Another good forecast, except it decided to rain on me and Mr B for quite a while we carried on gardening regardless. My aim today was weeding and I re-weeded the ledge and finally planted the rhodanthemum, which has been sitting in the grey pot with leftover pebbles all winter.

A couple of dunnocks came to visit, sitting on the fence and gate for quite a while as well as hanging out by the elder. The bird seed has gone down a little more and has been a little spilled, but I’ve not seen any visitors to it yet.

The pear tree has started blooming. The apple tree is just starting to come to life. Something has had a bit of a dig in the bark below and poked at the bark shelter, but there’s still no sign of anyone using the hedgehog house.

After the rain, the pond suddenly looked very integrated with the plot. Just the front ledge to perfect and some more inhabitants to attract.

I weeded all along the trellis bed and fought the grass and weeds out of about half the triangle, producing a heavy bucket of rubbish. Hopefully the soil can keep drying so the weeding gets easier. The big logs are doing a good job of keeping weeds back, so I must keep looking for more to fill the gaps.

I need to start replanting the nursery plants soon before they wake up too much. The first one has gone out – a little foxglove, tucked into the wood at the edge of the pond area. The old ivy roots make such a beautiful domed shelter. I hope it gets used at some point.

After a grotty day yesterday, Good Friday was sunny at times, but pretty windy and the plot was back under an inch of water.

I played with the pond a bit more, adding some small logs, freshly collected from the rec, and adding poppies from the rubbish soil pile into the banks. I’ve also taken the piece of creeping Jenny that had come off the plant into the soil on the front edge, to see if it will take there. The puffy liner is still being a nuisance, so anything to try and hide it.

I also managed to make a satisfying start on the weeding on the right hand side, getting rid of lots of grass and cress. Still lots more to do.

At home I’ve sown:

• 30 x French marigolds
• 12 x Candy Stripe cosmos
• 6 x Summer Carousel nasturtium
• 6 x Trailing Mixed nasturtium

The new bird seed feeder has arrived and it’s really big, but it fits the bracket perfectly as it’s the same brand and size. I’m hopeful that it’s big enough to keep the rooks’ beaks out. I’ve filled it and hung it up, so we’ll see how it goes. I expect the size will make Mr B laugh when he sees it.

The pond was clear again, so I guess it’s found its balance at last. It’s just heavy rain washing clay into the water that might be a problem in the future. Hopefully I can get enough growing on the banks for the roots to do their job.

I’ve left a bucket outside the shed to start collecting rainwater for the pond. It’ll need all the water it can get over time, so I want to establish more rainwater collection early on.

The bird feeder had been knocked down again, so a better solution is necessary. Looking through the fence, Mr B has his feeder much lower on a little tree and has surrounded it with some wire fencing. The feeder was smothered with sparrows and a couple of greenfinches, with a collared dove on the ground. Far more bird life than I get in my plot.

For the first time ever, the pond was clear to the bottom. Mum reached in and removed two fallen bricks. They’re staying out for now. The depth is about 15” and I’d like it to be more like 18″. It’s not clear where the paddle stones are yet; they may be under other fallen stones, but need to wait for water to clear again before we can check that.

We strimmed the whole plot and I ran it over the top of the particularly long grass in the paths. It looks so much better now and I’ve put some seed down on bare areas. It needs some judicious treading/stamping to repair the lumps and bumps it’s developed over the winter.

On my way out at lunchtime, I saw the light rippling off the surface of the pond and reflecting on the stones, and spotted a small black diving beetle in the pond, which was very exciting.

In the afternoon I prepped the onion bed with some leaf mould (disturbing a huge number of ants, but there were no birds around to eat them) and a layer of compost. I’ve put in two full rows of onions, plus one at the end by the shed.

The park logs have been distributed, but not settled in as weeding needs to be done first. I added a good piece of wood to cover the liner behind the loosestrife and behind the sweet flag. I’ve now abandoned the idea of covering the liner by the fencepost though as I’ve discovered that creeping jenny has already rooted further down of its own accord. Maybe it’ll be the answer for the front edge too as it’s reasonably evergreen.

The first seeds have been sown.

20 x sweet peas
12 x Art Shades calendula
8 x Oklahoma zinnia
6 x Red Alert tomatoes
6 x Roma tomatoes
Basil

Suzy and I picked up some more wood from the park. A couple of logs and some bark. We also collected an armful of willow stalks, which I might be clever enough to weave around my apple branches to make a barrier / frame for morning glory to climb.

