I am starting my Cutting Garden post this month with a slight feeling of disappointment – I had hoped to have lots of progress to show you since my last review at the end of February, but spring is hesitant to stay here in East Anglia – temperatures have remained quite low and the wind has been exceedingly chilly throughout March.
Looking back at the same time last year, things were very different! My hyacinths had been in bloom for weeks, the borders were full of muscari and tulips about to burst and my Monday vase was made up of tulips and forsythia. This year the only flowers I have in the Cutting Garden are these few hyacinths that are just beginning to open up.
The photos this month look very similar to last month. The only difference is that the ground has finally drained and is starting to dry out. I have spent today working in the borders, getting them ready for the season ahead.
Whilst very little is flowering this week, there are plenty of tulips just waiting for some warmer temperatures to tempt them into flower.
My biennials sown last June and planted out in the autumn are looking very promising! Below you can see sweet rocket – in other beds I have foxgloves, honesty, wallflowers and sweet williams and I am hoping that all of these will be flowering soon. I will be making my order for this years biennial seeds later in April and sowing them in June in a seedbed in the vegetable garden. They should be strong little plants by the autumn and I will transplant them to their final flowering positions as I clear the Cutting Garden borders.
If you have been following the Cutting Garden series you will remember that I direct sowed a few rows of hardy annuals in late September and they were protected with hoops covered with fleece throughout the winter. The fleece is now off and I am pleased to report that the rows of ammi majus and nigella germinated and made it through the winter. The cornflowers and larkspur did not survive. I have thinned out the seedlings and it remains to be seen how well they flower compared to the much larger plants that were sown and grown in the greenhouse and have now been hardened off and planted out in the Cutting Garden beds.
Whilst I am waiting for the tulips to flower, these narcissi planted last October look ready to pop in the next few days – possibly a candidate for Monday’s vase! The empty bed behind these flowers is my asparagus bed – the chickens are laying again and I cannot wait to dip those first spears of asparagus into a freshly laid poached egg later in April!
Earlier this month I planted lots of new roses in the Cutting Garden. Today I have been pruning and feeding the roses that I planted last year.
Over on the other side of the path in the vegetable garden I have been planting some new peonies to bulk out the peony beds. These beds were mulched with garden compost in the autumn and have now been weeded and the peonies fed with rose food. I leave the peony foliage standing throughout the winter, cutting it back after this spring weed and feed. I have found that if I cut the foliage back as it browns in the autumn I lose the placing of the peonies and end up damaging those precious buds as I weed the beds in spring.
The posts running through the beds are used to wind string around to support the peony foliage. This year I am going to plant my gladioli bulbs in amongst the peonies as the string will help support these tall flowers. I will be planting these bulbs shortly after Easter and then the string will be added ready to support the growing peony foliage.
The sweet pea frame is in place ready for the netting to be attached. I have just moved the January sown sweet peas out of the cold frame to finish hardening off and plan to plant them after the Easter holidays.
Whilst writing I thought I would quickly show you how the vegetable garden is progressing. I have 4 beds like this one and after years of losing crops to the birds I am making sure to cover everything I plant this year. The square frames are from Agriframes and have proved a perfect way to cover a variety of crops. Under the tunnel I have cauliflowers almost ready to eat (I am planning a home grown cauliflower cheese to accompany the Easter Sunday roast) and rows of newly sown carrots, spring onions, beetroots and turnips. At the back you can see two pea frames, complete with jute netting, also from Agriframes.
The peas were sown in the greenhouse in February and planted out yesterday. I also have a couple of rows of broad beans in another bed.
Looking back across the vegetable garden I am really excited to finally be able to show you my fathers greenhouse – now finished and being used in my garden. I also have 2 new raised beds, which I hope will allow me to grow crops throughout the winter. I have mentioned before how wet this land is in the winter, so I am planning to install 5 raised beds to improve the growing conditions. These first two have yet to be filled – it will be quite a project and not something that will happen in a hurry.
I chose these very deep raised beds as they are a perfect height to sit on whilst enjoying a cup of tea!
