A lady we used to work for in Brize Norton, who was wise in the ways of the garden, would always say that as soon as the Blackthorn flowers we can expect a bit of cold weather. Well, Dora, you may not be with us anymore but, yet again, you have been proved right! Last week night time temps of over 8 degrees and tomorrow -3 is forecast; that should see off the lone bud on my peach tree! Ah well, gardening continues to teach me many things and amongst them is the need to be patient and not be precious (hard though!). The beautiful alpine Narcissus below, began flowering early in March and has given much pleasure ever since. It is beautifully scented and was planted in ordinary multi-purpose with a bit of grit added so is very amenable - whether it would have been as easy going in a very cold and wet winter, who knows?
Due to pressures of my MHort (my excuse for this year!), I've been very late in sowing anything and only got Tomatoes and Chillis and Cosmos into the propagator two days ago. I'm trying 3 toms - 'Green Zebra', 'Apero' and 'Golden Sunrise'. The review of 'Green Zebra' by Chiltern Seeds sounded very good - great flavour and ok to grow outdoors; 'Apero' is a cherry tomato and so should be nice and sweet and the 'Golden Sunrise' seeds were left over from 2 years ago so waste not, want not. I did very poorly with toms last year so I have my fingers crossed and am actually wondering whether late sowing might work in my favour. The chillis are Cayenne 'Long Slim' and 'Vampire' - who wouldn't try to grow a chilli called 'Vampire'!
I've also got Sweet Peas, French Beans ('Cobra' and 'Blue Lake') and Cucumber 'Marketmore' in 9cm pots. The Cosmos is bipinnatus 'Dazzler' which was lovely last year. I only had 3 and they came on very late in the summer but gave a great magenta show and made large plants. There is no sign of my Asparagus which I grew from seed in 2018 which I'm rather sad about - it's fair to say that I'm not the most successful veg and fruit grower but I persevere!