Well here we are again - with the garden just waking up from its winters slumber. Bulbs are popping up all over the place - our work the first two winters we were here is paying off now with daffodils, tulips, muscari and of course these gorgeous crocuses too, it's just a shame that we've seen so little sunshine to really encourage them to fully open and show their faces!
Auntie Daphne's Pulmonaria is still flowering away cheerfully - it’s always the first colour in the garden each year and never fails to make us smile with its little pink and purple flowers and spotty white leaves. In that bed is also some of the other bulbs I mentioned, the very enthusiastic lavender which I give a truly brutal haircut to once a year and yet it always forgives me and rewards me with plentiful flowers, and over the the right there is the blackcurrant bush - still quite new but obviously settling in nicely - just take a look at the buds breaking…
Such a sign of spring! Elsewhere on the fruit-front, as it were, the redcurrant and the gooseberries are looking happy enough, although no signs of buds yet. The rhubarb though has no such reservations and as last year, showing its intentions via a lovely bright patch of pink…
Before we know it that will be taking over the garden again - and providing us with plenty of crumbles, compotes and maybe even some jam this year perhaps!
Currently keeping us fed through the “hungry gap” is the kale we planted last year, although annoyingly it has gone through the entire winter with cabbage whitefly! Nothing that a bit of a shake and a good wash won’t cure though, and it’s been ever so nice to have some fresh home grown veg all winter.
All in all, it’s starting to feel like we’re not a million miles away from being able to get the new growing season underway, so it’s probably time to start getting the seed list finalised. Our plans are as usual to so far as possible use the free seeds we’ve got via our magazine subscription, but as always that will be topped up with purchases of any specific varieties of things we want. Time to make a list!
Robyn
