Tuesday 26 April 2011

Note to self

In future, do not let rainbow chard go to seed. Then, do not plant beetroot in the *exact* same spot that rainbow chard will try to re-establish itself. I have no idea which is which!

Thursday 14 April 2011

A learning curve

A little over a year ago, Amelia and I planted a blueberry bush in a tub of ericaceous compost.


 It grew a lot, and produced leaves, but not a single blueberry did it grow that Summer. We were very disappointed.

Fast forward to now, and it's covered in hundreds of little pinky purple buds. I've been watching them closely, expecting them to open into flowers and turn into blueberries in much the same way that our other fruits do. But apparently that's not how blueberries grow! They are currently looking like this:




 The buds simply inflate into hollow, white spheres. They remind me of those round paper lightshades people have on their ceilings. I pressume they will get plumper and purpler over time.
I'd better look into netting them so the birds don't get to them first! Hopefully we'll have enough to make a batch of muffins as well as eating them raw. Yum.

In plum tree news, I am very excited because some of the flowers are now looking like this (excuse poor focus, the camera was very confused!):
BABY PLUMS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Monday 11 April 2011

Blossom

I've been very busy over the past six weeks. I think I've started off all of my pot grown vegetables now, although I'll need to keep sowing things like carrots, lettuce and beetroot every so often. My garden is under threat from weeds. I have never, ever seen it so bad and I'm sure I've weeded more this year than ever before! I must get out there and sort it out properly. It's been unseasonably warm, but apparently the nice weather is over now and it'll be much cooler and wetter for the forseeable future. I think the garden needs the rain.

The most exciting thing is that my fruit trees are waking up and blossoming, so I thought I'd share some photos.


A snail going for a slither on the plum tree, which was the first to blossom.

This is what it looks like now, two weeks later. I'm constantly inspecting the flowers to see if there's any sign of some little plums growing!

Cherry blossom. I MUST get this covered in netting this year. I'm not losing all the cherries to pesky birds again!


Apple blossom. This is the Sunset variety (excuse the weeds in the background!). Two of the newest apple trees, Red Devil and Scrumptious, are also starting to flower, but Broadholme Beauty, Bramley's Seedling, and the solo pear tree are only producing leaves this year.