Spring in the garden

I know spring is well on its way when I hear the frogs croaking in our tiny little pond. A couple of days after first hearing them I noticed the frogspawn. There are often more than a dozen frogs in and around the pond and the amount of frogspawn seems a bit optimistic for the size of the pond. The frogs vary in size, I don't know how long it takes for a frog to become fully grown. This is one of the larger ones.

As I have now decided that it is spring I've already planted my potatoes in pots. I hope it is not too early but the pots are right up against the house wall which should give some frost protection. I tried this last year and got two or three meals worth of potatoes from each pot. However since last year the chickens have arrived and they like to sit in pots and generally destroy the contents!

I have surrounded the potato pots with chicken wire to keep them safe.

The potato tubers (two per pot) are planted two or three inches from the bottom of the pot and covered with a couple of inches of compost. Once the leaves are visible another layer of compost is added until the top of the pot is reached. To get good yields the pot needs to be much bigger but these were all I had. I have heard that potatoes can be grown in a similar way in black bin liners (with drainage holes) unrolling the bag and adding more compost as the plants grow but I've yet to try that, I'm not sure that bin liners would be chicken-proof.

I am now hoping for some more fine weather so I can get the allotment ready for some spring planting.