The first crops to be grown in my new little greenhouse are some 1st early potatoes in bags. They were planted yesterday, at the same time as the outdoor crop, so it will be interesting to see if the potatoes mature more quickly in the protected environment of the greenhouse.
I have also mentioned in previous posts that we have been installing a fruit cage to protect the fruit bushes from the many birds that feed in my garden. For a variety of reasons work has been held up, but it is nearly finished and I am hoping that the easter weekend will give us the time to secure the netting. Both my raised beds and the fruit cage came from Harrod Horticultural and have been very easy to install. If you are thinking about a fruit cage I would recommend you purchase the additional ground sockets as these made it much easier to put the uprights in place. Also make sure that you are very careful with the measurements – double check everything as you go.
Whilst I was taking photographs tonight, Nelson asked if he could say hello!
Hardy noticed that Nelson was being photographed and rushed over to join in the shoot!
Finally for this month I have another Giveaway to share with you. This month I am offering a copy of this lovely book Slow Flowers by Debra Prinzing, from which I have found much inspiration for my flower arrangements.
Very much in the spirit of ‘In A vase On Monday’, this book shows 52 arrangements taken largely from the authors garden with tips on growing, arranging and containers. I loved this quote from the introduction:
“I didn’t realise that those few hours I spent each week, gathering and choosing petals and stems, arranging them in a special vessel, and then figuring out where and how to capture the finished design through my camera lens, would be so personally enriching.”
She has perfectly summed up why I have enjoyed joining in with Cathy at Rambling In The Garden every Monday for so long!
As usual, if you would like to be entered for the Giveaway, please leave a comment – all names will be put in a flower pot on Monday and I will announce the winner in my Monday post. I am happy to send abroad, so everyone can enter this month! This is a great little book for inspiring you to use your garden blooms, so if you are not the winner on Monday, do think about buying a copy.
My next Cutting Garden review will be on the last Friday in April, when I am confident enough to promise you some flowers!
Insert your profile info here, by going to Users -> Your Profile -> Biographical Info. Profile image (avatar) comes from gravatar.com. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nullam faucibus ornare lectus nec cursus.
I have Slow Flowers and it is wonderful!
Do put me in the pot for the book, it sounds a great book to add to the collection. I am filled with admiration at your new raised beds and fruit cage. Part of my vegetable garden is very close to the protecting Leylandii hedge so the soil is always very dry, even with daily irrigation. I think some of the beds should be changed to being as deep as yours.
Yes, yes! Please enter me…here’s hoping!
The cutting garden looks great already. That’s a great picture of Nelson. You got his eyes in focus, which is really important for portraits.
Winter refuses to leave, so I’ve begun the seed sowing in the house under growlights. This year I am concentrating on flowers, like Ricinus, Cobaea, Lathyrus and many others. Wish me luck.
Wow, such orderliness. You will have a garden to treasure and enjoy for always. Please put me in for the draw.
This would be a great book to have!
Nelson is too cute!
Your garden lay out is so inspiring. I have tall raised beds like you do, but the sheer amount of space and the starts already to go…well, it’s just stunning. I’d be interested to know how you handle your large bed of tulips. One year my husband brought me 300 tulips from a business trip he had in The Netherlands. He dug a perfect bed, placed a wire cage at the bottom to deter moles and gophers. The tulips were gorgeous (a rich purple all massed together) for the first year, began to decline the second and were practically gone by the third. And this is with proper feeding. I know that tulips don’t naturalize like narcissi, but what do you do with them to keep them coming back? Or do you re-plant every few years?
Wow what a lovely garden! You have obviously put in many hours of work to get it looking so orderly and full of promise of beautiful things in the coming months. I too am planting a cutting garden but it’s early days…!
I thoroughly enjoy reading your blog and watching the progress of your lovely garden. It is inspirational and encouraging with lots of great ideas for a garden of much more modest size, like mine. Looking forward to lots of lovely photos of your late spring bulbs….and the dogs.
I do love your garden, do you look after it all yourself. I would like to be in the draw on Monday
Really inspriring.This year I’ve started my first cutting garden and I’m slightly over-excited. Really glad I found your blog. Put me in the draw please.
