I love snowdrops and there’s no more beautiful and delicate flower at this time of year, I bought a plant from the Garden Centre a few years back and every year the plant comes back bigger and better. I had thought of dividing it once it stops flowering but whilst talking to one of the Garden Centre Managers he told me there were many varieties and all shapes and sizes which has got me thinking of creating a woodland corner in a partly shaded area, with 4 or 5 varieties, some ferns and anemones, primroses or hardy cyclamens and covering with leaf mold. I’ve two old logs that have started to rot and break down which would finish off the effect! 

Lin

Our keen amateur gardener!

Finally it’s been mild enough for me to get out in my greenhouse! Even though it was raining I took myself off with a flask of coffee and spent a few hours pulling up all the dead plants and weeds in the beds, brushed down the shelving and threw out some of the old broken trays and plant pots and washed the ones I wanted to keep.

I’m sowing some sweet peas this week, last year I’d planted some in the autumn but to be honest they hadn’t done that well so I’ve left it till now to sow them into pots and will leave them on a high shelf in the greenhouse that gets plenty of light. 

Lin

Our keen amateur gardener!

I’m afraid I’ve been rather lazy since the Autumn and I really haven’t been caring for all my house plants, my cymbidium orchids prefer the cooler conditions of my conservatory and like to be moist, though not overwatered, but I haven’t watered them at all!!! So I’ve dunked them in a bowl of water until the pot felt heavy and allowed them to drain before putting them back on their tray of new gravel.

I also checked some of the pots outside and a couple sheltered by a wall are bone dry even after all this wet weather so it may be worth checking all your planters, if alternatively they are under water use a few bricks or Patio container feet to raise them up to avoid them sitting in the wet. I’ve also had a bit of a clean up of all my containers and cut back leaves and removed debris, I’ve spruced them up by covering them with gravel as I had some left over from the house plant trays!

Lin 

Our keen amateur gardener!

It’s been too cold to get out on my veggie plot and I’ve only been going out there to pick winter salad and spring onions. The Garden Centres have now got their range of seed potatoes in and I’m going to start chitting them by putting them in a light and cool place (my conservatory) with the end showing the most 'buds' uppermost in old egg boxes. Once the shoots start to sprout, pinch out all but two or three. Starting them early gives them a really good chance to develop before planting in early March.



I’m also making up my plan of vegetable crop rotation for this year and need to rotate where I planted cabbages last year and put runner beans in and I’ll put onions, carrots and parsnips where the runner beans were! It sounds complicated but it distributes and puts back all the nitrates and nutrients into the soil lost through growing.



While I’ve been sitting with a cuppa doing my plan, I’ve also been through my old seed packets and thrown out all the out of dates, there’s quite a list of new seeds I’ll be needing as well as potatoes!! 

Lin 

Our keen amateur gardener!

Happy New Year to you all, well I did say I would be making some New Years resolutions and become a lot more Eco friendly in my garden this year and the first is to leave the Christmas tree out on bin day next week for it to be shredded for mulch. I forget every year and it ends up going into the normal bin as it’s too big to compost.

For Christmas I got a Solar powered fountain for my fishpond!! I can’t wait to put that in when it gets milder!

I’m going to buy a water butt to store water in for the summer months, and I hate slugs and snails as they chomped their way through my veggie patch last year, but slug pellets aren’t very pet friendly so I have decided to buy some bantam hens to scratch about the garden and eat all the bugs and grubs!! And of course they’ll supply a constant good fertilizer for my veggie beds and yummy eggs every day!! Meet the girls!!

Lin

Our keen amateur gardener!