I went to the nursery this morning and bought 2 Gallery white lupins, a tanna burnet, and a red and white aquilegia. The lupins have gone into holes in the left border, either side of a red one. The latter two will go among flowers this year, but are ultimately meant for the new garden.

A couple of teasel stalks had fallen over the path, so I cut off the seed heads and put the stalks on the compost heap. I’ve put the seed heads in the bed in case they’re a useful habitat or have any seeds left inside. Two other stems are still standing.

I cleaned up the pond a bit; at the moment, algae is winning over the re-emerging hornwort. I found a snail and some snail eggs among the weed, which is great – I thought the snails had gone.

The transplanted bluebells look like they’re going to flower. I also need to rescue the ones from the bug hotel pot.

The apple tree is blossoming. It looks good and open still. It’ll be interesting to see what the foliage does.

I’ve roughly dug over the back of Bed 7 for potatoes. I uncovered a vole nest and a load of ants. Hopefully, the birds will have their fill before I get back there.

I’ve sown:

• 15 x rudbeckia
• 9 x marigolds

The slightly battered grow house has gone up this afternoon. I’ve put the beans/sweet peas in there, plus the stupid sunflowers, and rudbeckias/marigolds; they’ll stay in there all the time.

The indoor trays of sweetcorn/tomatoes, zinnias, and marigolds are out in the grow house for now, but will come in at night. It’s been hot today, but it drops to about 4ºC at night.

I weeded all along the front bed this morning. There was a lot of grass and weeds to get out. A salvia has been reduced by grass overtaking it. I took down the rest of the helianthus stalks and used many of them to fill the hole between the fence and the car park grass. I should have been doing that with the stalks from the start.

The two robins were hanging out very close together, and one of them is very brave – happily bobbing about 18″ from me while I talk to it. The linnet was caught on the app again, but I didn’t see it.

In the afternoon, I weeded all along the ledge and under the apple tree. Marestail is making a bit of a comeback, but I can’t dig it out much due to pre-existing plants. I took two hawthorn seedlings from the ledge and a holly from by the trellis. They’re now potted up for possible future use.

My bluebells from last year are now up and starting to flower in the fern bed. The ones in the pots are just leaves, so I pulled them out and planted them in the bed. The  compost was ever so dry, so they didn’t have much chance.

I weeded most of the triangle too. My little fuchsia has started sprouting leaves, so that’s another one I need to pot up to try and nurse it into better health.

The pond was a bit low when I arrived, but although the bird bowl was a bit disturbed, I couldn’t see any damage. A few bits of new farm rock could be a better defence than pebbles that can be moved so easily.

I uncovered three beds today (and managed to do 2 shifts for the first time in a long time), all of which I turned over with the Wolf tool and raked over. There were a few bits of marestail in Bed 11, but next to nothing in the way of weeds otherwise. Two robins were flying around in a friendly manner and one of which was brave enough to pick around in the same beds I was working on. At last, a friendly robin.

I’ve done a half row each of carrot and beetroot in Bed 2, and two short rows of parsnip at the left end of Bed 11. I haven’t put the tunnel up over Bed 2 (yet?), but covered the parsnip rows with my plastic tiles as before.

I also harvested another very big parsnip from Bed 7. There are still lots left and they seem to be holding up ok.

Bed 5 has a volunteer nasturtium at the edge, which has now been joined by about 16 trailing nasturtium seeds.

The bulbs I thought were tulips really area alliums, which I don’t remember planting, but I must have.

The hawthorn will flower soon and there are one or two little volunteers that I need to pot up for possible future use.

Looking at the left border the physostegia by the veronica really does seem to have gained a big hole in it and is now just a strip across the front of the bed. I might be better of trying to rearrange it into a better lump and filling the hole with something like a lupin.

I’ve resown most of the sweet peas. I killed the ones that had come up; they got fried in the sun. One magically survived and a number hadn’t come up yet. They’ve just been outside all the time now, so we’ll see if they manage to come up slowly.

I’ve also now sown the 8 runner beans in the same root trainer.

