Sprucing up for Spring

Mother Nature has been kind to me last week. Seven days of glorious sunshine meant that I could get the bulk of the preparation in the garden completed before Spring. Two of the days I could actually wear shorts and t-shirts, giving me an early taste of summer.

The Rosarium ready for Spring

I could feed and compost the rose garden after planting some replacements. Some of the roses were twenty years old last month. I celebrated the twenty years of existence of the rose garden with a well-deserved MCC and rose petal liqueur cocktail.

The twenty-three years existence of the orchard was celebrated by replacing four trees to complete the layout plan of eighteen trees. Eight of the original trees planted in July 1992 are happily continuing to delight us with their fruits. I fed and watered the trees and some are coming into blossom.

The Herb Garden before cleaning

The Herb Garden after cleaning

I cleaned the four mixed herb beds and moved the perennial and fragrant herbs to the beds bordering the quince trees. This left me with the two beds next to the grape vines to utilise for annual herbs, lettuce and some vegetables. I needed to move the salad vegetables out of the vegetable garden to make space for the growing collection of the new heirloom vegetables.

Before

After

With the garden ready for Spring I can relax into planning and sowing for summer harvests.