Spring Gardening
Good morning everyone, what a glorious weekend we had just past, the sun was shining and I managed to get a little gardening done. The garden was looking rather over-grown, lots of dead-heading, cutting back and picking up of leaves left over from the autumn. We’ve had quite a stormy winter this year so the lawn was littered with twigs from the trees.
I realised pretty soon that all this garden refuse was not going to fit into the recycling bin, and my composting bin is already full – probably too full to be of any use (I must check that out!) So what do you do when you have lots of garden refuse and a dry sunny day? Burn it of course – I was actually quite excited about the prospect LOL
So DH dutifully constructed a fire and we burnt the lot. It was a rather smoky affair that seemed to smolder for ages – we reeked afterwards, but the smell reminded me of summer BBQ-ing days – I can’t wait!
Last week I was cleaning out the pump in our pond and what do you think I saw? A family – a rather large (in number) family – of newts!
I was super excited to spot them, the girls and I counted about 16! We knew that we had frogs living in our pond but not newts! We will definitely be doing a newt study in our nature lessons soon!
There is no doubt that the northern hemisphere is slowly awakening from her winter slumber. This month I will be sewing seeds for the summer garden. I want to include a cut flower garden this year, I was inspired by last years production of The Big Allotment Challenge – one of my favourite programs. Sadly I believe the BBC are not doing a third series – such a shame!
Anyhoo, I was looking through some of my favourite gardening books and some that are on my wishlist and thought I would share them here with you. Alan Titchmarch and Monty Don are amongst my favourite! Full of practical month-by-month advice which is just what this amateur gardener needs LOL.
I’ll leave you to ponder on your own garden dreams, have a wonderful day and I’ll see you back here very soon!
6 Comments
Gill
Check out your newts carefully, because the greater crested newts ( pictured) are I believe, on the protected list. You might be advised not to use your pond pump until after any tadpoles are grown and out of the pond. That is what we used to do, anyway:). Just imagine all those poor little tadpoles sucked up into the filter!
Which books are your favourites? I must admit to being a Geoff Hamiton fan, but I have one or two by Monty Don, and enjoyed a recent tv program of his (which I have to get on YouTube!) about the history of English gardens. Sadly, my garden is under yet another fresh fall of snow, but I did see the first promise of daffodils poking up a cm above the soil in my south facing bed yesterday, where the crisp carpet of weeks old snow was beginning to retreat! So there is definitely hope😀
Shirley-Ann
Gill thanks for the advice! It hadn't even occurred to me that my sweet little tadpoles could be sucked up into the filter. I think that Alan Titchmarsh's Gardening Through The Year. I love having tips on what to do each month. In season – I watch Monty Don's Gardeners World each week – I LOVE his program. Did you catch the recently aired program on British front gardens? Amazing what people can do in such small spaces! I'm always inspired by things like that. I'm definitely going to bookmark the History of English Gardens – thanks for letting me know about that one 🙂
Gill
If your newts are the greater crested ones, they are definitely protected and you should check out what you are allowed to do in your pond…there's a £5000 fine to be aware of! Yikes! I've always had a fond spot for newts, all the mystery of frogs but no sudden hopping! If alarmed, they squeak, loudly! I found that out aged about 12, pond dipping, and am probably eligible for that fine 😉 I shall look forwards to seeing how you get on with them.
Shirley-Ann
Gill I will definitely check out which newts I have! I don't think they are the same as the ones in the picture I shared in the post – mine seem to be simpler in design 🙂 but I appreciate the 'heads-up' I wouldn't want a hefty fine at all. BTW – I switched off my pond pump this morning!
mamasmercantile
We have just started to think about the garden and have sorted out the seeds and are going to pot some up later in the week. We have not been lucky with the weather this week so have not ventured out to the garden.
Shirley-Ann
Oh this weeks weather has been the pits hasn't it. Devon seems to get every storm that hits Britain! Today we have had winds and icy showers – definitely NOT gardening weather!