Sophie's Gardening Year

Let's talk apple trees.  Because I'm learning a lot from mine this year. First of all, our tree is around 16 years old now (just as old as our child!).  And I think I've cracked how to prune it.  I've been pruning it for the past few seasons, with a little help from a book that's now in my garden and not here so I can't link to it (will edit it in later), and have been rewarded with what I think is a happy tree and approximately a million apples in the making. That's what it looked like about two months ago, or a month-and-a-half ago.  So. Many. Apples.  I was already beginning to sweat a little trying to think of ways to process them.  But then we had a few blustery days and a small storm or two, and now the tree looks like this: I think it's obvious where the wind comes from, no?  :-)  Also, on the side with apples left our neighbors have a hedge. The wind's not the whole story, however.  We have lost so many apples to simple...

Well, here we go! And straightaway this was a tricky week where the only time I was able to go to the garden was on Friday morning, and then only to have a look and take some pictures for this space, hahaha.  The rest of the week went up in a haze of work and birthday prep and actual birthday.  So mostly a wonderful haze, just not a gardening one. Still, this was the week that the anemones started blooming so I was very grateful to see that.  I adore anemones.  They are so elegant and their flower petals so delicate but their hearts are so sturdy and full.  And the bees adore them, too, always a very big plus for me when it comes to plants. I have a white and a pink anemone.  I don't know their official names, but having a look around the interwebs it would appear they would both be grouped in the Japanese (or Chinese) anemones area, since they have yellow hearts (stamens)(learning as I type here).  Also, her name is derived from the Greek ...

As a birthday present to myself I'm going to commit to blogging about my allotment garden once a week for a year, from my 44th birthday until my 45th. I think it'll be a present I will both love and loathe, but then, that's the idea!  After all, I hope to expand my gardening knowledge, and the only way to do that is to go out and garden, but I don't always have or make time to go to the plot.  Now I'll be forced to (calamities aside). Also, I never make time to record what I've done, except through making pictures to post on my Instagram.  But knowing what plants I've planted will help my knowledge increase, too, I should think!  So this is my Cunning Plan to get off my phone, into my garden, and learn about what, exactly, I've done there that week. I'm hoping to learn more about my garden, which has given me so much joy and peace over the past decade.  I'm planning to keep a separate page filled with the plants I meet, and there will be a ...