New gardening year again...

...always begins when I plant my elephant garlics. The four "rounds" that I lifted in July went into the plastic bed in the first week of October. The plot was cleaned out after the dwarf beans and a handful of BFB added at the garlic end before planting. The area was topdressed with sieved garden compost too.   (3 came up on 8th December.)

I have nice seedlings of godetia and saved hollyhocks coming along and some anemones from saved seed too. The foxgloves, hesperis and honesty have been planted out at the equinox and are looking good in their beds.

I have prepared a new bed to become my herb garden. It had thyme in already. Lots more to go in.
(Lovage, sage, marjoram, oregano, lemon balm, mint, chives and garlic chives in a few days later.)

Apple trees and greengage have all been mulched with 2014 leafmould and the apple tree bed has been dressed with my spent potato pot composts.

The longest day

Last Saturday we had the first courgette off this year's plants. A Verde d'Italia. That plant is growing another one now, but none of the other zucca/zuccetta/zucchini are setting fruit yet. Quite a few male flowers around though.

On Sunday I sowed the biennial flowers in three inch square pots or modules. 10 of each - foxgloves (white, apricot and excelsior), hesperis (white and purple), sweet william (nigricans),  honesty and 5 daucus carota. They are outside this year.
The vipers bugloss sowed April 2015 is huge now and covered in flower spikes. The bees love it.

And today was the solstice. It rained heavily and some of my potted tomatoes were beaten down and needed staking. I planted three deeply into the large bed where I had just taken up the elephant garlics. They were not so good this year. They didn't send up scapes, are now yellowing and collapsing, so I lifted them. They are all "rounds". I will probably save them to plant again in the autumn.

More potting

Yesterday, I put out the rest of my squash/courgette varieties into pots. One of each variety is still waiting to go into the haybale bed. (They went in on 29th) I also potted a "left over" red kitchen potato that had sprouted in the cupboard. This is an experiment to see if that gives decent results, but I don't know the variety. (Maybe Désirée)

The day before, I potted on the eleven tomato plants (right) that are waiting to go into the broad bean bed. We ate broad beans in their pods last night. (They were lovely!) So the tomatoes may not have to wait too long.

The foxgloves (left) sown last June are flowering now, along with the hesperis and putting on a good show. The vipers bugloss are getting enormous and nearly ready to flower. The James Grieve apple tree appears to have set about 200 fruits!

Biennial futures

Hesperis and foxgloves sown on the solstice had germinated yesterday. (I think.) Certainly the hesperis are there but the foxglove seed is so tiny it's difficult to see the first sign of germination. Higgledy gardener says they should be planted out well before the equinox. (Foxglove definitely up on Sunday 28th. But they are so TINY! I've never seen them at this stage before. )