I read somewhere that nature this year is about four weeks behind schedule and my observations confirm this. Our two birches are only just breaking into leaf, the tulips have not flowered yet, there are buds on our fruit trees but not much else. Oh yes, the quince is out in flower but the quince is a law unto itself. We've had frosts the last two nights, and OH and I had to have the stove on again in the evening. No great loss: we're still burning fence wood -- and also over-the-fence wood, leylandii trunks from the hedge that got felled three years ago when my Woman Shed was put up. We just chucked it into that dead space behind the fence at the bottom of our garden near the ditch. But now we want to move our raspberry canes there so all that wood crud got dragged back in, chopped up by me and burnt on the wood fire last night. Cosy!
Things have been pretty pants healthwise -- the virus that both of us caught turned out to be flu and floored us comprehensively. The hospital investigations are grinding on too and it's sobering to realise quite how many things you really can't do with a compromised respiratory system. I'm starting to get antsy about not being able to crack on properly on the allotment and in our garden.
Then again, given the constant nightfrosts, it's probably just as well we haven't cracked on -- because by now, any seedlings would have been shrivelled mush. Our sowings are looking quite good though and I've been careful to put them under cover these last two nights. Right now, we can hope for:
* sprouting broccoli -- well on its way to developing true leaves
* perpetual spinach
* lots of kale
* red cabbage
* pumpkins and courgettes
* hopefully beans -- starting to wake up now
* maybe peas
* sunflowers
* gladioli
* lettuce -- they are doing very well -- must sow more
The tomatoes aren't out yet, and I guess it really is still too cold for them even though they're in the little greenhouse.
We have managed to do some gentle digging and weeding -- the ground elder is being pushed back from the left bed and we're rescuing and propagating the waifs and strays from previous plantings such as lemon balm, monarda didyma (bergamot or "punk plant") and tons of little crocosmia bulbs. The perennials in the pots that we got in the cheap sale last year have survived the winter and we're hoping to be able to put them out after the last frosts have passed (two weeks yet, I reckon). I am constantly reminding myself to be patient and to see the garden in front of my inner eye as it will be, not as the ploughed, weed-choked field that it is right now.
The plan is to order 50 metres of weed-suppressant membrane and put a narrower, arcing central path through the garden and bark it over. Not sure what mulch we'll be using for our new flower and shrub beds, and there's a young cherry tree to be planted that we'll need a space for. Our back garden orchard is definitely being re-established, as it should be.
OH experimented with the birch tree the other day. Now is the time to "tap" these things to make birch syrup, and he did get about a glass full out of it. It was clear liquid, tasted faintly sweet and a little bitter. I was a bit dubious about it and drank maybe a sip and since OH didn't want to do anything with it ("Not enough to boil into syrup."), I poured it over my hair the next time I was in the shower.
The garden wildlife is very inspiring though. Where everyone I know is down and ill -- that virus may not make the national news but everyone we talk to knows at least two people who had gone down with it if they hadn't got it themselves -- at least the animals have shown winter the finger and have got on with procreating, territory-defending, nest-building and eating us out of house and home. Our various feeding stations have so far attracted
* ring-necked doves
* wood pigeons
* robins
* blackbirds
* a thrush
* crows
* jays
* blue tits and great tits
* dunnocks
* wrens
* greenfinches
* chaffinches
* a woodpecker
* a magpie
* squirrels
and, OH thinks, even a nuthatch, a type of finch, I think, which is very rare round here.
The frogs are out again, and so far we have spotted a variety of bumblebees and even the odd butterfly.
Right now, the sun is shining and the frost is melting -- goodbye frost!
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