Garden in limbo

Since taking on our allotment, the garden at home has been in limbo. There is no change in the front, that remains an insect/pollinator area. But the vegetable garden in the back is being decomissioned for the most part and gradually moved to the allotment. So this weeks update is a real mish-mash of things.

There are lots of bees visiting the front garden at the moment - we packed this patch with Spring flower plants ready for the early risers. I feel really pleased when I see them all buzzing around.

The Lithodora is covered in bright blue flowers and has started creeping over the edge of the path.

I'm still loving the Pulmonaria. Another path creeper! Seeing things escaping the borders is helping the patch feel much more established and wild.

The crabpple tree has been transformed from a worryingly bare stick (the result of overenthusiastic pruning!) to a blossoming tree buzzing with insects. Our neighbours have the same tree in their garden so we pruned them together during the Winter. We were pleased with our handy work until her husband came out and said "My God, I didn't realise you were going to take THAT much off". At which point we were worried we'd gone too far. But the trees are still alive. Hooray!

The house sparrows are taking lots of nesting material into their new home. You can see what they've done to the hanging basket cocoa liner! They work hard to tug the strands free so they're welcome to them. Plus they earn their keep by cleaning up the dead twigs in the garden. Saves me a job. We all win.

I don't know how I feel about this Camellia.

This is a radish seedling! I've planted them out in the raised bed and hopefully I'll be tucking into some plump radishes soon. The rest will be sown at the allotment. Scott doesn't like radishes so I need to make sure I don't get carried away and plant more than I can eat :)

I'm proud of these broad beans, I've grown them from seed! These are are destined for the allotment.

Becky's post Days full of flowers a couple of weeks ago inspired me to go outside and collect some flowers to put indoors. I found this blossom on a tree round the corner. The last lot I picked smelt of wee (yuck!) but this smells how blossom should. Looks nice on the coffee table too.

I picked these flowers from the lanes on my way home from the allotment last week. When I saw the Forget-me-nots I had to pick some. The darker blue flowers are called Green Alkanet. It took me ages to find out what they were and I discovered they were imported into Britain hundreds of years ago to use for dye. This plant was also cultivated by monasteries for the red dye in the roots. It's technically a weed - we have some in the garden and the bees like it so I'm leaving it there for now. Although I'll make sure I remove the stalks before they go to seed or the garden will be full of it.

Lastly, I received a fantastic bag of leaving goodies from work yesterday (love the wrapping paper as much as the presents)!  It contained a butterfly biome, some bee friendly seeds (nigella, cornflowers and scabious) and a gardeners memo pack. We're going to put the biome in the front garden and scatter the seeds in the wild area of our allotment.

And that is what is happening this week. A bit all over the place but lots of good things happening nonetheless.