Wow! a few days ago the asparagus bed was looking neat and tidy, the winter mulch of well rotted leaves covering the slight hump in the ground that indicated the asparagus was there.
Then a couple of warm days followed by another of rain and up come the beautiful spears.
A tasty addition to the evening meal and more to come for the next 6-8 weeks.
After that the spears should be allowed to grow into tall billowing fronds feeding the roots ready for next years harvest.
In February we had about 80 mm rain (compared with only 10 mm in February 2023).
This March about 50mm rain (roughly the same as in 2023).
But the ground is so wet, occasionally a dry day so we can just manage to give the grass its first high cut, before the rain come again.
This wet clay soil is very hard to weed without removing great clods of soil with the weed and getting gloved fingers clogged with wet clay. So the weeds are flourishing!
The soil is too cold and wet to plant out new but established plants are doing well.
The herbaceous perennials are appearing though the soil and everything is greening up, a sure sign of spring.
Anemone blanda in the "wild " area of the lawn is lovely with various shades of blue from almost white to deep blue. These are now joined by the cow slips, Snakes head fritillary and green stalks of the Camissia, which will come into flower later in May.
Other splashes of colour are appearing daily
What a wet and soggy month.
Very few days have been dry enough to do any work on the soil, but we have managed to prune all the fruit trees, apples and pears and the soft fruit, currants, gooseberries, autumn raspberries and blueberries.
We are harvesting leeks, carrots and parsnips from the garden. A lovely crop of sweet rocket growing in the greenhouse, free from the flea beetle that fills it full of holes on that grown outside in the summer!
There is no chard this year as it rotted in the cold and then the wet, but we have had some kale and yesterday the first of the purple sprouting broccoli. A delicious crop but takes all year to grow, we are now sowing seed for next years harvest!
The spring bulbs are looking good. The snowdrops are starting to go over but they have been followed by the daffodils, tete a tete being the first to show. The berm is looking good with the spring bulbs and hellebores which are still flowering.
Then the rain!. in 2023 we had quite a dry February with 9.65mm rainfall recorded in our garden. This year we have already had over 58mm rain and still a week to go. There have been too many days where the temperatures have been over 10 degrees, 14 days in the last 21days have all reached these temperatures. Too hot for February and the plants and birds think it is Spring already.
Welcome 2024. After quite a mild but wet Christmas it has now turned more seasonably cold, very cold today, 0 degrees this morning but has crept up to 3.5 now at 3pm.
So wet in December, we had 60.09mm of rain in December 2023, in 2022 just 24.11mm and in 2021 16.51mm. There was even more in December 2020 with 60.69mm.
Remember the very cold winter of 2022? We lost most of our Aeoniums, as did many other people, despite being in a bubble wrapped greenhouse where they had happily spent many previous winters.
This year I have brought the remaining ones inside, so all the window sills are full!
We have also taken precautions outside and used fleece and covers to protect some of the plants, that suffered in the cold last year but manage to perk up during the year. Hopefully this will be sufficient to save them this winter.
It may be cold outside but cheering colour sign is here already! The snowdrops are bright white in the grey days.
Is it really nearly Christmas?
Unpredictable weather over the last few months has led to strange things in the garden.
The hostas had started to grow again, apple blossom on the trees and clematis flowering again in late October. The weather was so warm for October and so wet, 74mm rain measured in October.
The trees did start to produce their autumn colours by the end of the month, especially beautiful was the Spetchley Red vine I have been training over the patio.
November still had unseasonably warm weather but by the 24th the temperatures suddenly dropped to sub-zero at night.
We picked the kiwis and squash before these frosts turned them to mush so had a good crop.
Rain in November was just 40mm although it seemed like it would never stop.
Now by mid December the leaves have finally dropped and we have collected them up to rot down into a wonderful leaf mulch for next year. The weather is still variable up to 12 degrees some days but the majority of nights are minus and still plenty of rain (20mm by the 15th December)
Mistletoe is good this year so we have supplied the local flower shop and sold steadily from our trolley to raise funds for charities. Using some of it, along with holly, ivy and berries from the garden for our Christmas wreath.
Have a Happy Christmas and I will write again in January.
I am sure many of you who make your own compost have experienced this.
The lovely compost that you have been making over the past year is then spread over the flower borders, greatly improving the soil and health of your plants.
Then as the summer progresses you find a plant that you did not sow in that border but you do recognise it.
A tomato plant. So instead of weeding it out, you leave it there, no training or pinching out, just let it do its thing.
Then August and September come round and you have tomatoes ripening in the sun!
We have some of these growing in the potato patch and we have had a wonderful crop, plus more still ripening.
The strange thing is that, because of all the rain and damp weather we had in July and August, the potatoes have all suffered from blight, except the Sarpo blight resistant ones.
We have had to remove all the tops from the potatoes to save the crop. But the tomatoes, in the same family as potatoes are unaffected! Explain that.
For several years we have been trying to grow the climbing courgette variety Black Forest.
Each year it has failed to grow more than about 50cm.
This year we found another climbing variety Shooting Star. Success!
It has grown well and we have tied it to a support so it goes quite high.
The Firsts were for a brace of courgettes and my bowl of fruit. A successful year.
Wow! a few days ago the asparagus bed was looking neat and tidy, the winter mulch of well rotted leaves covering the slight hump in the grou...
