Friday, April 30, 2010

End of the month garden view: April 2010

Back again for garden view the second, hosted by the Patient Gardener. The daffodils are over now, I dead headed the last few on Wednesday, so it's all about the bluebells with support from the forget-me-nots, and some tulips trying to steal the show. Working from the top of the garden down:

Garden view April 2010

Above - veggie patch is coming to life. First set of peas started flowering in the last couple of days. Carrots, parsnips, radish and broad beans have all finally germinated properly. In fruit corner (below) I think we're gonna sort out this twiggy mess at the back here and think about raspberries. Is it too late to plant raspberries? We'll find out I guess...

Garden view April 2010
Garden view April 2010

Above: The winter honeysuckle has leafed out and is casting a huge shadow. Gonna have to sort that out a bit me thinks, but the bluebells and forget-me-nots are making a very pretty seen closer to the house. This corner in the bottom right is supposed to be turning into a pretend wild flower meadow, but it's doing nothing right now... hope it cheers up soon. Below: I forgot to take a picture here last time, probably because there was nothing to see. The peony is up now though, and the tulips are trying to brighten it up (they are very pretty). Very obviously there's a lot of space though, so we're going put some runner beans etc climbing up the fence this month - Alys Fowler style.

Garden view April 2010
Garden view April 2010

This corner is filling out now, which is very exciting - so much to come from here!! In the opposite corner (below) I had to show this just for comedy. The bluebells immediately under the compost heap are HUGE - almost two feet long and not stopped gaining height yet. Under those, the overall view from the backdoor looking out. To my eyes the view is very blue at the moment, but for some reason all those tiny specks loose their impact in a photo.

Garden view April 2010
IMG_2635

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Appreciation

Kittys like crochet

Evidence that no one appreciates a bit of handmade blanket quite like Mr. Vince. I'm painfully aware that all making activities have come to a halt. I'm not even into my stash buster afghan right now. Any scant free time is spent in the garden at the moment, trying to keep our veg cultivating plans up to speed. I have the familiar itchy fingers and creative desire, but no real creative energy and no time to indulge what I have. I wouldn't mind a quick mindless knit project right now to dip into and make my mental fatigue fade a bit, but I can't figure out what to cast on.

Blossom News Flash!

Blossom

Dan took this picture of the blossom in Regents Park (where my branch came from) on his ride home tonight . Pretty cool :)

Cherry blossom

blossom
blossom

On the cycle home on Friday evening, after sitting in on a recording for Radio 4 in town (it was much funnier than that sounds... The Museum of Curiosities), we passed around the outer circle of Regent's park heading towards the bright lights of Camden Town and our ultimate destination - KT. In the gloaming (there aren't many street lights on that stretch) we spied a fallen branch of Cherry tree. I came to a screeching halt (okay, not a screeching halt - I wasn't going very fast) to pick it up and strap it to the back of my bike. Dan laughed at me but shepherded me and my wavering branch home so we didn't get hit. I spent a few happy moments on Saturday poncing about with the camera taking silly photos. The blossoms have faded now, a bit like me - I'm exhausted from the stress of helping to get the bosses deadline met the last couple of weeks. Back on the thesis at home now...

blossom
blossom

I'm not a pink girl in any way - I can't bear to wear it. Cherry blossom is the exception that proves the rule. I have a deep seated love of cherry trees, especially the pink ones, from childhood. When I was little we had an old large cherry tree by our back gate whose branches spread over the wall onto the street. I used to climb up and lie along the branch amongst the leaves and blossom and watch the people walking up and down the road. In the spring, if the weather was right, it would carpet the road and gutters with pink blossom. This tree was cut down by my Dad so the gate could be widened in order to fit in some new vehicle or other. I was devastated, my Mum promised to buy a new tree to put in exactly the same spot (albeit a couple of feet to the right) to help stem the flow of tears. A few years later we took a trip to the garden centre together and picked the tree and planted it together.

blossom
blossom

The best blossom trees in London are found in a small graveyard in Fulham, off Munster Road. Dan and I both lived in close proximity to this spot and spent a happy spring day there once. I've not been back since we moved NW, but if anybody who might read this is in the area over the next few days, now would be a good time to find the spot.

blossom

Monday, April 19, 2010

Garden invaders

Lily beetle

Non-native pests are very common in our garden. Spotted today, the infamous Lily beetle. I suspect if I grew lilies I would have descended into hysterics at this point. My (large) rosemary bush is also home to a colony of Rosemary beetles - they've been there a couple of years now. I read somewhere (can't remember where) that they were unlikely to cause extensive defoliation so I left them. I figured there wasn't much of a battle to be had in London, but my rosemary bush is looking pretty battered and nibbled this spring (see the bottom image). I think it might be time the invaders took a long walk off a short cliff...

