Lazing in the garden during lockdown

2020's lockdown has left me very grateful to have a garden and also very grateful that I didn't turn the whole lot into a vegetable patch, but also left myself some grass. Technically, the main purpose of the grass is a place for the washing line to go, but even so, it's nice to be able to drag the garden umbrella out and lounge on the lawn.

It's surprisingly peaceful in the garden at the moment. I occasionally hear people mowing their lawns and more often hear people chatting. But a lot of the time, it's just me and the twittering of the birds and the humming of the bees. The garden seems to have become a haven for wildlife. I didn't entirely do this on purpose. I've been desperately trying and failing to attract a frog with my pond, but the rest has been more a side effect than intent.

I can only assume that the flowering vegetables and cottage-garden plants I tend to grow plus my daisy-filled lawn have been attracting bees and my attempts to be organic and not use pesticides have attracted other insects, which have in turn attracted birds - possibly together with the huge number of worms that live in the garden. A small flock of sparrows has moved into next door's lilac tree and regularly descend into my garden for a dirt bath in the empty and currently rather dry vegetable beds. They've become so fearless that they're even happy to come into the garden while I'm there, providing I'm still and quiet:

Pigeons are a frequent visitor (especially when there are brassicas available for pecking) and we also get visits from a pair of blackbirds, the skinny robin and his rival the other robin, magpies and crows. Ducks and geese fly overhead quacking and honking, but never land.

In sunny weather the garden is constantly humming with bees. They currently like the flowers on my kale and a rocket that happened to seed itself into this year's brassica bed, which I have left for the seeds. We're also visited by occasional butterflies and moths. One of them even stayed still long enough for a close-up:

So I've been lying in the shade, listening to the sounds of nature, reading my book and taking time out to stare up into the sky and admire the passing clouds.

Using flowering plants to tell you when to plant things out

Recently in my gardening groups on Facebook I've seen a lot of people posting memes about signs to watch out for in the garden to tell you when to plant different things out. The meme contains the following information:

• Wait for apple trees to bloom before planting bush beans.
• When the apple blossoms fall, plant pole beans and cucumbers.
• By the time the lilacs are in full bloom, it will be safe to plant tender annual flowers and squashes.
• Transfer tomato transplants to the garden when lily-of-the-valley is in full flower.
• Full-sized maple leaves signal time to plant morning glory seeds.
• Peppers and eggplant can be transplanted when the bearded irises are blooming.
• When peonies blossom, it is safe to plant heat-loving melons, such as cantaloupe.

I don't think it's aimed at the UK or even Europe because it calls aubergines "eggplants". Nevertheless, so far I have accidentally partially followed it this year by planting my broad beans (which count as bush beans because they don't need supports) in the ground this weekend (11/12 April 2020), which is also precisely when I noticed my apple tree's blossoms opening. Mind you, I've previously planted broad beans straight outside in pots in late winter. The pots are to guard against snails. Providing they're protected from snails, they seem to have no objection to being outside in pots from as early as February. This lot started in my unheated greenhouse to give them a boost, but have been hardening off for the last couple of weeks.

I've also planted the pansies that were growing wild in this bed along the edges with the broad beans and I've scattered some mixed annuals there as well, as my broad beans will probably be all over by the end of June and then I'll want something to take over and look pretty.
I reckon it'll be another couple of weeks before the apple blossoms fall.
Edited: By 2 May, most of my apple blossoms had fallen:

Apple blossoms on 2 May 2020

It's been so warm lately, part of me was tempted to stick the runner beans I've been growing in pots straight in the earth already, but I only have 5 and no more beans to grow them from, so I'm highly protective of them. Also, I've let kale flower there because I want to collect the seed, so holding off for a couple of weeks suits me just fine.
For anyone else living in London, I can confirm that as of Sunday 12 April, lilacs are definitely not yet in full flower, as I am lucky enough to have a neighbour with a lilac tree just the other side of our fence.

Lilac tree on 12 April 2020

Edited: as of Sunday, 19 April 2020, next door's lilac tree had pretty much reached the point of full bloom:

Lilac tree on 19 April 2020

Unfortunately all my attempts to grow lily of the valley have so far failed, and I'm avoiding even going out for exercise at the moment, as Joe Wicks's PE sessions have done me just fine so far, but next year I might be able to find other people's lily of the valley (which I understand to start flowering in June) and also their peonies. I do have bearded irises, but I have no plans to grow aubergines or peppers outside. It's the greenhouse all the way for them!

Making fertiliser from weeds

So far in the coronavirus lockdown, it's been hard to get gardening supplies. In particular, I haven't been able to get hold of the composted stable manure I usually fertilise the garden with. I do have the compost I make myself, but in the past I've given my plants that together with composted manure. To make up for this as best I can, I ordered a 5 litres of liquid fertiliser, but I'm also making my own fertiliser from garden weeds.

