New Mowing Season

A month later than last year, due to no coincidences of me being available and the weather cooperating, I have managed to mow (most of) the lawn. Only the top lawn, around the bottom of the ramp, down to the kitchen garden, and around the 'pond'. The top corner is covered in wood, patio slabs, and generally too wet, still; the games lawn is too long, too large, and too daunting. I'll do it when I can.

Nevertheless, good to get started, and it looks much neater. The compost bins will now start filling up again!

Yesterday evening we pricked out the celeriac seedlings. We only want about 30-35 plants, and the seed germinated really well, again. They've grown on nicely, and the strongest looking sixty have been potted on. Given how wet and cold it still is, I doubt we'll be planting them out next week, which is the time they went out last year. I hope it warms up soon!

Another Visitor

Nothing of note or interest this weekend, sadly (more firewood stacking!), so only a photo of the last deer we spotted on the hillside. We saw another on Sunday afternoon, coming past the garden.

Another deer on the hillside (© Ian 2012)

Flowers and Fruit

Although Friday afternoon and yesterday were spent on firewood, we had a break on Friday morning (and, actually, early afternoon) and today. Friday was flowers: pricking out petunias, rudbeckia, and cineraria; sowing some herbs and miscellaneous seeds; and planting gladioli. As well as the gladioli we lifted last autumn, we also had fifty new dwarf gladioli, which are now in pots and three patches of the old cotoneaster bed. We've also put a wig-wam (bamboo and string) in that bed, with our peas/mangetout growing up it (no space in the veg beds!).

Today was even more exciting: we've laid out the location of the paths through the copse, and planted all the fruit trees we ordered last autumn. Only the quince remains. Around the (future) pond, there's our 'old' Cox, 'Stella' cherry, and plum (can't remember the variety!), and now a second cherry (Summer Sun) and pear (William Bon Chretian). An apple (Egremont Russet) is on the other side of the entrance/arch to the pond. Another pear (Beth), plum (Victoria) and two apples (James Grieve and Falstaff) are in the copse, near the front. A plan will follow, when I can digitise something...

We also finished the potato planting, by putting in the maincrop Cara and Bounty; this meant taking up the Frostie spring cabbages, and the rest of the leeks, and also means that the veg beds are now fairly full!

Vegetables Planted

Tuesday's tree felling went well. The driveway pine is down, the poplars along the road are shorn (the trunks are still standing about 3m tall), and the pines on the far side of the games lawn are down. Most of the wood still needs cutting into rings, and the trunks need dropping, but they'll pop in next week to finish that. The thinner branches and twigs have all gone through the chipper, and we now have a heap (about 6m³, at a guess) of mulch.

The view across the games lawn is much better, now: the side of the little stand was bare, where a tree had previously been felled. That's the big disadvantage of conifers, really—once they're bare, they stay bare. The borrowed view out of the garden and into the valley is good, and the birches in the field beyond break the view of the neighbours' house.

Losing the pine on the driveway has opened up the track from the front garden, and from the kitchen window; and lightened that corner of the garden. It's also functionally been necessary to remove the tree: the driveway is now more accessible, and it was only a matter of time before the track was encroached by the tree. Finally, the retaining wall under the tree is bowing, and cracking—the expanding roots of the fir have caused it to bulge rather. I'll have to repoint, but I think rebuilding it would be more work than I fancy.

Yesterday and this afternoon have been spent, predictably, splitting, sawing and stacking firewood! However, this morning we had a pleasant session in the kitchen garden, planting things out. The onions and early potatoes were already in, and some rows of radishes (Zlata, and French Breakfast), parsnips (Tender & True), and carrots (Autumn King, and Amsterdam Forcing); we've now added some more carrot rows, and planted out the beetroot. They were about 60 of each of Cylindra and Boltardy.

The over-wintered alliums are all looking good. More onions survived than I thought would—probably because it's been a particularly mild winter, admittedly—and the garlics are looking strong. The elephant garlic are definitely large!

I didn't mention: the damage to the fruit cages was repaired last Friday, with polypropylene cord and a bit of weaving. Not as bad as I feared: some of the wires need tensioning, though.

Lastly: the front garden is looking good, and photo-worthy! The red tulips (praestans; red, in pots in background below) are out, and the daffodils continue; the Pinocchio tulips (bicolour, in foreground below) are almost over. The hellebores are still flowering, and the acer is coming into leaf. The pine and poplar in the background are the ones that were felled on Tuesday.

