April assessment
It’s the end of April, time to take stock of what I have and haven’t managed to achieve so far this year.
I planted 12 heritage fruit trees and Ian and I got the 200 hedge plants/trees into the ground last month. For the hedges I bought a mix of wild pear/apple/plum (sloe), hornbeam, hazel, elder, willows… and I’ve planted 30 or so trees in one corner of the field to form a little copse; oak, ash, lime, horse chestnut, beech… I’ve probably forgotten a few, but you get the idea. I’ve also planted seven ash trees to form a grove, so that those who have time for such things can do meditation or yoga.
As for veg: my divisions of artichoke are doing well – as John Seymour says, they’re not going to feed a hungry world, but will add some variety and as the plants were already here when I arrived it’s cost nothing.
Rhubarb is doing well and already threatening to flower – I know I should probably cut the flowers off but they are quite the most magnificent things and I can’t bring myself to! Elsewhere in the garden are Jerusalem artichokes, broad beans (picture right), peas, onions, garlic, cabbages and rocket – though all still very small. I would have liked to plant the beans last autumn, but the plot they are in hadn’t yet been created then.
In the house on windowsills are baby peas (extras to fill in gaps), tomatoes, kale, broccoli, lettuce and chard. All still too small to go out, and anyway there are no dug areas for them to go in yet!
I managed to sneak and hour and a half yesterday when there was no/little rain to weed the strawberry bed. Last year our wwoofer and I spend 3 days making this patch “completely weed free” before planting 100 strawbs, but that didn’t deter the weeds from taking up residence again! It’s now back to its former glory, a few of the plants are even in flower (pic below).
So it’s not the most brilliant start to the year. But, we’ve not had any wwoofers yet, Ian has been busy on other jobs so hasn’t been able to help much and the weather has been against us most of the time, but I’ve not done too badly and there’s still time to catch up.
