More sowing!

Spring has most definitely sprung, as evinced by the cheerful yellow daffodils and scented pink hyacinths in the front garden. Unfortunately, they are poking through last year's weeds so I haven't taken a picture! I foresee a busy weekend...

Not just with weeding and pruning the front garden, but finally planting the first of my square foot garden. My wonderful SO has made the frame from untreated timber, and we filled it with a mixture of bought potting compost, vermiculite, garden soil, and our own black gold - the garden compost. Look how rich and dark it was, under a layer of still non-decayed garden and kitchen waste. We removed the top layer, used the well-rotted compost to fill the square foot bed, then put back the rough stuff and mixed it with even more peelings, grass trimmings and such.

I have also sowed two more batches of seeds, mostly a variety of herbs (2 types of basil, hyssop, borage and winter savoury) and some bright annual flowers (zinnia). It is still early to sow warm-loving plants such as French beans and courgettes, but more resistant veg such as radishes and carrots can be sown directly into the soil of the new bed. Something else to look forward to, this weekend!

Square foot bed:

Compost:

The colour pink

... and a little bit of purple as well! ;)

In addition to the soft, blush pink colours of a couple of rose bushes, some sweet peas and trailing geraniums, there is also some stronger colour in the garden.

The new oleander shrub - very short at present, but they tend to grow quickly. In a few years I expect it to be taller than me.

The pink Zephirine Drouhin and striped Ferdinan Pichard roses next to each other, showing off the limitations of my phone camera.

Foxglove. I like the little blotches, like freckles on a fair maiden's cheek.

Two tall herbs - angelica already going to seed, seen through a mist of bronze fennel. OK, they are not actually pink, but there is a purplish quality to the tips of the fennel fronds and the stems of angelica.

Winter Sowing

Since Christmas (and I mean the second, Orthodox Christmas which takes place 2 weeks after the Western one (yes, we celebrate both!)) I have been trying not to think about the garden. Because, what's the point of getting excited about the new growing season when we're still in the deepest of winters? My fingers itched to do something, so I kept drawing ever more intricate plans of the front garden remodelling (a new rose and a few evergreen shrubby herbs).

Until a friend showed me this: Winter Sowing
Brilliant! I knew that hardy plants could be sown in the autumn, straight into the ground, and that the more common sowing season starts in early spring. But sowing seeds in the middle of winter, that I had never heard of! But when you think about it, it seems intuitively OK... The seeds are still dormant and will continue to be such until the weather and light conditions are optimal. And anyway, what's the worst that could happen? I lose some seeds! Well, it's not as if there's not plenty more where these came from...


Here is one of 3 seed trays that I filled with mostly hardy annual, herb and some perennial seeds. I also used several small plastic pots, and covered everything with a long plastic cloche I had bought, but not used, last year. The cloche has vents on the sides, and it's been wedged down with a couple of bricks. It can be rather blustery around here sometimes, so better safe than sorry!

Autumn, shed

That is shed as in a garden storage structure, not as in the verb. Actually, we don't even have a shed, it's a garage. But it doesn't house the car. It's a 45% DIY workshop and a 20% garden shed. The remaining space is filled with rubbish we still haven't managed to take to the skip. But that is steadily reducing...

Some time ago, we spent half an hour clearing one side of the garage, and my wonderful SO built me a storage shelf in that space. He neatly sorted all the gardening tools and equipment that used to live in an old laundry basket and piled up on top of other things. Now, this is what my organised gardening storage looks like:


In the red box are all the hand trowels, shears and pruners (those really add up!), and in the white drawer is my collection of seed packets (and gathered/gifted seeds too). You may notice some herbage in the top right corner - that is where I've hung up bunches of herbs to dry, having recently harvested them before the cold weather kills them.

Regarding herbs, I was picking them all summer to use in cooking as and when required. As long as you don't remove more than 30% of the plant at any one time, you can harvest regularly. It's great to use the freshest herbs in your food! Some of my favourites were:
- parsley and mint in cucumber salad (with Greek yogurt)
- pot marjoram leaves in tomato salad
- rosemary, thyme and bay leaf* in any stew-type dish
- sage and thyme in meatballs, burgers and stuffing
- mints and lemon balm added to green/white tea

* Bay leaf actually has a stronger aroma after drying, so I was really using week-to-month old leaves in cooking

However, once the cold weather sets in, annual and soft (non-shrubby) perennial herbs will be destroyed. The perennials, like mint and lemon balm, will return in spring; but to enjoy them over winter we need to dry them. And that is what I've done with those herbs (including pineapple sage, which is really more like a type of mint). I've also trimmed the thyme and sage plants, and those trimmings are now in spice jars. Same with the fennel seedheads, though I have left some (together with lavender) to feed the birds in winter. I've finally let the parsley flower, just because I wanted to see if there are any bees still around; otherwise, I would have harvested the leaves, chopped them up finely and frozen them in an ice cube tray.

May Bank Holiday

Not the greatest weather by far; today there was no rain, but the clouds were dark and low. Oppressive. Good for a visit to the garden centre, though, and planting!

We got a lot of herbs and some perennials I was looking for. Verbena bonariensis, only a couple of inches tall at present but should rise to 1.5 m. Jasmine and honeysuckle, for the west-facing fence. Angelica and bronze fennel for the border, with some golden and variegated lemon balm for edging. A selection of mints (spearmint, Swiss, eau de Cologne and pineapple mints), a couple of pink and salmon pelargoniums in lovely blue metallic pots, red-veined sorrel and Honey Melon sage went into pots and troughs. Oh, and we also took the opportunity to plant the lily of the valley under the elder bush, and some African daisies (osteospermums) that we picked up a couple of weeks ago.

In addition to all the hard work of digging planting holes, my wonderful SO trimmed the grass (using a new, bladed strimmer), dug out some more of the insidious bramble, and pruned the weird shrub/trees that were hiding the patio and blocking the light. I think these will have to go completely, but that's usually an autumn job.

The following picture is what we currently look out on from the living room patio doors. On the bricks behind the table we've lifted the strawberry tub so it would be out of the way of slugs; next to it is a huge terracotta pot of lavender and pots of spearmint and night scented stock (still seedlings). In the next month or so the table should go to the trellised area on the side, thus creating space for patio seating, surrounded by scented flowers and herbs for our olfactory pleasure (and nectar for bees and butterflies). Something to look forward to!

Real first day of Spring!

Happened this Sunday. It was sunny and warm, we had a lovely walk and explored a new park, and later we ate in the garden and even had a little nap on the grass! If that kind of weather was due to the volcano ashes heating the atmosphere, bring the eruptions on! ;)

This is what my herb box looks like at the moment:


Aki hovering over me - in the background are some beautiful blue grape hyacints (Muscari) behind the young witch hazel "Jelena":


Heki because he's cute: