Truly tulip

Ribes sanguineum

After the delicate perfume of the late winter flowering Daphne, the vibrant early spring flowers of the American currant - Ribes sanguineum - have a rather pungent smell.

Ambient Allotment

Sprung Greens

The start of the purple sprouting broccoli season and the last of the leek and kale harvests (apart from a few leeks left to fatten during the coming weeks, or left to flower and seed).

Early buds

                                              Gooseberry

                                             Blackcurrant

                                              Apple (Cox's)

A warm spell has encouraged fruit bushes and trees to bud about ten days earlier than last year.

The Sower

Came across a postcard of Van Gogh's 'The Sower' this week, apt for this time of year, when so many seeds are crying out for compost, pots, modules, seed trays, sunny window ledges, an airing cupboard or a well-tilled soil.

Already on the go for the veg garden :

• Tomatoes (Roma & Costoluto)
• Chillies (Cayenne)
• Courgettes
• Peas (Kelvedon Wonder)
• Broad Beans
• Celery
• Lettuce
• Spinach 
• Coriander
• Parsley

And a few flowers :

• Sunflowers
• Sweet Peas 
• Antirhinnum
• Osteospermum
• Cosmos
• Rudbeckia
• Phlox
• Sweet Rocket
• Black Eyed Susan
• Calendula
• Tagetes
• Coreopsis

Better not have forgotten anything!

Early bee on an anemone

Grubs up

At first glance it looked like cat shit, but on closer inspection it was a frog nestling in the soil at the base of an olive tree growing in a pot. The olive leaves have been nibbled by vine weevils in the past couple of years and although it doesn't affect the tree, the small white weevil grubs that live in the soil and attack the roots do. Fortunately, frogs and toads like eating the grubs, so this one is providing an important service.

Swelling underground

Garlic looks healthy, on top, but it's what's under the soil that's important and whether it gets too wet over the next few months in the heavy clay soil.

Protection

Ain't no pesky varmints gonna trample on these broad beans, for now.