I’m always hopelessly impatient for Spring to spring and then I spend the whole of April wishing it would slow down.
Some years Nature goes from a standing start straight in to fifth gear. This year I’m glad the chill wind and frosts at the start of March have temporarily calmed things for now.
In January, when I was still mowing the lawn and the daffodils had started flowering, I wondered if we were going to get a proper winter but by the end of February the constant onslaught from the Atlantic seemed to have slowed and with it the march of Spring.
In the garden the sun is noticeably higher in the sky and the Chooks are getting up much earlier and going to bed later. The snowdrops put on a good display followed by the hellebores and dwarf daffodils in the hazel walk. The first unveiling of the garden furniture is also a much cherished moment and Hemingway immediately took up where he left off last October.
Because it has been such a mild winter many nasty pests have managed to survive. I was intrigued to find some tiny, shiny black dots on my climbing rose. I didn’t know if they were beetles or eggs and after sharing them on twitter, my twitter chums told me they were over-wintering rose aphids. Now I’m not a stranger to greenfly but I’d never seen them before. Needless to say I washed them off with soapy water. My roses need all the help they can get.
The last few crops are coming out of the vegetable garden before the new season starts. We are still waiting for the sprouting broccoli to sprout but we did dig up the Jerusalem artichokes which are a firm favourite in our household despite their antisocial side effects.
This year I have already planted my pepper, chilli, tomato and aubergine seeds which have germinated well on the living room windowsill. More hardy seeds like spring cabbage, leeks and celeriac are growing on in the greenhouse.
I still have hardy annual flower seed to sow and I need to finish preparing the vegetable beds for early sowings of root vegetables – the beetroot and parsnips. That involves the annual back-breaking job of trying to dig out as much of the flint as possible but our heavy soil is still wet and cold so I covered it with black polythene instead…
I’ll think about it again in a few weeks time!