Spring time and storm damage

More crazy weather going on here. After the large quantity of snow a few weeks back, and the below average temperatures, this week we had a big storm.  Gale force winds were forecast so I was very careful to tighten the sides of the polytunnel, and I slept in the quiet room (around the corner, away from the prevailing wind!).  It was fully justified - several of the neighbours lost roof slates, one of the fences to nextdoor collapsed, but my polytunnel remained unharmed! The sides had pulled out of the clips, and a few things had fallen off the bench inside, but I was so relieved that there was no damage to the plastic.

Unfortunately the conifers didn't survive so well - both the ones at the top of the meadow and the big one in the back of the copse had branches broken off... We'll get around to clearing it up sometime!

It's finally started to warm up a bit in the garden and the daffs are out at the top of the meadow - the ones nearer the house always come out a few weeks later, maybe they're different varieties, who knows.... But it's still way to wet to clear out the veg beds near the tunnel/shed, the weeds took over in the monsoon of last year so there's a fair bit of work to do but every time you try it just turns into a quagmire.  One day we'll have a dry garden! Fortunately the beds nearer the house were better, so I finally cleared out the sprouts/broccoli and planted some potatoes. 

And in more potato news... The ones I planted in the tunnel a few weeks ago have finally started to come up! No sign of turnips or carrots that were planted at the same time, but maybe I was being a bit to ambitious with those. Some of the seedlings are going great guns so have been potted on - tomatoes, broccoli, beans, pumpkins.... I love the way that the big seeds just explode, you turn around and suddenly there's a massive pumpkin seedling that appeared from nowhere!  Garlic is coming on well in the pots in the tunnel so I've had to plant them on as well...  

I'm very excited about the Battenburg Quilt project..... all the blocks are now complete!! Hooray!!! Now I can play around with deciding where they'll all go (cue: clearing the lounge and going back to the state of fabric everywhere).... Soon I'll have my very own quilt - just need to tidy up the blocks, sew them all together, cut and sew on the plain border, cut and sew on the pattered border, pin, quilt, bind. I really don't know what to do about the quilting - do I just do some lines (ditch or offset), or do I practise free-motion quilting on scraps and then quilt this one?

The potatoes are in.... (and other things)

Well after cleaning and treating the wall last weekend, I was really keen to crack on with the planting.  The weather forecast hasn't been looking good for but on Saturday I managed to dodge the showers and still manage to achieve what I wanted.  Started off with digging it over a bit and turning in a bit more manure, then it was time to work out where everything was going to go.

I'd already made a list of all the plants I had available along with their height and spread - I'd been collecting them over the last year - some grown from seed, others bought as plants (in the sales if possible!).  Pretty much all of them are perennial.... Well annuals aren't really an investment are they!

That was pretty much all I did on Saturday, as in the morning we went round local builders merchants looking for wood to shore up the polytunnel excavation.

Sunday's activities included planting the early potatoes - think they should be ready by July.  Also planted one row of peas, and am trying out the cloche to give them a boost.

Popped around to the Grosvenor to get some more compost and as always I checked out the bargain bin! Picked up half a dozen small herb plants so I've put them in one of the wooden troughs.  They look quite healthy so I'm confident that they'll take.  What I was most proud of was the Alstromeria in the 3ltr tub that I picked up - £4 instead of £10!  Looks a bit sorry for itself now, but I've potted into a bigger tub so hopefully it'll perk up.  Eventually it can go in the second flower bed (when it's built/cleared).

Few other things of note from the weekly garden tour.....

• There are four pots of heuchera under a tree in the copse - and something has made a nest between them.
• My apple trees have pretty flower buds :-)

Fritillary planting and shed tidying

So today's activity list was a long one and was never going to get completed. Why is it that the 'To Do' list is always longer than what you can ever achieve in the time available?  While the OH is away, its time to arrange things how I want them, but before we get on to that - I needed to make a dent in the spring bulb planting. After my huge order from JParkers, and planting the bluebells in the copse and some of the posh tulips in pots - I've got some more pots and planted the rest of the tulips. I've also planted all of the snake's head fritillaries in a more open area of the copse - I've not marked out where, so it'll be a surprise!

After that I painted the inside of one of the cold frames - the plan is to do both and then line them with bubble wrap ready for the winter.... And I need to replace the broken glass in one.

Then it was time for the best activity of the day - tool storage!!! Bought a selection of tool clips from Screwfix and tidied up the big tools in the shed....

Copse transformation starts

So far in the copse we really haven't done much- just pruned the trees and kept it tidy. Now my huge order of bulbs has arrived it's time to start planting.

I know where I'm going to put the path through the copse so on the house side of that, where the most shade is, I've started with the bluebells. I'm hoping when they come up in spring there will be a big drift on that side (well eventually I'll have planted 75 bulbs there)!

The plan for getting rid of the grass comes from the extensive use of Google - I've laid some newspaper on top of where the bluebells are planted and then put compost/leaf litter on top of that and watered it in.  The plan is that the newspaper stops the light and so kills off the grass, and by the time the bluebells are coming through its all degraded down.