My gardening diary
MONDAY Clearing up operations. Not a very uplifting job but one that must be done. Where leaves of newly emerging plants were ruined by the snow and biting wind, it’s be er to remove them before they all go mushy.
TUESDAY Climbing up into the apple tree to give it a good prune. There’s a lot of old wood in its centre and all its branches need cu ing back, in most cases with a saw. It’s a ‘Cox’s Orange Pippin’, which theoretically shouldn’t do well here but, even though it has had canker for the last 10 years, it’s very productive.
WEDNESDAY During the extended cold spell, we stopped watering the tunnel. Despite being on the dry side, some of our salvias seem to have lost their new shoots from the cold. We’re watering again now gradually and there are signs of life at the bases of the stems. If sideshoots don’t green up we’ll cut the main growth back down to their base and hope new stems will grow.
THURSDAY Nicotiana affinis, the tobacco plant, has some of the best evening-scented flowers there are. We’re sowing, very thinly because it’s easy to overdo it with such tiny seed. They germinate quite quickly, grow very slowly for a few weeks, then suddenly grow rapidly becoming big plants by summer.
FRIDAY Some peas are already ‘up and away’ in modules, but as they’re one of our favourite vegetables we’re going to sow them successionally every few weeks and make sure there’s enough room for them. We’ll squeeze them in somewhere!
SATURDAY The first sweet peas had their shoots nipped when they reached three true leaves and have now made bushy plants. They’re in 9cm (3½in) pots and the time has come for them to be gradually hardened off – putting the trays outside during the day and bringing them back in – until they can spend their whole time outside.
SUNDAY We only have a few hepaticas but they’re coming into flower now, with flashes of brilliant colour often appearing before the leaves. The daintier varieties would get lost in the garden here so we tend to grow them in troughs and pots. The colour range is mouth-watering. Ca ro l K le i n