Hooray, the clocks have gone forward, the days are bright, the weather is lovely and the temperature is getting warmer. And with these subtle changes, I’m also getting more excited about growing things in the garden again. With the sunshine streaming in through my window as I write this blog post, the weather today seems eons away from the deep snow we had in February (see the photos in my garden update from Feb here), it’s amazing what a difference a month makes, isn’t it?
I already feel like we’re a bit behind with last year’s growing; I’m sure we already had seeds sprouting on the windowsill by now. But I haven’t felt like doing much gardening while the wind was a-gustin’ and I’ve been putting it off somewhat. Plus, our order of seeds and sets from GrowSeeds.co.uk still hasn’t arrived, even though I placed the order in January and have checked on the progress of the delivery many times since.
Instead, I’ve dug out packets of seeds left over from last year and we’ve still got peas, beans, sweetcorn and LOTS of tomato seeds ready to sow. Thankfully Saturday was a lovely sunny day so I’ve been in the garden preparing my old seed trays and have popped them on the kitchen windowsil to get started.
After my old trowel feel apart at the end of last year (I can’t blame it, it was already a secondhand find from the car boot sale) I got a new tool to help with the planting. This pocket trowel multi-tool is foldable and had some extra hidden tools in the handle including a root remover, mini saw, pruning knife and weed hook. It’s like the swiss army knife of garden tools!
I’ve also planted up some pots of herbs and salad that I want to keep indoors on my kitchen windowsill including basil, wild rocket and some mixed lettuce leaves. The chives have come back from last year so they’ve had a haircut and have been divided up so I’ve got even more chive plants than before.
I’m also trying to make my garden a little more wildlife friendly this year (hence the bee house that I got last month) so I’ve also been making plans to welcome more birds and butterflies in my garden too. My husband knocked up these birdboxes from offcuts of wood that we had lying around in the garden and I’m so excited to paint them and get them up on the fence of trellis ready for some birds to move in.
I also got this dedicated butterfly house – a habitat that is supposed to be particularly inviting for butterflies. The slotted doors should help to keep them safe from birds and predators. Seeing as we’re not growing any brassicas in the garden this year I’m sure it’ll be find to encourage some more butterflies to move in! I noticed that we already have a few butterflies in the garden because our cat Muffin was mesmerized by one fluttering across the lawn last week.
We also planted raspberry canes in the front garden, which is the first bit of digging we’ve done in what will be another veggie patch. The raspberries are all along the fence and we’re probably going to add some blueberry bushes too. Plus, plans are afoot for installing a greenhouse too. We’ve spotted a narrow space where we can fit in a 4 x 8 lean-to greenhouse so hopefully we’ll be able to buy one from Waltons when it comes back in stock.
How are you getting on with your own garden this year? Have you spent much time outdoors yet, or have you been avoiding the windy weather like me? I’ll be sure to share more updates on my garden next month and hopefully I’ll have some seedlings to show you then!
Some items in this blog post have been gifted to me and the pink links indicate a gifted product, affiliate link or information source. All thoughts and opinions in this post are based on my own experience and I am not responsible for your experience 🙂