Back when I went on a vegetable growing course in 2014, they taught us how to make fertiliser out of comfrey. The reason you use comfrey is that it has deep tap roots (those very long roots that go deep into the soil like dandelion roots). This means that it can access minerals from deep in the soil that other plants with shorter roots can't get to. It brings these minerals up into its leaves, so when you turn these into fertiliser you're filling your fertiliser with all these minerals. I don't have comfrey growing in my garden, but what I do have is its relative green alkanet.

Green alkanet

As all my past attempts to dig it up have shown, green alkanet too has very long tap roots. I would also have considered dandelions for my fertiliser, even though their tap roots aren't usually as long as green alkanet's seem to be. Making the fertiliser couldn't be simpler. I took an old, clean plastic milk carton with a lid and stuffed as many green alkanet leaves into it as would fit. I used a stick to make sure they got all the way down to the bottom.

I made no attempt to remove the flowers or the stalks, as I couldn't see a reason why they might be a problem. It's surprising how many leaves you can fit in when you start pushing them down. You want to fit in as many as you can.

When it was jam-packed in, I trickled water into the top, so the milk carton was completely filled with water. I used rainwater from my water butt, but if you don't have rainwater, tap water is fine. The reason I trickled rather than poured the water in was that there were so many leaves jammed tight into the carton. I tried pouring at normal speed, but the water just ran over the sides.
I'm now putting it aside and leaving it for 3-5 weeks to stew. When it's ready, it will stink to high heaven (don't worry, that part's normal) and I will dilute it one part to 20 with water. So, to summarise, here are the steps:

1. Find some weeds with a long tap root, such as comfrey, borage or green alkanet (or even dandelions).

2. Fill a plastic milk bottle with its leaves (use a stick to poke them down to the bottom so you can fit as many in as possible).

3. Fill up with water and seal the lid.

4. Leave for 3 to 5 weeks.

5. Dilute 1 part fertiliser to 20 parts water for use.

Rushing to get seeds sown to take advantage of the hot weather

It's the first weekend in April and the weather is as warm as summer already. So the first thing I did was take all my seedlings out of the greenhouse during the day, as they're mainly plants that aren't keen on high temperatures, such as broad beans, runner beans and kale.

I now have to make a decision about whether to bring the ones I hadn't yet started hardening off back inside the greenhouse overnight or assume the weather's so warm they can just stay out there. My gut says the latter. I'm working such long days at the moment that there's just too strong a chance that I'll forget to bring them back out tomorrow and leave them to scorch. I might do 50:50 to hedge my bets and see if I notice a difference.
The second thing I did was rush to plant all of my April seeds so that they can take advantage of this warm, sunny weather to get a head start. I've now sown all my root vegetables (in my case: carrots, beetroot and chard in the ground today, celeriac in pots today and parsnips in the ground a week or two ago). My carrots this year are Flyaway F1, which promises it's resistant to carrot fly. I hope this is true, as I've planted a lot of it.

The reason I've planted so many carrots this year is because they're vegetables we eat a lot of and it's best to grow food you actually eat where you can, especially in times like the present when shopping is difficult.
I already planted my pak choi out in March, and it's now germinated.

I have it in slug rings because I was worried about slugs and snails scoffing the lot – they're very fond of my brassica seedlings. But so far, even the seedlings that have sprouted outside of the rings have survived. My purple sprouting broccoli has also sprouted in the ground and has also stayed safe from slugs so far. I've now also planted red cabbage in the ground (I should really have planted it last month, but I didn't have time or energy) and all my other brassicas (the kale, kohlrabi, turnips and rocket) are in pots because of the difficulty I've had getting them started in the ground in the past. I think everything except the rocket may be particularly susceptible to slugs and snails. The rocket's just picky - although happy enough to self-seed for reasons I will never understand.
The beans are not yet in the ground, but I have decided to go for floral borders around my bean bed this year.

I think I can get away with this without any loss of growing space, as my broad beans don't last past June. What I've done is sown mixed annual seeds around the edges, plus I've planted some pansies that had self seeded in that bed anyway and a self-seeded aquilegia. I'm going to plant the broad beans amongst them. Hopefully, the flowers will stay quite small until it's time to pull the broad beans up and then take over. This will probably cost me a small amount of the broad bean yield, but I think that amount should be worth it for the joy of the flowers. Things aren't so bad yet that I can't have flowers any more.
In other news: I have realised it was a stupid idea to put autumn-planted onions in front of the compost heap. I've going to have a hell of a job getting the compost out to fertilise my garden with without damaging them. I should have left the space for something that goes in in May or later (or at the very least April).

Having learnt the lessons of previous years, I'm also regularly watering all the seeds I've planted from the water butts. If I didn't have those, I'd need to use the hose. It's hot and dry like summer at the moment, so the seeds and seedlings need watering as if it were summer. And even if it were just dry, they'd still need watering. It makes a huge difference to how well seeds germinate and grow.