Today is the first day of Winter and despite the clear, frosty morning I thought it was about time I put my fingers to the keyboard and caught up with the past few months of activity on the smallholding. Here I go now all the way back to the warmer days of May.
The flowerbeds loved the early spring heatwave and were filling up nicely. The Forget-Me-Nots self seed every year and never fail to give us some spring colour.
M decided to extend the side flowerbed to include the area around one of the trees in the garden. I'd love to be able to name the tree but despite examining the fruit each year we have failed to identify them, maybe this year we would succeed.
We bought this little crab apple tree at our local nursery which was an incredible find. It was not your usual garden centre, no café, no gifts, no toys just lots and I mean lots of plants and trees.
The crab apple blossom at the beginning of May was plentiful and such a gorgeous pink.
M spent the day tidying up the main path through the woods, another day of chipping provided a fresh layer to hopefully keep the weeds at bay.
The long, sunny blue sky days gave us the opportunity to keep up with grass cutting in the orchard and trimming around the trees and veg beds.
Another trip to the local nursery and with a car full of plants we had our work cut out finding homes for them all. The woodland garden was filling up but there was room for a little Mecanopsis.
A white Viburnum found it's place in the white garden. We made the decision not to surround it with any deer defence but only time would tell if this was wise or not.
This was a further addition to the white garden, I can't remember the name but it was such a pretty flower head. It had a slightly pink tinge to the white but from a distance it was white enough to warrant its place.
We bought a few ferns started a small fernery at the end of the main path in the woods. Over the past couple of years I had also collected some small ferns and they were also big enough to be planted out. M found a few old tree stumps so this is the beginning of what we hoped would multiply over time.
Every year I've tried to work out what is my favourite season. I think Spring is probably top of my list but I have always seeing the greenhouse full to bursting with seedlings and young developing plants, not yet ready for planting out but with the promise of an abundance of flowers, fruit and veg to enjoy.
We had a little experiment this year with our onions. As usual I sowed some onion sets in cells in the autumn and overwintered them in the greenhouse before planting out in the veg bed. As a comparison I also sowed some onion sets in a similar fashion in the spring. The first 2 rows on the left were autumn sown, the rest were spring sown. Even at this early stage it was clear to see that the spring plants were much larger and healthier than the autumn ones.
I always seem to order too many potatoes and yet again this year, once the coffins were full I had to plant some in the plastic buckets.
I even had some more left over seed potatoes to fill 3 of the canvas pots. They were against the byre wall where they captured the sun during the day and were also protected from the worst of the rain.
By the middle of May it was time to get the tomatoes planted up in their grow bags in the greenhouse. Of course this involved clearing out a lot of plants to make some room.
Despite the high temperature in the greenhouse I managed to get the first 4 growbags of tomatoes planted up.
During the sunny days the grass moving and weeding often seemed unending but so satisfying to see everything all tidied up at the end of the day.
We moved our little Gogi plant to a new position as it had been struggling for the past 2 years and had hardly grown at all. It made me laugh when I saw it advertised in the nursery as 'easy to grow'. Hopefully the new location would give it a boost.
The beans and peas were flourishing in the polytunnel although this year we were experiencing an increase in greenfly. I was hoping that the presence of some marigolds would help to control them.
The seedlings in the greenhouse were growing well and were ready for transferring to the pots, baskets and planters around the garden.
We made a determined effort this year to grow pumpkin and squash. They had been growing vigorously in pots in the greenhouse until we thought the weather was suitable to plant them out. M cleared an area in the old winter pig pen and erected a frame/trellis to support the fruits. Unfortunately they only lasted about 3 days before they all succumbed to slugs. With time running out I sowed a few more seeds to try again.
M built a huge framework out of hazel sticks for the peas. We were hoping for a good harvest this year.
We have very few pictures of the back garden to remind us of our work there but it always looked good when it has been tidied and the grass was freshly cut.
A favourite of ours has always been Lupins but in the past we struggled to keep them alive. Another go this year in a different location would perhaps prove successful.
Making the most of the decent weather and I got the 'white garden' strimmed although the distinct lack of white flowers was not through lack of trying but mainly due to constant presence of deer and rabbits.
Approaching the end of the month the weather turned but as we sheltered in the byre we took the opportunity to plant up the simmer pots.
They looked a bit sad in the rain but we hoped they would improve as they filled out and the flowers appeared.
What a glorious way to end May, a beautiful walk at the seaside with M and the dogs, one of our favourite places in any weathers but especially on a sunny day.
