I think I was a little hasty with my last post about inspiring people to start spring gardening, as ‘The Beast From The East’ blasted through the country and covered everything in snow; it was like, “STOP THE PRESS, SPRING IS CANCELLED!!”. It’s a lesson learnt to not plant anything too early!

It’s been a whole lot milder since, so let’s hope we’ve seen the last of the snow and with the return of Gardeners’ World, surely it means we are ‘marching on to spring’?!?

The Beast from the East

Our garden faired ok really and survived quite well; we suffered a bit of minor damage, the pond was full of twigs and leaves and needed a good cleaning out and some of the plants have been battered by the winds, but as Monty said on GW, ‘things will spring back to life quicker than you think’.

We’ve kept on top of feeding the birds and have been rewarded with our first sighting of the returning goldfinches. When the fields were full of snow, my Dad saw loads of fieldfares and redwings at the side of road just off the A55. Have you spotted any great wildlife recently?

Spring Gardening Inspiration

As I said, my last blog post was about ‘inspiring people to get growing in the garden‘; here’s what you had to say…..

• On Facebook, Fred said he was inspired to grow strawberries and tomatoes
• Via my blog, Dominic asked what veg he could grow in containers – I replied,’well spuds are great in them ‘potato gro-sacks’, my Grandma uses them. She also uses containers for peas. My Mum uses a colander for herbs, like sage and thyme. We’ve grown beans in trugs at school and strawberries grow well in hanging baskets’ 
• My Mum, Ali wants to grow broad beans and more fresh herbs this year, incluing tarragon
• My Dad is inspired to develop the front yard into a garden that brightens up the front with plenty of pollinators. We’ve got our eye on a white hydrangea that we’ve seen at RHS Flower Shows
• Joan is looking to grow more veg and plants that encourage more wildlife into her garden
• My Grandma Barbara was inspired by an article in The Garden Magazine, where she read all about the plans for the walled garden at RHS Bridgewater. She likes the idea of fruit espaliers and is considering one along her yard wall
• Liam contacted me via Twitter and said he was inspired to start growing veg with his young daughter and mentioned ‘nasturtium pesto’ – doesn’t that sound yummy!
• Over on Twitter, Organic North were worried about the ‘beast from the east’ and how it would affect deliveries, whilst the Autistic Gardener said he was staying indoors! Ian Tinton posted a pic of tulips.
• Eco Schools encouraged their followers to start ‘indoor seed planting’, within school
• and me, well I’ve started to chit my spuds. I’m inspired to grow tomatoes and cucumber in my new greenhouse and I’m growing more things from seed this year. I’ve never dabbled with cactus seed, so I’m gonna give it a go!

Don’t forget, if you know a ‘gardening guru‘, there’s still time to enter the RHS Young School Gardener of the Year Competition – why not give it a go!

My ray of sunshine

Whilst the Beast From The East battered the country, I did have a little ray of sunshine come through the post, my invite to RHS Chelsea Flower Show

I can’t wait to visit the fabulous gardens, especially the Artisan ones and check out all the plants in the Great Pavillion #Awesome

Plastic is not fantastic

The BBC TV series Blue Planet 2 really highlighted the problem we have with plastic in our ocean. Since then social media campaigns have really helped to get everyone thinking about how we can reduce the use of plastics. Monty Don talked about this on GW too. Last week I made this stop motion film, to try and raise awareness about single use plastics. I acknowledge it’s really difficult to lead a plastic free life, it’s going to take a long time, but I’m really going to try to reduce plastic in the garden. Here’s the video, please watch and do comment if you have any ideas:

My next blog will include info on my visit to the Mayfield development in Manchester and I also want to give a shout out to Sarah’s blog all about life on her new farm Grobdale of Girthon

Hope your gardens have survived the storms, (cue Strictly Come Dancing Music) and

‘keeeeeeeeeeeep gardening’!