First Bouquet

I took these home for my windowsill. The beautiful frilly red tulips and grape hyacinths are from my friends plot the rest are from ours.

The kids flowers look fab. I need to put even more for next year and try to fill the bed so when I pick some it doesn't look bare. I want to be able to cut them, it's not just to look pretty. I've got some of my other bulbs coming up too.

The new spring broadies are poking out of the ground at last - I just think they needed a bit of rain to get started (they've certainly had that now!). Unfortunately the Pea & Bean Weevils have already been munching :o(.

So I decided to move the new peas from the bed I had planned to put them into to one as far away from the broadies as I could. I finished this and wandered off for a chat with my mate on the next plot (hers is from the blue pallet compost bin) and realised that she had P&BW too and my new peas were between them and my munched broadies. No chance for them them :o(. Oh well, at least these peas are sturdy little things!

The early spuds are poking their noses out already (only sowed them 2 weeks ago - I wonder if I planted them deep enough? Thought I had!), I earthed them up - if a frost got them they'd be done for. I do love the colour of the Red Duke of York leaves!

The PSB looks terrific and I picked loads for taea. I steamed it and it was nice enough, but I think I need to find some more creative recipes.

I pulled up a few of my lovely looking rhubarb. I've only had it in just over a year so don't really want to force it yet, but it'll be great next year!

The greenhouse is looking full. The peas have now been planted out, the toms have been moved in here and I've moved to sweetpeas to outside.

At home the chillis look happy. I'm keeping them here this year rather than in the greenhouse as they were happier. I wasn't very impressed last year, I think they were neglected for the toms.

Rainbows

We had the most amazing rainbow today - or I should say rainbows. It was a super-bright double rainbow that my photo really doesn't do justice to spanning the whole of the view from my back garden. A fab sight to see!

My folks came up for a visit on Sunday and they had a tour of the plot. They made all the right noises :o) - they hadn't seen it in nearly a year I think so it had changed a fair bit in that time. I managed to offload some of my excess of a thousand spuds to Mum too, hooray!!



The worst discovery this week is that I have Pea and Bean Weevil :o( . Having never had it before I wasn't sure why my broad beans leaves had notches chomped out of them. On closer investigation I spotted the culprit. They are only little things (5mm ish) and didn't realise until I blew the photo up that there where actually two of them making new baby weevils (and one watching !?!). All three were removed from the plant and I searched the rest of the plants but couldn't spot any more (hiding). Anyone know what to do about them? Can I do anything??


The plan was to keep all the beans and peas together for ease of rotation, but now I'm wondering if that is such a good idea? The pic below shows my row of broad beans and the cane and chicken wire I prepared for my peas in guttering. I'm now thinking I may use my other free bed, well away from the weevils. Will it make any difference? Will I get them anyway? :o(


On to happier things, the rhubarb is looking very healthy and I'm looking forward to chomping on a bit of this.

All the fruit trees seem to be in fine health so far and blossoming away! This is the little greengage baby from my friends allotment last year.

And finally a plot shot. It's been so warm and dry lately that I had to water the whole thing on Sunday night. I think I actually only had to do that twice in all of Summer last year - and this was the first time I've had the WHOLE plot to water. It took me close to an hour!!!! I'll need to factor the timings into my visit or I'll end up watering in the dark! It really needed it though - everything was parched down to a good couple of inches.

So here we have the finished fence. They didn't cut down the bushes and trees behind it (yet!) thankfully, though you can hardly see the greenery now :o(. At least it's secure!


In the greenhouse everything is growing nicely. Peas are just about ready to get in and I've popped some more greenhouse shade netting stuff up to stop my babies getting scorched (toms in particular).

Jostaberry is looking very healthy as has blossom on it - so fingers crossed for some fruit this year. Rhubarb also looks happy!

I've buds on a lot of my apple trees - I'm very excited as to how these will do this year - got my fingers crossed for one or two apples xx pplleeeeeeeeaaase!

Below are the raspberries (back) and my three currant bushes (middle). In front of them are the left over alpine strawberries. I think these are supposed to be annuals but I'm going to leave them in and see (I'll also sow some more just in case).