The Undergardener has been busy

He has been occupying himself this last week with weeding the bed the blueberries are in.  Well, when I say weeding - I think probably I really mean digging over again.  He's also expanded it so there is room for the two new bushes we bought last weekend.  They've now been planted with a liberal application of rhododendron feed.  Blueberries and rhodies enjoy their soil on the acidic side and ours, fortunately, is not acidic.  We feed the existing bushes with rhododendron feed in the spring and it seemed only reasonable to drop some into the planting hole of the new shrubs.  He has also now pulled much of the couch grass out from under the gooseberry bushes.  This meant that we have had to sacrifice the strawberries that were also under the gooseberries.  But I have decided to buy a couple of ceramic strawberry planters to go on the patio and to restock, so that wasn't a major problem.

I have ordered ten purple and ten green asparagus crowns.  They should arrive sometime between now and the end of May.  While I was at it, I also ordered 2 kilos each of pea and broad bean seeds.  They could arrive at any time!

Up on the allotment, The Undergardener planted out the new blackcurrant bushes and the red and green gooseberry bushes and the jostaberry.  The red gooseberry doesn't have a particularly good root system, - we'll have to watch it and nurture it carefully.

We also went to the Dunstan Hall nursery and bought a new Morello cherry tree, thus using up the last of our Wedding garden money.  It has, I think, been well spent :-)  While we were out, we went to the Chatsworth garden centre.  Didn't buy any plants, but did get some seeds (somehow we seem not to have any beetroot or melon seeds, though we do have an enormous quantity of sprouting broccoli seeds!!!) and some gardening gloves.

The weather has been glorious for the last week or so.  Sunny and mild days.  A couple of mild frosts at night but nothing too worrying.  Must stay restrained though.  It's only just spring and way too early to be planting out for most things.  I have, though, planted tomato seeds in modular trays and put them with the lettuce seeds in the front door "porch" where they seem to be coming on OK.  At least, they are starting to germinate.

Today, he has transplanted some extra raspberry canes which were trying to colonise some of the vegetable beds in the kitchen garden to the new raspberry bed on the allotment (thus giving us two raspberry beds, separated by quarter of a kilometre or so) and repaired the glass in the greenhouses which were damaged over the winter.  We really are ready to roll for spring now :-)

Speaking of spring, the chickens, who have kept laying fairly well over the winter, are moving back towards a regular 4 eggs a day now that the days are getting longer.  The weather has also noticeably warmed up.  They are enjoying the warmer weather and the sunshine too, not to mention the more regular appearances of people to play with in the garden