I managed to do a mow on 2 pretty easily. A couple of the paths in particular are very full of thatch; I’m not sure if I’ll be able to rake it out myself. A mow on 1 is the next job, if it can be done.

I weeded all of the left border. It was a little damp, but not far off the ideal weeding moisture level. It produced a whole bucket of  grass and weeds. I need to check last year’s photos and see if a current hole will fill up with something later – or do I have room for another lupin? They at least don’t seem to mind the wet winter ground.

There were some good birds to be heard, including the mistle thrush, a redwing and the wren.  

In the morning, I went to the plot – two days into the Easter weekend! The red and yellow tulips look good, but I think I’ve lost the cream/pink ones. The pear tree has blossomed and the onions have sprouted in both beds. What I thought were blind new tulips now have flower heads and look rather like alliums so far.

I cut the grass around the pond slabs and the ones at the gate. I put some of the larger bits of turf outside the gate to make a start on bringing the level up a bit where the mole has ruined things a bit. I did the first mow of the season on 3. If I’ve got it in me, I’ll try a 2 tomorrow. The ground still feels so uneven, even as the grass gets shorter.

I took down all the Veronica stalks as the new growth has appeared – and found a ladybird hiding at the bottom. I also noticed the first new shoots on the helianthus, so I filled a bucket with those stalks. I expect another bucket could be filled with what’s left.

In other news, corners of some sheets don’t seem to be pegged down any more. Magpies might have been stealing them, I guess.

In the afternoon I sowed:

• 30 x French marigold
• 30 x Early Winder Mix zinnia
• 8 x Incredible sweetcorn
• 6 x Roma tomatoes
• 6 x Red Alert tomatoes
• 6 x Soleo sunflowers

A bit late, but not too bad. They’re inside for now. I’ll put the grow house up when the wind disappears, then most can go in there with lids on.

I still need to sow some Rudbeckia. Other flowers for the patches will probably be broadcast, assuming I’ve got the seeds in the shed.

I’m a bit behind my usual timeline, but the first seeds have now been sown: 16 x Tall sweet peas. They’re in my new root trainer, which is much more solid than the last one. I’ll try and get them to germinate in the warmth and then stick them outside, hoping for some slightly higher temps.

I’ve added compost ready for the runner beans, which I’ll put in at the weekend (Easter). I still don’t have a full plan for this year…

The first job was a small mend to the pond as something had been pecking/destroying a bit of the old ivy at the back of bird bowl. I cleared that up and filled the gap with pebbles. That then led into doing a good clear-up of the algae and duck weed. An upcoming job is clearing up the slabs so that I end up on them, not the grass, when I sit down.

I’ve finally finished the strimming. Some edges were already up high again and I went over a few again. Come Easter weekend I hope to get the mowing done for the first time. Trying to cut down some high edges is also on the list.

It looks like I might have a bluebell this year. I think the ones in the pots might be blind, but this one is in the ground. My bulbs are a bit hit-and-miss. I don’t know whether it is down to their quality, or how much their conditions affect them. The callicarpa moved from the front bed to a pot at home seems to be thriving now.

I saw a bird in the tree which had a red chest, but wasn’t a robin, and had a brown speckled back, but didn’t look like a sparrow. The app confirmed it was a common linnet, which flew off, but could still be heard.

I drove down to the plot for the first time this year, parking up by Pat’s plot. I was then able to take home buckets of weeds and various bits of rubbish.

The main aim was to plant the onion sets, but I did all kinds of other jobs too, including cutting back the nettles that I could reach from around the pond, and doing a little weeding. The earth isn’t dry enough yet to do a proper weed as you can’t shake the mud off the roots yet. I harvested a few parsnips to see how they’re keeping in the earth. Two of them were big and needed a big fight to get them out. Two were small and one was madly forked.

I prepped the onion beds – 2 and 8 – with superphosphate and spread the last of the bag around the garlic.

As usual, a few of the sets were mouldy, so they went on the compost. There’s a small gap left at the end of Bed 2, which could probably have a zinnia or some chard.