HIGHER MORWELL GARDEN DIARY 2024
30th January
These pages are a rolling diary of the changes
and events in the garden for the year 2024 in
words and pictures.
January to April
15th January, work has
started on modifying the
layout of the polytunnel
beds. The path on the
side with the folding tray
is being moved inwards as
it is difficult to navigate
when the centre bed is
full of rampant tomatoes
and cucumbers. The
raised bed will be moved
to the centre bed to try
and further discourage
the mice and voles who
trough through the carrots
and parsnips in it.
Also the power point is
being made more stable
and a spur installed for
the greenhouse.
24th January, the
greenhouse base is
essentially finished. The
batten supports will be
taken off and the growing
bed partly filled with soil
before the greenhouse
itself is put up.
Constant wet weather,
made worse by a few
nights of below freezing
temperatures, made the
ground very sticky. Did
manage to get rid of a lot
of rubble under the slabs
though, naturally all
barrowed uphill by hand.
Another project plagued
by the weather was the
yew hedge that is
replacing the horrible
hawthorn. Work on
planting the saplings has
been stop-start since
they arrived last
November. 30th January
was finally dry enough
for us to plant the last
eleven in some of the
stoniest soil we’ve found
in this stony garden. All
was supervised by the
ever-present robin who
sang to us as an
encouragement to find
him/her more worms.
Frogspawn, 31st
January. Never seen it
this early in the pond,
usually towards the end
of February.
Weather looks set to get
cold again so wonder
why this has happened?
What do the frogs know
that we don’t?
The greenhouse itself is finished, seen here on 12th February. Still a lot of infrastructure to
be installed - electricity and mains water inside and rainfall water butts outside.
A lot of work has been
done in the polytunnel,
partly to try and address
the increasingly vexatious
attacks on our winter root
crops by mice and voles.
The old raised bed on the
left has been emptied and
since this photo on 12th
February removed
altogether, along with the
wood edging. We found dry
rot in the wood so most of
that was burned.
New metal-sided raised
beds are now in place in
the centre bed and the
right-hand path move has
been completed. Now only
the centre bed has a
wooden edge, good thick
planks rescued from the
greenhouse base build.
The weather has dominated proceedings in the garden so
far this year, very wet, cold and windy. As of early April
the grass has hardly grown. Pendula Rubra beside the gin
palace though has been much better than 2023, seen here
on 21st March. Not so promising is the big Stipa Gigantea
which should be as green as its twin near the pond, but
unknown to us voles had taken up residence in its crown
over winter and chewed up a lot of growth for bedding.
A re-think on the layout
of the fruit cage, now
the access path goes
around the perimeter
and the two blueberries
and two gooseberries
are in the middle. Also
the step in now has a
hard base to prevent
weeds growing and
making it difficult to
open the door.
The cherry tree has
some hopeful clumps of
blossom here on 9th
April so we await
developments.