Picked this week 27th January 2013

On our brief trip to the allotment I managed - in between clearing snow from brassicas - to pick a bit of kale untouched by pigeons and get hubby to lift some leeks.

 If we were solely eating our produce, dinners would be a constant round of leek and potato soup with kale floating in it :(

Allotment in the snow

We decided yesterday to have a trip to the allotment - the first since the snow began.
We didn't take the car though somebody had tried to from the tyre marks.

 Everything was pretty much ok apart from the kale which hadn't been covered by netting. Before the snow it being ignored but with the bad weather the birds (pigeons mainly) are searching for every scrap of food - unfortunately they liked the look of my dinner.

 With more snow forecast for this weekend (it's falling as I blog) we thought it best to clear the polytunnel roof and the tops of the coldframe. Surprisingly, the lettuce in there seems ok.

 The netted brassicas were protected from both birds and the weight of the snow but I decided to clear them as best I could before the poles collapsed.

Maybe this weekend will see the end of this cold snap and we'll be back to proper gardening.

While the snow falls.....

...there's not a lot to be done outdoors. Hubby cleaned the inside of the home greenhouse while I stayed inside, where it's warmer, and sorted through seeds and making lists ....of what we have, what we'll need to buy and what we can be thinking about setting once the weather gets back above freezing.

A Second Week of Snow

Winter jasmine outside the kitchen window is the only spot of colour in the garden right now.







 




 The first snow of this winter fell last Monday, never thawed away and over the weekend more was added to it.

The bird table is suddenly busy with sparrows, blackbirds, robins, blue-, coal- and longtailed tits and more unusual visitors - redwings and fieldfares - in trees and bushes

 the vegetable patch is hidden...

...and the greenhouse almost is!

 the old play house looks like a cabin in the forest

 and plantpots have acquired strange new shapes

We're now watching the weather forecasts and wondering how much longer this will last.....

More Snow!!

 More snow overnight and earlier today.

 even the neighbours' dreadful leylandii look pretty!

Picked this week - 13th January 2013

Only had a quick trip to the allotment this week - it's been freezing most days though the sunshine was tempting. Anyway I managed to find some kale and cabbagey bits for dinner - and, surprisingly, lettuce and land cress for lunch (but I ate them straight away before taking a pic!)

Snow!!

First snowfall of this winter - more expected any day now!

Tidying up and New Year surprises

 Yesterday was quite mild - and dry for a chance - so I thought it was time to tackle the mess that is the back garden. Having chopped down and pulled up this pile of rubbish.....

 ...I found not only new growth on the montbretia....

but also lots of snowdrops peeping through

and wallflowers in bud!






I just hope everything survives frosts and snow still to come before Spring.

Picked this week - 6th January 2013

First harvest of the year!

Parsnips and leeks from the allotment

and a handful of american land cress from the garden to add variety to my cabbage-based salads

Cyclamens

There's not a lot of colour out in the garden, so I'm making up for that with my growing indoor cyclamen collection!

New Year

  The garden isn't looking at its best this time of year - mainly full of died-back plants that I should have cleared up.







 .....with seed heads left on michaelmas daisies







and honesty

 but here and there are some flowers -


 the winter jasmine

 campanula creeping along under the doorstep

the first forsythia flower

 and some daffodils bulbs getting excited by the mild weather