April Arrives, but no tomfoolery..........

A typical April morning of sunshine & showers. After a short drenching on the way to the site, the rain held off long enough to get quite a bit done.

First job was to cultivate and rake over a largish patch of ground that I am not planning to grow any actual veg on this year, and broadcast sow it with one of those "oh-so-trendy" green manure crops. I chose Red Clover from The Organic Gardening Catalogue as it can be mowed over a few times to prevent it growing to seed, and to make great mulch or compost material, before being dug in at the end of summer. Then I’ll probably sow some Hungarian Rye Grass to over winter on it, before digging it in again in the spring. At least this should look reasonable, keep the weeds down, and keep the “Tidy Plot Police" happy without me having to do too much.

After this I forked over last year's potato patch at the bottom of the plot, cultivated it, and raked it down to a reasonable tilth fine enough to sow some seeds. Now I don’t normally go much on growing flowers.... It smacks too much off “girlie gardening” for me, but I wanted to fill this bed up and block out the rubbish dump at the bottom, so I have chucked in a long row of various types of sunflower. Prejudices aside, I have to admit that if it works well, a 5ft high x 30ft long wall of them should look quite spectacular.

Raspberry Wars

In terms of the numbers of shoots per each 10 canes, the Galante are lagging behind the Allgold at the moment. Seems they will have different coloured foliage as well as fruits.... The waiting is just bloody tedious!

Galante ........................................ Allgold............................