The year turns a corner

Apologies for the late posting - after a busy day gardening I retreated to a cosy sofa and idn’t move all evening. Anyway, we have an extra day of weekend, don’t we?

It’s is now officially Spring, and with Easter falling so close to the Equinox, it feels all the more special. OK, outside it seems like Winter has returned (snowing with you right now? or is the wind blowing so fiercely that it can’t land?) but the change over the past week or so has been dramatic. Only a few weeks back, the sun set behind the first house opposite me. Now it clears the whole block. There just seems to be more light, and with a narrow garden on a Northern slope of a hill, you certainly notice the change.

The plan for us this weekend is to spend as much time as possible (in spite of the weather) working at the new allotment. By the end of Monday I hope to have planted onions, garlic and shallots in their alloted raised beds, and most importantly, first early potatoes.

The Wartime Weekend Gardener suggests sowing another batch of peas. Already done that - found a packet from last year with four remaining Purple Podded seeds, so put them in pots, and sowed twice as many Golden Sweet peas to complement. I’m looking forward to a pile of salad leaves topped with them, garnished with a few Nasturtium flowers.

The other recommendation is to prepare a special bed for growing marrows. Similar to a hotbed, by placing a layer of topsoil on top of fresh or part rotted manure. Well if I manage to complete the main tasks at the allotment, I’ll be making the beds for the Three Sisters (beans, corn & squashes) part of the rotation plan, so that’s a possibility as well.