Pub garden 2018 – March

This will be the third year growing vegetables for The Queen at Brandeston and I am going to try and keep a monthly update, this is the first.

The edible planters at the front are not looking at their most spectacular but the primroses are flowering and the tulips that I planted in the autumn are coming up. Yes you can eat tulips!

Here is one of the tulips and a viola. I don’t seem to have much luck with the violas. I used good, big plants this time. Planted in flower, in the autumn to allow time to get established, but still something eats all the flowers before they are even out.

Out the back, one side is ready to go. There’s a bit of overwintered salad under the mesh, salsify, rhubarb, autumn sown broad beans, wild garlic and empty beds waiting for spring to hurry up.

Winter salad leaves

The broad beans have survived all the cold weather.

The rhubarb will soon be ready to harvest.

Wild garlic planted autumn 2016.

On the other side of the lavender lined pathway, there is still a bit of work to do.

Some of the beds still need to be cleared and the gravel weeded. The nearest bed is for herbs and the chives are doing well but there’s more to add. The furthest has mixed brassicas, the winter kale is coming to and end but there are a couple of broccoli just ready.

Chives ready for picking.

Purple sprouting broccoli protected by mesh.

In the greenhouse, not on site, I have planted a few seeds as I couldn’t wait any longer but I am well behind on my plan. I am now bracing myself for a big rush as soon as it warms up a bit.

In the greenhouse, one beetroot seedling so far!

Freeze – thaw

It had not been a good week for gardening. I couldn’t get out of the village because of the snow but even if I had there wasn’t much that I could have done in the gardens. The persistently low temperatures, maximum of -2°C in the day even colder at night, meant that the ground was frozen and the wind was bitter.

And then, quicker than it arrived, it had all gone, except a few random drifts. On Sunday morning, I woke up to sunshine and 7°C and had a quick tour of the garden. I was pleasantly surprised, lots of things had survived. The hellebores popped back up, the Narcisssus tete-a-tete looked just same as before their few days in the freezer and even the broad beans mostly survived.

Narcisssus tete-a-tete

Broad beans are really hardy

It will soon be time for banks of primroses, and I even found a single daffodil in flower which I didn’t know was there.

 

 

Only one real casualty and that was a cold frame made from secondary double glazing at my Monday garden. It wasn’t up to the weight of snow, so I spent Monday morning picking glass out of the strawberry patch.

The weight of the snow was too much

While the cold weather seems to have preserved the drifts of snowdrops which are still flowering it doesn’t appear to have affected the emergence of the next wave of spring. The rhubarb is shooting well and I am eagerly anticipating the scillas and wood anemones just coming up now.

Can’t wait for the first taste of rhubarb!

The continuing cold weather means that I am much later than usual sowing seeds, although I have chillies in the propagator because everyone else was doing it. I have been stuck indoors more than I would like but my bargain amaryllis bought in the January sales is keeping me going.

 

There is lots beginning to grow in the garden at the moment but the beginning of March must belong to the hellebore. A very difficult flower to photograph with it’s nodding head and oh so beautiful face pointing downwards, I must grow more in pots!

 

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I've been having trouble taking photos recently but this one I like! #helleborefoetidus

A post shared by Charlotte (@cjbee827) on Mar 10, 2018 at 2:51pm PST