End of April in the garden

It’s a wonderful time of the year in the garden. Things are moving at a pace and we as gardeners are working away to keep up, doing the most important tasks (sometimes … Lol) and hoping other tasks will hold off until we can magic up another hour or two in our gardening days. So let me update you on what’s going on here.

As always, for my Saturday blog posts, I’m using the #six-on-Saturday (or if on Twitter it’s #SixOnSaturday) meme format from Mr. Propagator. It’s a good format to use for updating blog posts like this, and there’s a lovely bunch of other people using it too.

First up is a photo from my parents garden. My mum has a great interest in gardening, and this is very evident when visiting there. Everything is well kept and tended to. In more later years my dad has been involved in copper craft, much of it relating to the garden, and if you look closely at this photo, not only do you see the Pieris ‘Forest Flame’ in full you red leaf colour, you also see some samples of his copper craft work. He has given me a couple of items to do a give away with, so watch my Twitter posts for this (@hugh_cassidy) over this weekend.

Next up is a one minute capture of the early morning birdsong we hear at this time of year from 5am onwards. It is truly one of the best sounds to wake up to, so much so that alarm clocks are rarely needed at this time of year … enjoy 😊

The third of my six on Saturday is also the same clip above. Not only can you see the layout of my potager (or kitchen garden), and the area of grass I call ‘the field’, which involves a LOT of mowing at this time of year, but you can also see how frosty it is. Now my friends, don’t be fooled at this time of year by the sunshine we have and the lovely fresh bedding plants in all the garden centres, it is too cold for tender plants and plants that haven’t been hardened off properly. So take due precautions when planting over the next few weeks. Layer of fleece can (literally) be life savers …

A discussion on gardening wouldn’t be a discussion on gardening without the mention of weeds and weeding. As weeds are typically (although not always) native plants, you’ll find they’re really growing at this time of year.

I prefer not to use weed killer here, so it means I target some areas for weeding by hand, and other less important areas are left well enough alone, other than thinning if I see one plant dominate an area more that others. This can be, of course, guitar time consuming. However, when I have five or ten minutes I’ll do a small section. I do this almost daily, allowing me to keep on top of them. Visitors to here will know there are some areas here that are very natural (or wild … Lol), and this is fine too.

My fifth photo is of a temporary coldframe I made earlier in the week.

Yes, it’s a cardboard box, cut to shape, given a quick bit of paint and a picture placed on it. I cannot claim this is my idea. It was one used repeatedly by Geoff Hamilton many years ago. It’s a great cheap way of creating a protected sheltered space for young seedlings, plants to harden off etc. as a cover I simply use a sheet of plastic or fleece to fit, held in place by some clothes pegs or staples. Of course don’t move it when it’s wet … easy peasy and can save a lot of heart ache.

Finally, sneaking two in for this one. Hows this for a giant seedling! Sowing lots of seed still and this pumpkin germinated within a few days with these massive seed leaves … looks like it’ll be a monster. Do keep sowing seeds at this timeless of year. I see people saying it’s too late for this and that, however, in my experience we’ve got lots of time to sow and grow, so pop to it, even if it’s the only thing you do garden wise this weekend.

Do get out and enjoy yourself no matter what the weather as it doesn’t get dark now until almost 9pm. As always, thanks for the comments, likes, etc.

All the best, Hugh