus on the kind of plants which I know thrive here. However this is my first attempt at making a bed which is in sun for the morning and then in shade for the rest of the day. Most of the beds here are in full sun and the oriental poppies, lavender and penstemons which thrive in them are not likely to be happy in half shade. The hellebores seem to be ok in the other bed so I have risked quite a number of other hybrids. I must remember that they should be fed after they have finished flowering and again in September. There are hardy geraniums and some more to move and put in. There are lots of self seeded alchemilla mollis in front of the house which I shall lift and move to the new bed.

The Side Garden

For the last eight months or so the side garden has been a building site as the old stone utility building has been rebuilt with its corner further away from the ancient yew tree. New drains had to be laid and the small lawn was dug up. We lifted a lot of plants from the main flower bed and kept them in old potting compost bags ready for replanting when the garden came back into its own.



It is still far from finished. The grass needs to be reseeded, paths need to be laid and a piece of trellis erected to hide the oil tank for the cottage. It is not currently a lovely spot. It is also not a piece of garden that will be easy to create: the soil is stony and thin, some of the garden gets sun for most of the day but some is in shade for a good while. In the winter the wind is funnelled past the house.



In its favour: the utility is a stone building under a slate roof and you enter the garden by walking under a really noble yew tree; one boundary is a ramshackle stone wall topped by a hornbeam hedge, one boundary is a tumbledown wall and one is a thick, properly disciplined Leyandii hedge. There is a glorious pink rhododendron which has singlehandedly cured me of my dislike of rhododendrons and a Viburnum bodnantense which is lovely but needs a bit of restorative pruning. Many plants just won't grow here at all but there are some already that will: oriental poppies, day lilies, hardy geraniums and crocosmia Lucifer and some daffodils. There are snowdrops along the bottom of the horbeam hedge and wall.



This makes it sound rather more prepossessing that it actually is. At the moment it looks bare, stone filled and totally unpromising.



I have made another big bed, quadrupling what was a narrow bed, perhaps four foot wide, which I dug out and treated with manure a couple of years ago. That strip has been fertile enough to support foxgloves and penstemons so my hope is that with a little cosseting with compost and watering in the first season and careful plant choice, I might be able to create something which will last and look beautiful from the kitchen window.

This is the new bed, at the end of February, to prove the unprepossessing point! The blue thing at the back is a small tree fern under its winter protection.

Plants to go in:

Euonymous Fortuneii Emerald and Gold (H 4 ft, S 5ft 6ins)

Snakes head Fritillaries (7)

Pulmonaria Blue Ensign

Pulmonaria Diana Clare (2)

Euphorbia martini (2)

5 Hellebore orientalis, 4 single, 1 double

another five white foxgloves