Tuesday 26 February 2008

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.

4 comments:

Heather L. said...

I'm so happy for you that Spring continues to advance in your part of the world! How encouraging! I'm afraid we are still left in the dregs of winter with snow, sleet, and freezing rain. I hope Spring is around the corner...

Moonroot said...

I'm pretty sure a bin liner wouldn't be chicken-proof! I once made the mistake of putting a couple of my chickens (in transit at the time) in my Dad's greenhouse, reasoning that they'd be safe from predators there and couldn't get up to much mischief. It was midwinter and the greenhouse was devoid of plants, so I thought I had the perfect solution. Unfortunately, it wasn't empty of bags of compost... By the time I got back an hour later it looked like a bomb had gone off - compost & shredded plastic everywhere. My Dad wasn't impressed.

willow said...

Heather,
Apparently we have had the sunniest February since records began, nice for us but not good for wildlife as the seasons get all mixed up.

moonroot,
Your cautionary tale has stopped me even thinking about a "potatoes in bin bags" experiment - the garden is a mess as it is without providing anything else for the chickens to scratch.

Simply Authentic said...

that cracks me up about the chooks! they seem so content in those pots! good thing you blocked off the potatoes...so nice that you are able to start planting so soon...