Front garden (© Ian 2012)

Easter Weekend

We're had a busy but productive Easter weekend, with some respite from the firewood, more of which has been sawn, split, and stacked. The stack on the side of the garage has been adorned with spare roofing slates, to keep off the worst of the rain; more has been moved down to the store next to the kitchen garden; and the ramp into the garden has been cleared of logs and branches, ready for the tree surgeons' visit tomorrow (the last of the poplars, and some firs, are coming down, which will probably be the last of the tree felling in the garden).

The respite is/was more interesting.

The usual Easter activities took place, with Jenny and Philip's recently arrived (and permanent) foster children: painting and finding eggs, and a pleasant walk around Stainland deer park. We managed, for the first time in several years, to get around to baking a Simnel cake (a personal favourite), which will be a treat for the next week.

Part of preparing for tomorrow's tree felling involved clearing a load of roof slates out of a corner under the pine at the top of the ramp. We'd hoped there would be sufficient to use as paving slabs for the seating area in the same corner of the garden, so we spent a couple of hours laying them out in a rough configuration, to determine their coverage (they're not uniform sizes!). Having done so, we thought we'd also mark out the surrounding beds—the design of which we've long envisioned, but not actually tried out. The idea is a round seating area in the corner (which is the most tranquil part of the garden, as it's sheltered by the trees and raised bank from wind, rain, and noise), where the arbour stands, augmented by other seats and with space for table and chiminea at times. Radiating from that are a several flower beds, including one with a water feature (I'm planning a mill-stone based pool, I think, with a small bubbling fountain). A larger bed then extends down the side of the garden towards the copse in the lower corner of the garden.

Seating area and surround beds marked out (© Ian 2012)

Seating area and beds viewed from lane (© Ian 2012)

Snow Damage

Last night saw heavy snow, and it kept snowing all morning. We've had about 8-9 inches, and there are drifts up to three feet deep. We've worked from home, as the roads aren't safe, and it's been a bit cold!

Sadly, the daffodils are all looking rather sad: time will tell, but I think those that had flowers will probably be squashed, and wasted. We might be able to cut some and bring them in, but on the whole I think the display will be sadly diminished this year. Worse, the weight of snow has caused the bird netting on the fruit cages to tear over the posts, so we'll have a lot of repair work ahead of us in the next few weeks.

A weather blip we could have really done without!

Potatoes and Onions

It was time to plant the potatoes and onions, as the last of the onion sets arrived, and the start of April is when we do the 'tatoes (it was the 2nd, last year). The onions are going in a little later than last year, but only by a week.

The onions:

• Autumn Gold Improved (harvest August/September) are meant to store well.
• Red Baron have similar qualities, but red. I like growing some red ones, as they make a nice change.
• New Fen Globe are heat treated, and can get very big. They're meant to store through to May, which is a little longer than the other two, and should justify the slightly higher price.

Last year we had Hyred, but didn't have any bolting problems, so we thought we'd have the cheaper Red Baron. Because of some quality issues, we wound up with twice as many Autumn Gold and Red Baron as planned. We've double-planted them, and will pull up half for pickling while they're still small. Kudos for Marshalls, though; good customer service.

Potatoes:

• Lady Christl (extra early) which we really liked. High yield, very quick, and really tasty. Also stores remarkably well—there are still half a dozen in the workshop. Bit wrinkled, but taste good.
• Red Duke of York (early), which we've not grown before. We like to have a red-skinned tuber for variety.
• Pentland Javelin (early), which is also new to us. Both are meant to be good yielders/storers, which are important, and tasty.
• Bounty (early maincrop); ten of these were a freebie with the other (~20 of each). We'll see!
• Cara (late maincrop); a parent of Druid, which we got on well with last year (excellent yield, and strong plants). Druid's only available from one supplier, though, and so we thought we'd see if Cara was as good.

We've planted the early potatoes about 18" apart. The maincrop aren't in yet, as the spring cabbages and leeks are still in the ground, but they'll go 30" apart. The higher spacing seemed to make a big difference to the maincrop yield, but not to earlies. We used leaf mould to fertilize the ground; it's meant to help combat scab, which we suffered with last year.