Oh so ready for spring!

HELLO to the curious, the bored and the procrastinating!

We often get asked about what's going on on our little plot so we thought we’d start a brief blog to keep you up dated.

Fresh buds, new shoots and germinating seeds… this is THE most exciting time of the year for me! Some times, in mid-winter, and especially when part of the plot is underwater (see below), you can start to doubt whether all your roses, shrubs, perennials and bulbs will ever show signs of life…and then they do!

Watery woes

We spent a couple of weeks at the end of January/early February nervously watching water levels rise on the plot, then pumping surface water into a nearby drainage ditch and then keeping all our fingers and toes crossed that nothing had suffered too much damage. At one stage ducks could be found paddling around in the newly formed pond around our plot. Thankfully the truly flooded bit never reached our precious bulbs which wouldn’t have appreciated being drowned at all. Later in the year we’ll put in some new buried drainage pipes and with luck we’ll avoid all the anxiety next winter!

Spring Seeding

For the last few weeks we’ve been busy potting up our autumn sown seedlings into bigger pots, hardening them off (getting them used to outside temps) and then planting them out. We’re also been seeding more hardy annuals and our first batch of half hardy annuals so it really feels like the season has started now! Our little greenhouse/poly is chokka block (how do you spell that?!?!?).

We’re also experimenting with using a soil blocker instead of plastic seed trays in order to further minimise our impact on the environment. Soil blockers essentially make mini blocks of soil that you sow your seeds into. Not only does this reduce plastic usage but it also means your seedlings’ roots are “air-pruned” rather than becoming root bound. I’ll be writing a separate blog on this and all our efforts to reduce our environmental impact - coming soon.

Mother’s Day

Our bulbs weren’t quite ready for mothers day so we bought in some gorgeous narcissi and tulips from Cornwall and the Scilly Isles where the season starts a little earlier and we loved delivering bouquets to the mums all over local area. Thank you to all those who ordered from us! Sadly we sold out just before mothers day so we’ll be working hard to increase capacity for next year!

That’s pretty much it for now. xx