Tuesday 18 January 2011

This Week in the Garden

Not much is happening garden wise at the moment, which is actually quite surprising.

Normally you wouldn't expect anything at all to be happening, it is January, after all. However, the weather at the moment is incredibly mild, and has been for a couple of weeks. This has us slightly worried, as we have no doubt there is a frost to come (for instance, today's weather forecast shows snow next Wednesday) but it's possible that plants will start to think that spring is on its way.

However, the mild weather has allowed us to do some things in the orchard: I connected our rainwater tanks and have plans to buy and connect some more, whilst Susan has been surveying and plotting her orchids. We also have plans to build new compost bins (the old one is now full, but not matured).

In the potager our onions are doing quite well, but everything else (including, annoyingly and uncharacteristically, the cabbages and leeks) seem to have died off because of the mild but wet weather. We have not yet started planting seeds in our cold frames, that will probably be another 6 weeks yet.

In the back garden of our house the daffodils are starting to shoot and they will probably be flowering in late March. The orchids that Susan had to transplant when we built the grape vine trellis are showing signs of growth, and they should flower in late May.

Apart from that, it is all quiet in the gardens.

Simon

2 comments:

Tim said...

I reccomend a windrow system for your bins, Simon.
You can then turn the current one into number two and start refilling the first one.... this aerates the existing compost and speeds up the maturing process.
When bin two is full [usually three binloads from number one] you can buy and start to fill bin three with the contents of bin two.
We had a three bin one for 600 sq.metres of allotment and it worked very well, giving good compost.
We are about to buy bin two for here.

Diogenes said...

Daffodils are among my favorites. Trader Joe's carries the buds cut and dried (freeze dried?)in boxes. You stick them in water and they bloom. Do you two grow any other bulbs like tulips or hyacinths?

It has been unusually warm here as well. 87 degrees in Los Angeles yesterday.

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