Lots of inspiration as always in your blog-so thank you Julie. I shall copy the pea supports immediately since I have 2 tall metal hoops and a bag of bean netting in the shed. Don’t enter me in the draw since I am the very happy winner of your last give-away !!!
The book looks lovely and so does your garden , everything is immaculate, and the dogs enchanting. Loving the blog.
I am surprised you have time to be able to enjoy cups of tea sitting on those new raised beds! Everything is so organised and beautifully maintained.
Ah to be so organised. I buy to many random plants because I can’t resist. So garden doesn’t look very cohesive as a result. I’d love to be entered in book competition please.
Another very inspiring post, Julie! You must work ceaselessly to keep it looking so good. I would love a copy of this book so please enter me into the draw.
You may not have a ‘cunning plan’, but it doesn’t stop your beds looking exceedingly neat and organised, Julie! I didn’t show photographs of most of mine because they were no different from last month either – as you say, another month will make all the difference. Sorry you have had those cold winds – here in the Midlands it has been quite a pleasant March. Please put me in the draw for that lovely book, which definitely seems to be sum up our Monday meme. I know you have read my post already, but here is a link for anyone else who is interested
https://ramblinginthegarden.wordpress.com/2015/03/27/a-cunning-plan/
How wonderful! I would love to enter the draw.
I wait for your Posts Every week,especially your monthly Report of your Progress in the Green House.it World be Fine to Win the Book! Greines from Germany
Your garden looks so well under control! I can’t see a weed!!
We are in Lincolnshire and I would say we are 2 to 3 weeks behind last year. Nothing seems to be moving very fast, even seeds in the greenhouse and those in the propagators. I agree that march has been quite chilly, and night time temps have dipped sharply. I can’t wait for things to get a move on ! I will be popping back to see how your beds are progressing over the weeks and months!
I love your new fruit cage. I had just been admiring them in our Harrod Horticultural brochure that had popped through the post this week. Hopefully you will enjoy lots of fruit this year now your fruit trees are so well protected from the birds. I also loved seeing your pictures of Hardy and Nelson. What lovely dogs! I am also finding our cutting garden is off to a slow start with the cold windy weather in March. It is difficult to be patient when you know you have so many plants just sitting waiting to burst into bloom! I would love to be entered into the draw too thank you.
My wife and I had the privilege of visiting Debra’s former garden some years ago. She is a wonderful gardener, and her books reflect her excellence.
I find your posts very inspirational, please keep going
Hardy and Nelson are absolutely gorgeous, really lovely photos of them both julie. Lovely to see your Dads greenhouse up and running now too. I looked back on March photos from last year and you are right, what a difference in this Springs temperatures. Your garden is still looking lovely however.
It’s fascinating to see around your cutting garden and veg garden, I would love to have all that space. I think we are about a week behind last year here, the aquilegias were certainly larger by now.
Would love to win the book to inspire my Monday vases
Lovely Julie. I’m intrigued by your plan to plant gladioli among the peony. Great idea to provide the natural support. It’s been a bit cooler here this March also. I’m trying to enjoy the slower pace. Sometimes spring just rushes by too quickly.
spring is definitely slower up in Yorkshire too, I was ready to start weekly flowers this time last year, now I will have to wait a few more weeks. Some news though that you might like, Debra Prinzing is coming to the UK this year and there may be a chance to meet her! Oh and please enter me for the competition 🙂
your garden is looking good and very neat, it’s so good to see fresh new growth. I find myself checking round the garden and in the greenhouse many times a day.I like the look of the book, please put me in the flowerpot.Fingers crossed. Sue x
It seems we are all waiting for spring to give us flowers but you have many that will be blooming soon. I love looking at all your flowers. And how wonderful of you to give away Debra’s book…I have been wanting to buy it. Fingers crossed.
just loving the look of the garden,I am also looking for some raised beds which I nice and deep, but dont seem to have found any yet. I have an English Setter who loves his pic being taken. All looks great
I am fascinated by the string grid on the frame for your beans – can you buy it like that or have you strung it yourself ? And do please put my name in the pot!