Keeping on top of the Spring jobs

After another extended time away from home on business I know that there will be plenty of tasks waiting for me on my return. All of these will be in addition to the usual concerns about the contents of the vegetable beds and how they have coped in my absence.

Here is a brief run-down…

Vegetable beds

After the range of planting that I did a couple of weeks ago I’m hoping to see signs of progress from some if not all of them.

The seed potatoes have been under cloches so they should have been well protected from any frosts recently. Unfortunately the cloches will also have kept the rain off too so I;ll need to check that.

It is much the same for the carrot seedlings I planted out but these are a fast growing variety so I suspect I will see more progress with those.

The onion sets got planted out in a bit of a rush and as a result all I had left to cover them was some netting. Hopefully even that has been some help to keep the worst of the weather off them while they get established.

Planting Out

By this time the French Marigold seedlings will probably be a little too big for their current home and desperate to get out into the real world.

I have great hopes for these mainly for the companion planting benefits however they are also one of the few plants that  I am growing from seed this year specifically just for the flowers. Unfortunately I don’t have such high hopes for success with the old poppy and foxglove seeds which I sowed after finding them in a corner of the garage.

The leek seedlings in toilet roll tubes seem to have taken ages but I suspect that is down to my impatience more than any inherent weakness on their part. If my calculations are correct then the first batch should be about ready for planting out. I just hope I left enough room for them when planting out the carrots a few weeks ago but if not then some leeks will just have to suffer a temporary home until the (early harvesting) carrots have gone.

Construction work

The work to reroute the guttering on the garage was completed (fairly roughly) last time but I need to adjust the slope to get a proper flow and finish off the supports as well.

Of course I still need to get the water-butt to use with this but that’s just a minor detail really! It’s just a shame that I’ve missed an opportunity with all the wet weather at home over the last 2 weeks. Never mind I’m fairly confident that the North East of England is not likely to suffer a drought just yet.

Rearranging things

There are always plenty of other (non-vegetable) jobs to get done though and one of them will to rearrange some other plants that have managed to spread their way around the garden.

As usual we have a lot of  self seeded Campanula and they will mostly be left where they are this year. However I will clear out some of them in an effort to create the illusion of a few select areas  rather than having them all over the whole garden.

I think the time has come to leave the Bluebells alone after many years of removing them from certain areas. This year I got the impression that they looked a little more under control so I think they deserve to break.

It may not be the right time but I think we have a Philadelphus in need of some tidying up. There was an ill-advised attempt at pruning a couple of years ago which didn’t go well – no names of course but it wasn’t me!

If I remember I may add a post with a picture of the Bay tree before I tackle it as we have left this for many years now. What used to a be a fairly well-trimmed but large standard-style tree is now getting out of control and needs a firm disciplinary hand.

At this point I should make it clear that I’m no expert with plant names but I always use these names for the plants in question so if I’m wrong then at least I’m consistent!

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