The bird feeder was on the ground when I arrived. Mr B confirmed what I guessed: the rooks knocked it down. Surprisingly little had spilt, so I screwed it back onto the lid and folded in the perches to see if that will stop them getting at it. The lid is not very firmly attached. It may need some help.

The ground is gradually drying, but it’s still very squidgy. The grass is horribly long, but maybe I’ll get to strim it down a bit if there are no more  downpours. The boundaries are starting to dry out though and I managed to do almost a bucket of pick weeding from the ledge and removing buttercups from the grass.

The pond was the clearest it’s been; I could see the pebbles on the shelf and at the bottom of the pond. Something is making the pond shallower than i think it should be. I managed to get out a fallen brick, which I’ve placed on the shelf to try and stop the liner billowing. I think there’s another paddle stone down at the bottom, which should either stand up again, or be moved to a shelf.

I cleared lots of blanket weed with the net, scooping up lots of floating pieces. The elodea is floating around, but there’s no sign of the hornwort yet. The veronica on the bank is thriving and the mazus has its first flower open.

I’ve covered the hedgehog house with a layer of moss to make it more cosy and waterproof. I just  need a little more to finish off.

The last little job I did was to finally stick the small gladioli bulbs from the shed into the ground near the pear tree. The bulbs had been turfed out when I dug out the pond and were now starting to shoot. So we’ll see if they do anything.

I had a cunning plan that worked beautifully. I bought a half-price, end of season hellebore Merlin at the garden centre. It was ever so floppy and dead looking, but all it needed was a bit of water and it sprung back to life. It’s now being enjoyed at home for a while, before it moves to the allotment.

A sparrow has been taking Lexi’s fluff from the nesting feeder at home – and going straight up to the roof with it. All kinds of crap is getting dropped all over my car at the minute.

I had a cunning plan that worked beautifully. I bought a half-price, end of season hellebore at the garden centre. It was ever so floppy and dead looking, but all it needed was a bit of water and it sprung back to life. It’s now being enjoyed at home for a while, before it moves to the allotment.

    A sunny day and a chance at last to clear a load of stuff from the office and take it to the plot for storage or installation. We installed the bird seed feeder bracket as well as we could, but the screws need a bit more power behind them to go all the way in. In the meantime, I’ve taped it to hopefully stop it moving on the screws. The bird food is a mix of no mess food and some old sunflower hearts I found in the garage yesterday.

The elder has a good number of new branches growing up through it, so I am still holding out hope that they’ll take over from the dead tree and it’ll be a mix of both and ultimately offer the birds more cover again.

We moved the biggest log onto the left border, behind the Russian sage, which has just started showing a few small leaves. The small hole underneath it has been stuffed with a couple of small pieces. The big geum to the right really needs some thinning attention.

The bug hotel is looking quite good. I’ll get rid of the grass and cress, but I don’t mind a bit of speedwell for now – and the dead nettle is great.

It looks like a few bees have already emerged from the bee hotel behind the shed. The ones with holes in the mud were definitely closed previously.

Amazingly a couple of garlic are already up. Now starts the game of putting them back when the blackbird pulls them out.

I have planted new bulbs in Bed 3, which I hope will actually flower in the summer and not just completely fail like the sparaxis. I’ve put Nanus gladioli Nymph roughly around the foxglove in the centre. 25 Peacock orchids have been planted in groups of 4 all over the bed. 12 double freesias have been put in close to where the clumps of daffodils are, and across the front edge. I had to pull up a big clump of forget-me-not, which was both in the way and overwhelming some tulips.

This is the last harvest from 2023. The water is so high that the carrots are just putting out loads of roots (or occasionally going soft). There’s some chard left in the ground, but I don’t think it’ll be up to much.

A little clear weather, but the plot was still underwater. I put a new log down by the helianthus. Once the water level drops I’ll be able to better place the logs I have. The very big one may well replace a couple on the left boundary.

The pond was at flood depth and I noticed the first signs of life within it. I thought it might be some crappy frogspawn at first, but it was water fleas in the algae. They’re food for many things and also eat algae themselves, so a good start.

I planted 6 stems of water forget-me-not behind the liner by the fencepost. I put some more subsoil and stones in with them. So I hope they’ll establish well and raft out into the pond. At some point I need to sort out the puffiness of the liner, but it’s not practical at the moment.

The marsh marigold is continuing to grow well and there now seems a bud opening on one of the loosestrife.

I’ve taken the staple of the shed door again and replaced it with a cup hook for the bungee cord.