Gardeners Review: 2012 so far
Unfortunately, as I had guessed at the time, it was a little late in the year to get new plants established in the garden, so we did our best to over winter them in the house or in the greenhouse as appropriate. The Skimmia ‘Magic Marlot’ did well and gave us lots of joy from its pretty flowers. It made it through the winter, only to give up the ghost in early Spring – just as I was preparing to plant it out in the border sadly. This is a great value little plant though which I would really recommend for adding some vibrant colour.
As for the rest of the garden, well after the enthusiasm and industry of early Spring, things have been incredibly slow. The epic amount of rainfall we have had meant that there is, if nothing else, a bumper crop of slugs and snails which have been eating my precious seedlings faster than I can grow them. My exciting new space, where we took out a rubbish mini conifer, and I hoped would have a giant and prolific courgette plant in by now, is the Barren Corner. I’ve put literally 9 or 10 courgette and assorted squash plants in there and they have all been eaten, right from under their cloches. Devastating stuff!
I do have a small selection of courgette and squash plants that made it through the slow moving gauntlet of the local slug population, thankfully, although the weird weather conditions mean that they are nowhere near as large as they should be, they do at least seem to be thinking about flowering soon. Not quite the glut I was hoping for from my first year of the raised beds!
Some other bits and bobs have struggled through the adverse conditions as well, my three little strawberries are growing quite vigourously and have started to produce a good number of fruits. A couple of other bits, although smaller than I would expect, are making it through – tomatoes, onions, leeks, radishes, beetroots, carrots, a couple of parsnips and 4 little cabbage plants. The perpetual spinach endures, unsurprisingly, and it looks like I got the pruning of my blackcurrant bush right as that has a good number of tight green berries ripening on it. There are a couple of sweetcorns that have survived as well, so that’s good news. Unfortunately, this year’s ambition of growing my first ever aubergine has been thwarted at every turn. After a promising start, two waves of seedlings have been gobbled up and I’ve now given up for this year. Maybe in 2013 I’ll have more luck.
How are your gardens getting on? Has the weather been a blight on you as well?