Springtime Catch-up!

This time of the year all plants on the allotment, in the garden and in nature whizz along.  I just love the vibrant zingy greens of tree leaf, and new grass and perennials; the new salad leaves; and the sharp splashes of bright pinks, purples, and yellows from budding roses, alliums, and the later tulips. Not to mention my favourite clematises (is that the correct plural?) - that's the ones that haven't been pinched off the plot that is...another story!

New lettuce and turnips zooming along in the greenhouse

 I love alliums!

The bursting buds are just as good as the open flowers

 

And the first roses are unfurling

Plenty of fruit to come too: redcurrants

The veggies are also coming on. Last year's chard and spinach is still producing well and we've had our first really good picking of mustardy salad leaves.


Mustardy salad leaves, with carrots, radishes and more parsley to come: growing in the old water tank, away from slug and snail

The sweet peas and peas got a trifle nibbled (aka eaten to the ground) by slugs and snails. I have now trialled wool pellets alongside the existing plastic bottle cuffs with jagged tops and copper bands to keep the voracious molluscs off. The wool seems to be proving that final bit of protection in a slug and snail-full year so far. Both types of peas are re-sprouting now.

I've also been busy sowing. I stagger this over the season, little and often, cos with ME you get overwhelmingly knackered and ill from doing too much. I'm feeling more under par than usual at the moment so the pattern is to totter off my bed of knackeredness, fill up a pot or two with soil (all kept handy by the back door) bung in a few seeds, put 'em on the windowsill and hey presto!  ....Even more seedlings to anticipate potting up- with help of
course!!



  Oh and by the way we've had more new life on the plot: four of the dearest robin fledglings from a neat nest in the wiggly hazel- they kept that very quiet til the babies were up and flying!

Happy Spring!