Rosemary beetle
Rosemary beetle

Friday, April 16, 2010

A tale of two Rhubarbs...

Rhubarb

These pictures were taken on the same day (yesterday). The first is Rhubarb 'Timperly Early', a common variety for early crops. I saw over on Diary of a Mad Gardener that Rhubarb likes a cold winter - as it seems to be growing at a vast rate of knots, I think this must be true. To give an idea of the rate of growth, flicking back to my garden view at the end of March (a whole two weeks ago) reveals Timperly Early to be only just clear of the ground. Dan is thinking of taking a couple of sticks this weekend for a wee pud. The second image is a Rhubarb with no name we brought down from Dan's family garden in Scotland last spring - where there was evidence they produced the biggest Rhubarb stands ever seen. It appeared for the first time only a day or two ago - I was convinced it had disappeared. I've decided to dub this no-name Rhubarb variety (which looks dramatically different from Timperly, even when up) 'Balnakeil Late' from now on. I think this pair neatly demonstrate the need to grow different varieties to extend your eating season!

Rhubarb

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day April 2010

My second GBBD, hurray! I've been kind of ill these past few days, so hopefully a post full of flowers will get my immune system heading back in the right direction. First up, the daffodils. My golden trumpets are on their way out, I had to start dead-heading over the weekend. Dead heading the daffodils has always been my job, ever since I was little and my Mum would send me out to do hers. It's not a particularly labour intensive job, but it is a sad one. I spend weeks watching their slow ascent very impatiently, and then they're gone. There are still one or two left to enjoy for now though.

Daffodils leaving
Daffodils leaving

T he very early red tulips are also taking their last bow, petals bent right back and giving a rather revealing show. Their are stands of white, yellow and red tulips waiting to take the stage though. Dan noticed I'd snuck a couple of red tulips into the blue corner over the weekend - I never could stick to a colour scheme.

Tulip Tulip

T he swathes of forget-me-nots I have draped around my flower beds are turning blue at the tip one by one. Forget-me-nots are up on my list of all time favourites, I suspect I give them too much leave in the garden, but I love the billowy clouds of green and blue - always have, from the time I first dead-headed daffodils in fact. To a lot of people I suspect they're a weed, but I can't be without them.

Forget-me-not

T his is the first year for grape hyacinths in the garden. These were salvaged about this time last year probably, from the old family garden back home. These are another favourite, from foliage to flower. There was always great drifts of them in my Mum's garden. The first thing that Dan said to me on the subject of grape hyacinths was that he hated them when he was little, because he always thought they were going to be bluebells (his favourite), but was eternally disappointed when they weren't. I love them for almost the same reason - because it takes forever for bluebells to turn up and these were always early, with a more concentrated blue.

grape hyacinth

Now, we hit an issue. Both the pictures below are some variety of primrose, also salvaged from my Mum's garden. This first I've had three years now and I've split it two years running, so I have a fair approximation of a drift - all profusely flowering this year, which I was a bit surprised at cause I thought I'd been quite mean to them with all my splitting. Now I thought these were primrose, and those below I thought (when I grabbed them last April/May, based on the seed heads) were cowslips. But you can see that the flowers aren't umbellified. I am pretty darn confused about this, so if anyone passing by wants to enlighten me, that would be great.

primula
primula
Cowslip

I n more productive quarters of the garden - from top to bottom - we have, gooseberry flowers, apple blossom and blackcurrant flowers. Tasty treats to come. And to finish, for Dan, the first signs of the bluebells. First open flowers this weekend I should think.

gooseberry blossom
apple blossom
blackcurrent
Blubells