Spring Sowings

It is so wonderful that Spring has finally sprung.  There are some signs of life in my garden, which is exciting.  The dark purple aquilegia is filling out and growing upwards, no flowers yet but I look forward to them when they do arrive. 

There are some blossom buds on my fruit trees, but I did prune them quite brutally a couple of months ago, so I aren't expecting too much fruit this year.

The forget-me-knots are flowering.  I love their tiny blue flowers.  So delicate.

One of the borders in my garden is gradually filling up after laying so bare all winter and I've seen quite a few large bumble bees buzzing around now which is encouraging, but I'm not enjoying the midges quite as much, that have appeared in parts of the Gravel Pits when I walk the dog.

The other day, spurred on by the warmer weather and the fact that few of the seeds I sowed earlier in the year in the greenhouse had germinated, I did a bit more sowing including some more tomato seeds, cucumbers, chives, sweet peas, nasturtiums and salad leaves.  The salad leaves were seed impregnated sheets that you lay on the surface of compost, cover and water.  I've not used these before so it will be interesting to see what happens. 

I also set up my climbing bean spiral ready to sow some beans into in a couple of weeks time.    It was a bit tricky at first to get it to stand up properly, but I managed it in the end.  This was a charity shop buy for £2 so I thought I would give it a go on the decking outside the kitchen doors.  Unfortunately the puppy has taken a liking to it and keeps digging out the pins holding the spiral in place.

I gave up on the sowing front when I ran out of compost, part way through sowing a box of kitchen herbs.  It felt good to get on and try to catch up in this regard, as due to the failure of previous sowings, I am now very behind.  With hindsight, I should perhaps have kept them inside rather than in the greenhouse. 

A visit to the allotment is a must in the next week or so to check up on previously sown seeds and seed potatoes, prior to revised inspections at the end of the month.  I'll keep you posted.