Back on the plot

Today was the first day's serious gardening of the year.  It's not that the weather has been bad - it's been mild on the whole, and relatively dry, but I've been persuading myself that garden jobs weren't all that pressing, and apart from minor bits and pieces such as pulling up the odd weed I haven't been doing much outside.  But there is work to be done, so this afternoon it was on with the gardening gear and out to the greenhouse.  Very satisfying is was too, although none of the jobs were big ones.  Mostly it was the early seed-sowing: the aubergines, sweet peppers and chillies, all to be germinated indoors, and the spring sowing of sweet peas, which have been left in the greenhouse (the autumn-sown ones sprouted in early winter and were put out into the cold frame in December).  A few small lettuce plants which had been sitting in modules in the cold frame were planted into a trough in the relative warmth of the greenhouse (which is cooler than usual this year, having dropped a few times to 2.2C, which is on the cold side for some of my tender plants but nothing seems to be suffering too much so far).  Then there were a couple of other odd jobs to do, such as tying in the broad beans, most of which have reached the height where that is both helpful and desirable.

There is other work waiting for me, including pruning the apple tree and raking weed out of the pond.  It's also a good time of year for digging up perennial weeds, and goodness knows there are plenty of those to tackle.

One job which I did do earlier in January was to plant the last of the tulip bulbs, last year's 'World Friendship' bulbs which had proliferated remarkably well; this probably means that they are too small to flower successfully this year, but we'll see.  They were nice tulips and I'm reluctant to throw them out.  To create a home for them I emptied a big pot which had been housing a mix of small plants, mostly shrubby herbs grown from cuttings; they had been popped in there during the dry summer weather to give them a better depth of soil, and hence more water retention, than their individual small pots could provide.  They hadn't put on a great deal of top growth, but their roots had expanded enormously and I had to cut them apart - so I was surprised to find vine weevil grubs in there.  Goodness only knows what they had been living on as nothing seemed to be damaged.  I fished out as many grubs as I could find and left them out for the robin, who enjoyed the meal.

Actually we have two robins - they paired up before Christmas and have been feeding together quite happily.  We'll see if the friendship lasts when the really cold weather blows in!  There have been a few frosts but nothing to seriously worry the birds, and they haven't been particularly territorial so far.  There are quite a few finches around, mostly goldfinches - two of them were feeding on the phlomis seedheads this morning - but there are also a group of chaffinches, which were soaking up the sun the other day on the apple cordons against the wall, and a male greenfinch has also been around.  We've also had a few bullfinches enjoying eating the flowers on the winter honeysuckle, which has been in full bloom since early December.

Freesias and winter honeysuckle

The winter honeysuckle (Lonicera purpusii) has been a mainstay of posies of flowers for the house; it paired well with some white supermarket freesias, and also with early snowdrops and hazel catkins.  The winter aconites and the first of the hybrid hellebores are out (the big Helleborus argutifolius has been in flower since before Christmas), and I see that the Cyclamen coum that self-seeded at the edge of the path are also flowering.  Daffodil leaves are starting to sprout, although I know from experience that it will still be some time before we see any flowers; they seem to have an ability to sit in bud for a very long time without actually blooming!

Snowdrops and catkins

Cyclamen coum

Helleborus argutifolius

Helleborus x hybridus

Snowdrops and aconites