Spring 2007

We now find ourselves heading towards 2007. The garden has not been levelled but at least we have some raised beds and a starting point for the next year. So the Autumn comes and goes and we head through winter to the spring. Not a lot happens in the garden for a while and then spring appears on the horizon.

And the wind blows. And blows. And blows. Now remember the greenhouse frame in the garden. Well that survived OK. We still have a large amount of glass stacked up against the shed. Not as single panes but in groups - surely they will survive. Not on your Nelly! We lost about half of the glass during the strong winds. So a quick trip to the local builders merchants and we find out we are not alone. A slow and careful journey home and we have a full complement of glass. Now all that is needed is to finish the jigsaw. This waited until late March and one thing I can tell you is that the weather we had in the early part of this year made the glazing process a very hot experience. So hot I had to be transported to a local hostelry to recover - life's hard.

Planting
There is no point in having worked this hard if we are not going to plant anything. We were a bit late but the shallots and garlic arrived in the early new year. We decided to dedicate one of the beds to the two crops - about half a bed each.

I think that you can safely say that these two crops were a success and by April they were running away.

So what of the remaining beds. Well the asparagus bed was completed and filled with some gritty soil and this was also planted ready for 2007. Outside, we also managed to plant:

• Broad beans
• Runner beans
• Two crops of potatoes
• Jerusalem artichokes

All of these seemed to have performed moderately well for our first year here.

The start of May saw a dramatic change in the weather. In fact it seemed that it did not stop raining from early May through to late July. By June sections of the garden were under water and they stayed that way for several weeks. It was that bad that we actually lost a patch of the lawn because it was under water for so long. The bad weather just reinforced the fact that the raised beds were a good decision, If we had not done this then we would have lost a lot more.

The rain did cause some concern and we did wonder about some of the crops rotting. Particularly the garlic, shallots and potatoes. We ended up lifting the first two early and lost about one third to rot. The potatoes managed to fight on and we have only just (at the time of writing) started to buy potatoes again.

And Finally...
My advice to you is do not glaze a greenhouse on a bright sunny day. Well, not unless you need driving to a local watering hole for a few beers to replenish the fluid levels :)

Mark