Garden review: March 2017

So March saw the first proper month of Honey and Eggs, and probably my first proper month at some serious gardening. Here’s an overview of what I did in the garden in March.

The garden at the end of March…

What’s been done

One big job for March was clearing out additional space for the chickens to roam around in. Before the space was created, they did have a 3×2 metre run, but I wanted them to have a bit more. After all, we had set back a whole corner of the garden for them

The next, admittedly bigger job, was cutting down the huge conifer trees at the back of the garden. These trees weren’t really much of a nuisance, but they had been butchered before we had moved in and looked quite ugly in my opinion. With Roy’s brother-in-law’s amazing help we managed to get the beasts down.

This also meant excavating the area around the base of the trees, which is about 2ft of soil. This being an old house full of secrets, It didn’t surprise me to find bricks and concrete slabs.

The garden feels much bigger now, and although I feel a bit sad about cutting down the trees, I’ll be planting new, smaller, native trees and plants in their place. (According to our neighbours, before we moved in, the conifers were over 50ft tall and blocked all light.)

Gardening

From the planting side of things (yes, it’s hard to believe I do actual gardening rather than just landscaping) I planted some seedlings on the first weekend in March, and they’ve come on a treat. I’ve sown:

  • tomatos (Hundreds and Thousands)
  • verbena bonasaris
  • sunflowers
  • cosmos
  • chives
  • nasturtiums
  • foxgloves

It’s my first time growing any of these really, so we’ll see how it goes. I’m really rooting for the tomatoes. (Sorry)

Other than that, I’ve planted a few ferns in the border in the north-facing front garden (the only border I have to be honest) as they were only a pound in B&Q so I couldn’t resist. The soil is a bit dry there as there is a large silver birch and an old cherry of some sort, but I planted a fern there last year and it seems happy.

Here’s a terrible photo of my front border. It’s early days yet…

Chickens and bees

At the start of March we were blessed with our first egg from the flock, courtesy of Bridget. By the end of March, three out of the four birds were laying (some spectacular white eggs from Daphne) and as of last week, we reached four eggs a day. Go team!

Also, after some pretty sleuthy detective work from yours truly I managed to work out which hen is laying which egg. This will allow me to mentally track how each hen is doing, and I’ll be able to see if anything is the matter.

March also saw the end of the beekeeping classes I have been attending. One thing’s for sure, I learned loads. Watch out for parts three and four of my beekeeping class series.

March blog posts

Just in case you missed these, here are the blog posts that were published in March:

What did you get up to in your garden in March?

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