Spring equinox, coppicing and prep.

Spring equinox, coppicing and prep.

It’s high time for a quick catch up here on the blog.

I’ve been busy in the garden over the past few months and I’ve been sharing my progress on YouTube but I’ve never got round to posting here, oops.

It’s equinox tomorrow – time for a happy dance.

Today, I’ve just had to post, as it’s Spring Equinox tomorrow and I love to celebrate Nature’s Calendar and so had to give it a mention, so I made a super quick (and rather shaky) video about it this morning. It’s always exciting when the days start to get longer than the nights again. I can just feel nature getting ready for the growing season ahead.

For more details about why I love celebrating the Equinoxes and Solstices, read this post.

I took this photo of wild primroses on the banks of the field this morning, it’s lovely to see the spring flowers. Even the celandine is getting ready to shine out.

EQUINOX (1)
I’ve noted the exact time of the Equinox (in the Northern Hemisphere, if you’re in the Southern Hemisphere it’s Happy Autumn Equinox for you). Not many people care about the exact time but as I say in the article from last year and the video today, I like to take a moment at the precise moment (even when it’s at a silly hour like tomorrow). Whether you celebrate it or not, it’s great that Spring really is in the air now … which means I’ll get sowing my seeds (I’ll be starting today).

Coppicing the willows.

Earlier in the month I decided to coppice the willows in the willow bed and it was high time too, as they were getting quite thick – some of them too thick to prune with the loppers.
They will be really useful around the garden and I have some projects in mind already. I know the willows will regrow quickly and will bush out well from that treatment.
Coppicing is where you cut the branches down near the base of the tree to encourage them to bush out and have more smaller branches, rather than a main trunk. Willows take to being coppiced very well.

What’s going on in the garden?

I’ve been a busy little bee outside, finally revamping the vegetable beds, which is still work in progress and looking rather lovely. If you want glimpses in ‘real time’ come and find me on twitter (my twitter handle is @ferrisjay) that’s where I share as I go and where I’m spending far too much time looking at lovely pictures of people’s gardens. I’ll post about the veg beds soon. The polytunnel has turned into a workshop (where I’ve been treating the wood for the beds) so there’s been no planting there yet.

I did make a quick garden update video in early March


And one from the tunnel in February (before it turned into a workshop)


I’ve been looking at ways to support bees in the garden and I have some lovely bee friendly plant mixes – that I bought as a gift for me and the bees on St. Valentine’s Day.
I even made a video about that and I have another cunning bee- friendly plan in the works.


Thant’s it for now.
I’m off to get sowing some tomatoes.
Bye for now.

 

 

 

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