April 1st can't fool us its spring.

April In Scotland is pretty cruel.

Oh sure there are days when the sun shines bright enough that you can potter about in t-shirt and shorts, and the fields are full of wobbly legged lambs, and the daffodils are waving  their elegant trumpets about....

But....

Its not unknown for a few days of snow to still settle in, or for hard frosts to cover the ground every night until the middle of June.

Scotland has its own unique growing season, its short but intense, with long hours of daylight and dry weather during the summer, perfect for many soft fruits, not so great for more delicate, longer season fruit and veg.

But what do you do?

You persevere and work out what grows in your area and laugh at the adverts that try to sell you citrus trees that can withstand the "........harshest of British weather!!!! Down to 7oC!!!!!!!" 

Hmmm

What was our lowest temp this year??

@ -25oC at least one night if I recall........... Ho hum.

One of the things you quickly learn is to add weeks onto the sowing/planting out times given in gardening books and on the back of seed packets.

Sow peas in March?

Not if I don't want them to die in April.

Anyway....  to the croft this year.....

The new Rhubarb bed. These plants are all growing on from the rhubarb roots I dug up and divided a few weeks ago. The biggest two I had started on in pots in January, the rest have gone straight in. As we won't be able to pick any this year I've still left a couple of plants in the old bed. After this season I'll dig those up as well. 

Kims been busy making raised beds and planters for me from re-claimed timber. The manky bits of these lengths have been going on the log burner. This little planter makes use of a dead space on the corner of the house. 

Some of the new raised beds won;t be ready to use until next year. My aim is to make all the beds no dig, that is mucking out straight into the beds, heaping up to around 3ft high and then covering the muck and leaving to rot down. The two beds I've done this with over the last couple of years are beautiful, easy to use and full of the most amazing compost, deep and crumbly like it came out of a packet!! The plastic on this one is just to stop some dry stuff blowing off in the wind.

I've had to bulk up the orchard fence, were the hens are at the moment, after two ladies decided that clipped wings or no, they would still manage to escape. Not a great idea when it comes time to start planting in the garden!! Thinking about planting some willow around all the chicken areas (we have 2 main paddocks for them) and weaving it into a fence/hedge so it not  only looks nice but also attracts bees and insects.

Sally (aka purple chicken) says hi!

We have two knew chickens as well... Foggy, a Scots Dumpy x......

..... And Blossom a Yokohama x Silki (I think!)

Little Blossom lays TEENY TINY eggs! But like the Tardis there seems to be room in there for a yoke as big as the egg on the left! 

Buds in abundance on one of the apple trees.

The window sill is pretty productive. My green house is too cold to start things off early (February) and so I've never had luck with plants like tomatoes. After a shaky start, with some of the plants looking a little leggy due to the windows North/West aspect, every things seems to be doing well! I have sunflowers growing (for future bird food), lettuce in pots nearly ready to eat, courgettes, pumpkin (from my own seed), chickpeas, haricot, herbs, gherkin, pepper even a bit of ginger.

The log burner in the kitchen means the temp never drops below around 10oC, which seems to be plenty for what I've started and now the suns out longer and moved a little everything's growing nicely.