April in the Garden

We took a short break up north in Helmsdale last weekend. The weather was lovely, the B&B was great and we visited brochs, cairns, Viking castles and deserted villages to our hearts content. But it’s meant rather erratic blogging this week.

The weather went on being lovely and I took a day to catch up with garden jobs, putting in potatoes, pricking out tomatoes and the half-hardy annuals, and planting out herbs, digging out the ground elder. It looks so innocent when it first comes up, but it has roots that tangle everywhere, and I’ve been fighting it ineffectually for nearly thirty years. It’s worse than bindweed. The garden is almost the way I want it now, though there’s a trellis to put up, some more fruit bushes to put in and space to find for more wild-life friendly plants and nest-boxes. The mulching round the roses is paying off, and most of the seeds I’ve sown are germinating nicely – all we need is a bit more rain.

After that, though, the week went downhill, with something nasty and postviral stealing a couple of days. But it’s hard to be despondent as spring gathers full strength. The pear blossom is past its best already, but the cherry is at its peak, and the apple (my favourite) just poised to be glorious. All the trees apart from ash – always the last – are shimmering green, and there are new flowers every time I go out.