March in My Garden

   So it's March, and I have a garden... or rather a 'yard' as there's no grass or flower beds or pre-existing plants apart from some ivy on one wall and the occasional weed. We rent our lovely Victorian 2 up-2 down terrace, so creating a garden out of the sea of gravel and paving stones is limited to pots and tubs of various kinds. I made a bit of a weak attempt at producing something last spring, but I left it until the weather was warm, sunny and generally nice to be out in, spent the minimum amount of time, effort and money on the whole affair. Needless to say it turned out a bit sad and I'm a bit ashamed of myself given that I've grown up helping my mom in her garden and should know what I'm doing. Still, better to have something than nothing right?
   Well this year I'm determined to make more of an effort and produce something to be proud of. I've invested more time and energy already in the last few weeks then I did all last spring and summer and I've definitely spent a bit more money, although not a ton thanks to B&M Bargains, Wilkinson's, and a bit of old fashioned ingenuity.

My back garden.

   So the garden last year consisted of a few tubs and planters. Two large ones which where here when we moved in, which really is what started the whole mess off, empty planters sat in the garden just scream 'Fill me! Make me into something beautiful instead of some garden junk!' and really can't be ignored. I bought three bags of compost from my nearest garden centre, Bay View Garden Centre in Bolton-le-Sands and got Tom to man handle it outside for me. I filled up those two large pots and set to work with a large kitchen spoon and my bare hands.
   I bought some bulbs, I can't really remember what they were, some Iris, something else tall and lupin like, some daffodils I think. I planted them and haven't heard from them since, except for one Iris which tried to bloom last summer and then gave up. Some of the green leaves came up, and haven't died back, they're still there, but no flowers. and some of the bulbs are just hanging around in the tubs not doing anything. I know this because I accidentally dug some of them up last week when I was prepping my pots for spring planting. I'm not exactly sure what the problem with my bulbs is, I think maybe it's because I planted them at the wrong time of year, but I've never really planted bulbs before and no one told me that you're meant to bury them in the autumn. I claim ignorance. Now I don't know what to do with them, so I'm just leaving them alone and hoping they sort themselves out eventually.

Some of my seeds trays freshly planted a couple weeks ago.

   I bought some sweet peas from a lady at the market, which turned out to be an amazing investment, she gave me the third one free and they were the hardiest sweet peas I've ever encountered. They kept on growing and blooming right up until the heavy frost the end of December. I thought they might actually survive the winter, but January finally killed them off. I grew them up some bamboo cane wigwams, which turned out nicely and I may do that again this year. I bought some seed packets and planted Lobelia and Snapdragons straight into my pots, the Lobelia took over and the snapdragons never came up at all, not sure why this happened, but it did. We bought a lot of veg seeds too, tomatoes, chillies, runner beans, and cucumber. But apart from the beans everything else had been left too late and didn't produce anything worth eating, we ended up with a lot of spindly dying plants in small pots.

My new seedlings!

   This year I've been a bit more organised, thanks in part to Alan Titchmarsh's gardening tip of the day. I now have a proper gardening trowel and fork, gloves and some better timing! I'm growing everything from seed (crosses fingers and hopes they all come up) mostly to save money, and also because I want to know that I can. The only exception to this is the Carnation that my husband bought me for Valentines Day, which now, after a month of being cooped up in it's pot indoors, has a happy home in one of my pots outside. If all goes well this year I should have Sweet peas and Morning Glory's on a bamboo pole trellis (which I made myself) to hide the bins. Marigolds, Lobelia, Petunias, Nasturtiums, and Impatiens in my new wall baskets from B&M. Miscellaneous Bulbs, Cornflowers, Carnations, Dahlias and Chrysanthemums as well as my leftover basket flowers in my planters and tubs. I've started all of these out in seed trays, some indoors a few weeks ago and a bunch more outside last weekend. The indoor seedlings are doing well, not hardy enough for transplanting yet, but growing quickly in my kitchen window and the outdoor ones are still too young to have sprouted.
   I haven't decided on veg this year, we have some leftover runner bean seeds which I may have a go at again depending on how well the flowers do. Tom got some chilli seeds for Christmas, so maybe plant a few of those inside when the kitchen window is free again. I had thought about trying some strawberries and maybe currants this year for jam, but now we're planning a move to Sheffield in September, so I decided to wait another year on fruit.
   Hopefully my garden this year will be something less cringe-worthy and maybe I'll even attract some bees and butterflies! Currently we just get a lot of spiders.... ick. Will try to do a monthly garden update, although not so long as this and full of photos.