Spring means primroses and goings on …

21st March the first day of spring kick started us into some overdue action in the garden and on the plot. We actually spent the first full half day of the season working on the plot pruning and tidying. Martyn spent a second half day clearing, digging and burning yesterday. Then today we had another afternoon mainly tidying the permanent fruit beds. More photos of our progress are on Martyn’s blog.

Beds are being dug so that soon we can plant out the fruit currently patiently waiting in the greenhouse. The raspberries were planted this afternoon. The fruit bushes on the plot are looking healthy and coming into growth. The greengage and plum trees have flower buds which I hope don’t suffer from any frosting. One fruit centred job that I never look forward to is the pruning of the blackberry which was done belatedly this week. The way we tackle this is explained here.

The trouble with things beginning to grow is that we may have harvested our last carrot as the ones still in the ground appear to have started to go mushy. Our last carrot wasn't a bad effort though weighing in at over 500g and that was after peeling.

Going by the sights and sounds spring was very much in the air.

In the garden we can almost watch the camellia, magnolia and crab apple buds opening.

The frogs are back – maybe some have never really left as males do sometimes hibernate in the mud at the bottom of ponds. They made their presence known by the now familiar croaking of the frog chorus. Obviously I wasn’t the one being serenaded and over the past couple of days more frogs have arrived increasing the level of activity. I just hope the croakers have managed to attract enough females and leave our fish alone as the frantic males can latch on to anything that moves in their desperation to grab a mate and fish don’t always survive unscathed!

The native primroses are looking fantastic full of flower so that must mean it is spring.

Activity has also increased in the web can nest box. A tentative attempt has been made by a pair of blue tits to start nest building – very tentative as they seem to take as much material back out as they do bring in. One bird has spent the last two nights huddled in the box so hopefully this is a sign that they are going to take up residence. Up to date images can be viewed here - well almost up to date as the latest activity won’t be available until later in the week as we have been too busy working outdoors to process and sift through the images.

The sun has shone all day (it's been actually warm) and Martyn has mown the lawns for the first time this year - IT MUST BE SPRING!