More frog spawn!

Well, since descovering frog spawn in my pond last month it's snowed and hailed and generally been really cold, so the tadpoles were developing very slowly. The picture below illustrates the little tads emerging from their jelly balls. I've since found another blob of frog spawn (above) and the first lot of tadpoles are waiting around the edge of the new spawn probably picking them off one by one, tasty.

Note to readers

In case you are wondering, I'm trying to catch up with myself, so I'm blogging for the whole of April so far and I'm trying to date them in rough chronological order. Bare with me, it's just that I've done so many things lately that I think warrant a posting.

Chitted potato

The variety here is the International Kidney - otherwise known as a Jersey Royal, except you aren't allowed to call them this if they are not grown on Jersey. So there.

Potatoes

Most of the potatoes have been planted by digging a trench, about a spade width and depth, plonking the chitted potatoes in, eyes up, and scooping the soil back over the top, leaving enough soil in the ridge for earthing up in about a months time.




Below are pictures of the first earlies going in, Pentland Javelin, I decided to plant this row by digging an individual hole per potato, just an experiment to see the benefit of trenches.

Lovely view of plot

Onions

Also in April - the onion sets and shallots got put in - all 43thousand of them. If I never see another onion set in my life it'll be too soon.




Fed the Japanese onions that went in back in the Autumn - Senshyu Yellow. Used chicken pellet manure.

Early promise

Lavender plants from seed

I got a free packet of seed for a fragrant lavender called Spicea Rosea. Sowed them last summer and they're getting to be quite nice little plants now. They can go into my lavender hedge when they're big enough.

Neatening up

After the plot was rotovated I had to do some cutting in around the waney edge.

Weaving wigwams

Using hazel and cherry poles and whippy willow I made an attempt at making some climbing supports for my peas and sweet peas.





The wigwam below on the left I put in last year but it needed shoring up with the weight of the passion flower climbing up it.

Spinach

Planted a couple of rows of spinach plants that were already in plot3. Don't know how well they transplant, we'll have to wait and see.

Scaffold board edging

I've only got a few scaffold boards left from my last scrounge so I stuck them in along the edge between plots 2 and 3, where the path crumbles away. Would be so nice to do the whole path both sides, for each plot but I just don't have the timber. Makes it so easy to strim the grass to an edge.

The revolution will be rotovated

Oh I gave in to the temptation - got my plot rotovated didn't I, by very kind man who offered, took him about 20 minutes what probably would have taken me about three weeks. I know I was going to dig by hand but it seemed to make sense, it means I can get on with other jobs and it looks fabulous. If I'd had the plot last Autumn, I'd have dug it manually but getting it only a month ago I was running out of time to get anything in. Anyway, I've never rotovated before, so I'll let me off the hook. So exciting though, looking at a vast expanse of soil. All the potential....

Digging the plot

I'm making good progress with my new plot, removing weeds as I go. It has to be the right sort of weather though, not dry because the ground sets like concrete and if its too wet you can't weed properly as the weeds stick to the fork and your gloves.

Digging progress

This digging and weeding is very difficult, the ground is compacted and full of perenial weeds. Progress is slow. But hanging on in there.

Broad beans are flowering (Autumn sown)

Carrot tubs

These were a great success last year so I changed the compost in the bins, making it light and sandy and sowed myself a swirl of 'rainbow' carrots and diagonal lines of 'purple haze'. I used the sand to mark out where I put the small seeds so I can see them when they germinate. Any container above the ground by 18" is said to be too tall for the carrot fly and they don't lay their eggs.

Planting parsnips

I decided to use a slightly different method of germination with my parsnips this year. Back in March I scattered the seed on wet paper towels to speed up the process. The ones that germinated got planted in rows of sand sprinkled on a prepared bed at the beginning of April. This just means they've hit the ground running rather than sitting in cold soil deciding they may or may not germinate. Anyway I'll let you know how this experiment works.

Lavender path edges and native hedge

Gave the lavender a trim, first time I've been able to shape the low hedging since I planted it. There are two varieties, a dwarf called 'ellegance sky' and a run-of-the mill English lavender, which is much more vigorous. I also planted a hedge using native species, at the back of the plots. I used small trees I've grown on from seed - Hawthorn, Field maple, Oak, Holly and Elder.

Tiled edge

Continued to sink old roofing tiles along the edges of the terraced beds to hold the sloping soil in.

Lichen wood bundle

Had some pieces of tree branch from a pruned Chinese tree of heaven which are covered in a variety of lichen. I tied them in a small bundle using wire and hung in a tree. Good for insects.

Greengage blossom

17th and 18th March

Made a hazel teepee for climbing plants and sweet peas. Bit too wet at the moment to dig plot 3 but there are other jobs to do. Tidied up path, weeded and raked over beds front of plot 2.

Frog spawn!

I arrived at the plot this morning to find a nice big gelatinous mass of frog spawn. I was so excited, it's my first, I'm so proud. It's been one year since I dug the pond and they're now breeding which is a very healthy sign. Lots of croaking and goings on in the water.

My dog Sky was very interested in the frog activity, couldn't take her eyes off it, like she was watching frogs porn (so sorry).

Making progress