The warmth of spring

There is certainly a warmth in the air with spring making it's subtle presence felt. Although the wind has been generally cold and the rain (sleet and snow!) heavy and persistant, when there is a chance to feel the sun, it is warm. The plants are lapping it up too.

Daffodils are almost all in bloom and blossom is starting to appear on trees. Since I sowed the seeds a couple of weeks ago, the brussels and radish have germinated first. There are signs of the tomatoes germinating next but everything else is at a slower pace.

A couple of days after sowing all those seeds I planted garlic into the right side border. That too has germinated quickly with each clove at least 2 inch's high. Last year I grew garlic in pots. They germinated fine, but a combination of overwatering and a dull area of the garden meant that they all rotted. This year they are in the ground and on a sunny side.

This weekend the rain and bog-like conditions prevented me from doing much until Monday. However I did eventually get to repot the brussels and radish, sow onion, leek and cabbage seed for the greenhouse, and start off some salad, both indoor and out.

It's seed weekend

A glorious sunny Sunday followed heavy rain on Friday and light rain on Saturday. All that rain left the garden water logged and so I was unable to go near the borders. Instead I used the time to sow the veg and flower seeds for the coming year. All have been put into the green house as its too cold and too early to be left outdoors. I have not got a great deal of space so for the larger plants I have restricted the amounts of veg seeds in each row to 5 for each variety, in the hope that at least 1 will germinate.

Tray 1

1. Tomato - Harbinger


2. Tomato - Money maker


3. Tomato - Gardeners delight


4. Tomato - F1 Fantasia (x2) Harbinger (x3)


5. Pepper - California wonder


6. Pepper - Mini mix


7. Pepper - Yolo wonder


8. Sweet basil

Tray 2

1. Mint


2. Radish


3. Radish


4. Leek


5. Leek


6. Brussels


7. Brussels


8. Marigold

Tray 3

1. Salpiglossis


2. Coleus


3. Nigella


4. Morning Glory


5. Nasturtium


6. Antirrhinum


7. Cosmos


8. Stock

Tray 4

1- 5 Marigold

6-8 Sweet Pea

To round off the day, I also created a new herb garden with a pot of mint that I bought at Morrison's on Saturday and a pot of Thyme and Parsley that I have been growing for a few seasons. The herbs are contained in a trough that sits next to the back door, so that I don't have to go far to pick a few bits of anything. As mint is a bit of an aggressive plant containing it within the trough should be perfect.

Now I have planted up this herb garden next the back door I have realised that I should do the same for the salad area. For the past few years I have grown the salad at the top of the garden, but that means I have to walk to the top of the garden to pick a couple of leaves. So the next job for the week will be to move the salad containers down to the back door. This should also be an improvement for the plants as there is more light and warmth at the house end of the garden.

Apple tree joins the Garden of Shaz

Welcome to the newest member of the Garden of Shaz. The Cox's apple tree, a Christmas present from Rob and family, was planted into the garden today. It takes pride of place at the top of the right side border.

Over the last few weeks I have been improving the soil, digging in new compost and sand. This weekend brought glorious sunshine and so I could not hold back any longer.

The tree was in a plastic pot and so I treated the planting as such. However, once I tried getting the tree out of the pot I faced a problem removing it with the rootball intact. As I prised the tree out it became a bit messy. In the end the tree came away from the soil and so became a bare root planting. With a stake to keep the tree in place, it should be protected from the wind that will blow towards it.

At 4 ft tall I can not wait to see how well it grows over the next few years. I do hope might attempt at planting it was satisfactory.

Homemade compost

The first weekend of March brings glorious sunshine. Perfect weather for gardening.

The weekend jobs were to carry on improving the area where the apple tree will go and some general tidying before spring really hits.

The apple tree will go near the top of the garden in the left side border. The soil in that area is horrid and needs lots of improvement before the tree goes in. For the last few weekends I have removed the grass, added good soil and dug it over but with any heavy rain it still gets too boggy.

This weekend I started adding sand to improve the drainage.

But how about the compost heap? Since starting work on the garden I have composted as much as I could, with any extra going into the wheelie bin. But for those few years I had not looked to see what was happening below the top level.

After removing the newest material from the top it wasn't long before I found really good decomposed compost, as you can see from the photo. And there was loads of it. Three buckets of this free compost then went in to the border to help improve it.

I hope to be able to have the soil ready for next weekend and get the tree planted before the growing season starts again.

I also dug up the carrots that have been growing since last spring time. I was hoping these would have grown bigger than the previous year but no such luck. As you can see from the photo the average length is only 2-3 inch's and perhaps two meals worth.

The lack of growth may be due to the depth of the container. This year I will plant some carrots direct into one of the borders to see how they do.

New resident in the Garden of Shaz

This Saturday saw my first proper exploration of the garden this year. It was a lovely sunny day, although cold, and the ground was very soggy. So the plan was simply to tidy the garden and make some preparations for the planting of the new apple tree.

As the ground was so wet I abandoned the trainers as normal garden wear and went for the heavy duty work boots kept in the shed. Before putting them on I thought I had better do a quick spider check in case of expected visitors. However, instead of finding spiders I had a bit more of a surprise. Inside both were bits of material, laces and plastic making what looked like a cosy little spot for something slightly bigger. The boots had become winter homes for some mice.

Snowy garden

The garden has been covered in snow and ice for the past week, but yesterday brought a proper covering of snow. I measured 4 inches in my back garden. Thankfully its thawing quickly which should mean that I can get into the the garden and start getting things sorted.

The carrots are still frozen and under snow but if the weather stay warm I may be able to dig them up at the weekend.



Here are a selection of photos. The Robin you can see in one of the photos is a regular visitor. It has very little fear of me and will often sit on the fence watching me breaking up and throwing bread in the garden. Any other bird would fly off as soon as the back door opens. This robin stays and watches.












I have also spotted and Redwing in the garden over the last few days. The first time I saw it I knew it was different but didn't get a good enough look. The next day I saw it again and noticed the red parts under the wings and the white flashes around the eye. If you look closely at the photo of the branches you can see the backside of a bird. That is the redwing. That was the best shot I got before it noticed me and flew away.







The first bird in the garden looks to be the blackbird as the footprints have been captured in the snow. When I first looked out of the window these were the only footprints to disturb the new covering of snow.











I have been putting a lot more food out for the birds these past few weeks. Bread, biscuits, rice and grated cheese. The favourite traditional food seems to be the nuts. With starlings, sparrows, blue tit, coal tit and magpies all having a munch. The seed feeder is less in favour though with very few birds going to it. It may be that the position is not great but during the summer last year it was so popular with the sparrows I was filling it almost every other day.

New year freeze

Its 2010 and the garden is frozen solid. There was a little snow before Christmas but that turned into ice by the next morning and lasted about 3 days. Since then there has been warmer weather and now another cold snap to start the new year.

The carrots in the photo where dug up on the 12th December. Since then the ground has been frozen solid so I am unable to get to the others. I hope the ice is not destroying them but I will not know until it warms up again.

The car thermometer said it was -5 at 08:00 this morning. That's chilly. I have been removing the ice from the bird bath each morning and replacing with hot water. The birds do use it, mostly for drinking but sometimes even to splash about in.