Spring is springing. The birds are singing, a few bees are lurking, buds are showing.
I’m in the middle of a couple of weeks travelling up and down the country. I popped down to the plot today while I have a day at home to check how my greenhouse plants are doing and to air them out. While I was there I took a few photos to reflect on where my progress is at and to anticipate the work that lies ahead.
My plot (marked on the image above) is approximately 12.5m wide and 32m long so it’s huge – 400 square meters versus the usual 250 square meters (or 10 rods in old money) for a tradtional plot. All the plots at the site are bordered with hawthorn hedging. Quarter, half and full plots are available to rent. I started out with a half in 2022 and at the beginning of last year I expanded to a full plot.
Last year in February I planted four maiden pear trees (quince C rootstock) at the front of the plot, two on each side. All have survived and are alive but the two trees from Keepers Nursery (Jargonelle and Duchesse d’Angouleme) are larger and in far better condition than the other two. The others (Conference and Packhams Triumph) are from an order I cancelled from a disreputable seller after learning how many issues customers had had with them – the trees got delivered without notice anyhow, so I planted them. The difference in growth is a good lesson in why it’s best to go with a nursery that grows its own stock – Keepers Nursery lift their trees a week before delivery and the benefits show!
I spent time over autumn and winter mirroring the front bed on my original half on the right to the new half on the left. I still need to do a little more work to finish the new left bed but you can see from the images they are now the same size and similar layout. Both 5m wide by 6m. Both sides have lavender plants to form a hedge at the front of the bed – the left is going to look uniform with all munstead lavender, while the right is a higgledy piggledy combo of donated varieties alongside a few munsteads.
Behind the lavender row are dahlia plants I have grown from seed. My dahlias did really well last year being left in the ground with a big pile of chippings and leaves for mulch on top to overwinter, so I’ve done the same again this winter. I have 9 plants in total, with 4 on the right side to make space for a red currant. On the left side behind the dahlias is a 60cm wide row of tulips, mostly species tulips but some cultivated too.
So the fronts of these beds are perenial flowers mostly. And then the back two thirds is left for annual planting… and quite a lot of already planted edible perenial crops. My hope is that the front of the beds (hopefully) give a friendly ornmental aesthetic and then the chaos of my interplanting (which scares some commitee members) can happen behind away from passers-by on the lane.
Here’s how the back of the two beds look from the central path. The left side (first photo) is where I tried out different green manures as described in a recent post. What’s left now is the second sowing of field beans and forage peas. Between the two boards on the left of that image are my surviving broad bean plants.
The right side bed (second photo) is mostly covered in dried oak leaves. I smothered rye with old plants chucked on top with a blue tarp to compost down over winter. Spring cabbages are under netting. Behind them in the same row are babington leeks and good king henry. There’s a half row of korean mint, and then snapdragons and self sown flowers in other areas.
Here’s my WIP map of my plot for this year, it gives a better idea of how the space is structured behind these first beds than my photos can do:
The plot gate is on the left, the treeline and pink shed are to the right on the map. The central path is marked across the image in grey (the dark grey marks along the path are at 2m intervals). The top of the image faces south-east. The pear trees are marked on the left with their final max branch / root radius. The beds tend to be marked out in multicolours so I can visually remember the differences between plants. Grass is pale green, brown between beds are wood chipping paths, grey paving.
There’s a big yellow square in the top centre on the new half… that or it’s ajacent multicoloured planting scheme do not exist yet. Let’s see how far I get with my digging in late March and April 👀
These photos are of the perenial flower bed I have next to my blue potting shed. I edited out some hollyhocks and gave some plants a wider spacing as things were quite crowded in here last year. Which honestly isn’t a bad thing, I’m glad I’ve got a good combo of plants to survive drought – this bed doesn’t get watered or tlc. In the left photo are geums and primroses at the front, thyme and roses behind. A digitalis that I can’t remember for the life of me what it’s called. Macedonian scabious. Tall perenial asters. And tete-a-tete daffodils showing atm.
In the right photo you can see hollyhocks in the middle third of the bed. And to the right rose campion which I add to lots of shady areas.
In front of my polycarbonate greenhouse I have a 2x3m bed where I grew cauliflowers under net last year. Atm this net structure is still in situ and I’ve grown garlic in 1x2m section. The rest of this bed will likely be tomatoes this year and I’ll do some August sowing / transplanting of something when the garlic gets harvested.
My greenhouses have faired well over winter. I had drama in autumn with my polycarbonate greenhouse as the roof had began to perish. Birds learned they could peck through to eat woodlice and mummified worms that had made their way into the spaces between the layered plastic. So the roof panels began to lose integrity even more so than they already had. I got help with an emergency repair job with a lot of tape to cover the surface and grip the frame, which suprisingly has lasted through winter.
In the polycarbonate greenhouse I have chard, snowball cauliflowers and sutherland kale plants that have overwintered. The cauliflowers are pretty beaten up but the chard and kale are healthy. I only use organic methods on my plot and I haven’t given these plants any tlc (and the leaf mulch will have made a haven for slugs and woodlice) so I’m pleased with how they are doing.
In my glass greenhouse I have more chard growing in the ground and some left over beetroot plants that needed chucking or transplanting in autumn. The plants in pots and modules are mostly grown from seed. Welsh onions, skirret, sweet peas, giant scabious, macedonian scabious and hollyhocks. I also have young gypsophila plants, pulmonarias bought as bare roots, potted ranculus corms, and a rooted rosemary cutting.
I’ve built a pond recently too but I’m going to make a separate post documenting that process.
It always feels daunting with the amount of work ahead at this time of year but I’m pleased with where I’m at. I just need to get more ground sorted. With being away a lot I haven’t chitted my potatoes but planting my first earlies will be my number one job when I get back.
Thanks for reading! Hope you’re enjoying the beginnings of spring where you are 🧡🌷
