Spring in the garden
This evening I watched a really great television proramme called ‘Christine’s Garden‘ (great website too with lots of basic gardening tips) about a northern woman who is 100% into her garden and her job as a horticulturalist. She LOVES gardening and she especially loves spring time as things are changing every day, sprouting, growing and sap rising.
The two best tips I came away with were (1) bring your bag of cold potting compost into the house the night before you start planting seeds as this takes the chill off the compost and helps them get started (b) use luke warm water to water newly pricked out seedlings as again this helps them and doesn’t give them a nasty shock like cold water does. Brilliant!
I could really relate to her enthusiasm as I’ve realised over the years that I actually do come out of some sort of winter survival slumber when spring arrives with it’s extra light, new shoots, beautiful flowers and the sounds of birds all around. It’s so lovely being outside once the weather becomes tollerable. I feel so excited at this time of year. I am a really big fan of Spring like many people.
This year being in the countryside instead of the city from the begining of the year for the first time I am noticing things like baby bumble bees (I had to have my frend tell me that’s what they were), the clusters of ladybirds in the corners of my windows which I thought were dead all woke up today (all except their friends who were vacuumed up months ago) and got taken to the garden, and colourful pheasant fellows with their harems of female birds who follow them wherever they go (usually into our garden with a great quacking noise)
As I’ve already said I can’t wait to get cracking on sowing seeds into little tiny pots and watching their first leaves poke through. With a bit of luck this year we’ll have lovely cut flowers for the house (dahlias, gladiolas, chrysanthmums and some others I’ve forgotten the names of), some pretty cottage garden flowers in the front garden and round the back too and fingers crossed an abundance of free, organic fresh fresh fresh vegetables for just the price of a few packs of seeds, trays and a couple of bags of compost - oh yes and time/energy to do start it, continue it, water and feed it and harvest it.
I’ll write more about what I’m doing in the garden but for now I’m just going to go and dream about what it might look like and how to do it. We’re so lucky to have left the city and to have so much of Mother Nature to ourselves. I can’t quite believe it.