25 Apr 2014

Ready, steady...grow!

 
 
 
 
Wisteria sinensis
 
The dust has settled a little in the garden this week with a noticeable calm descending after the Easter festivities.  A mild start to the week was followed by some welcome rain which found its way to our 6 and a half acres as the working week drew to a close.  The rain was very welcome and will go a long way to quenching the insatiable thirst of the developing plants, you can sense the plants growing as they stretch every cell in a bid to elevate their leaves and capture as much Norfolk sun as they possibly can. 
The glamorous Magnolia 'Party Girl'.
 
Tuesday was our "Edible Gardening" workshop, the attendees were served an extensive array of tips and tricks to coax every last mouthful of harvest from the veg patch.  The course was well received and we hope to run more in the future.  We have a follow up workshop on the calendar, details can be found here.
 
Our incredible glasshouses are groaning at the seams, they are akin to huge a slide puzzle with plant material constantly moved around to try and gain just an inch of space where possible.  On the walls the peaches planted just last year are doing great and are full of embryonic fruit, the benches are crammed with seasonal bedding plants who are busy preparing for a summer sabbatical in our events room.
 

Prunus persica.
 

 
Seasonal Bedding.
 
 
The next picture below may not look much, however it is hugely exciting as this is one of the first few buds to appear in our newly planted Vineyard, we expect a rapid acceleration of growth in the next few months which will completely transform this already impressive garden room. 
 
On the veg patch some of our volunteers erected a Brassica cage to help deter our feathered friends from feasting on the young Cabbages and Cauliflowers.  The early sowing of peas are well under way as well as direct sown Radish, Beet, Carrot, Parsnip and Turnip.  Below you can see the early potato 'Lady Christl' conveniently posing for this snap, she and her other Potato pals are pushing their first leaves up from the ridges where they reside, fingers crossed a late frost doesn't halt the haulms. 


Plant production never stops in the walled garden.  This week we made a start to potting up some of the annual cut flower, Ipomea, Zinnia and Cosmos are all in bigger pots thanks to the help or our wonderful volunteers.  Sowings of Squash and the first few Tomato and Cucumbers have made it into their ring culture buckets housed in our unheated glasshouses.

Next week will be a very busy week, with more seasonal bedding arriving and veg seedlings eyeing up a cosy sunbathing spot on the veg patch, this coupled with the usual rigours of walled garden life will no doubt keep us on our toes.  We will of course report our endeavours, watch this space!

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