ALL THE GARDEN SPRINGS TO LIFE

23^rd March 2014   Central Portugal

It only takes a few days of sunshine for most plants to stir from their winter slumber. Planted around twenty cuttings from the Fig tree prunings last October, each one has suddenly burst into leaf, so twenty new Fig trees from ‘natures’ bounty.

The white and yellow flowered Jasmine has also blossomed forth in the last days, the smell is amazing and mingles well with the heady bouquet of the multi-coloured Freesia flower sprays (grow the Freesia in pots for the best results, stops the mice from chomping through the bulbs on winter evenings).

Roses are growing and ‘budding’ most dramatically in the spring sunshine. Take the long shoots, on climbers and ramblers, down to a position parallel with the ground and tie-in. Each bud on the shoot will then produce a flowering shoot, increasing the blossom display substantially. If your rose is adjacent to a tree wind the long shoots around the trunk of the tree and watch the “magic” show created in May.

"Paul's Himalayan Musk" Rambling through an old apple tree 

The tomato seedlings are now out of the propagator and have “hardened off” in the cloche ready for transplanting.  Pleased to see the three Ukrainian varieties are looking very strong and should fruit abundantly later in the season.

Tomato seedlings well on their way

 Have only planted twelve varieties of tomato this year (it’s easy to get carried away with enormous choice of cultivars available) so intend to only plant four plants from each type (but what to do with the plants left over?).

Peppers and Chillis are looking splendid. All have four or six leaves and are ready for take-off (again these are limited to four plants per variety as there are fourteen different types in the cloche - must be good seed this time round).

Next on the list for ’seeding’ are Courgettes and Cucumbers, five days only in propagator as they will become “leggy” if left longer -  and then a week in the cloche prior to two weeks ‘hardening-off’, then plant out mid April. Cold cloche propagation of ‘Bean’ seeds can start in the next few days for planting out in late April.  Direct seed planting into the ground should wait for another two to three weeks.

Still enjoying the abundance of blossom on all the fruit trees, Apricot and early Plums seems well set with embryo fruit, Peaches, Cherries, Nectarines, Pears and late Plums still in full flower with the early Apples just about to burst forth. 

Plum in full flower with pear in the background

  Keeping everything ‘crossed’ that there are no late frosts this year.

Having pruned grape vines to perfection my ‘Multi-talented’ neighbour has just committed the wine from last Septembers picking to ‘bottling’. The resulting wine is very clear and bright and looks most promising. As the vineyard is on a slope which requires considerable effort to climb during the pruning, spraying, feeding and picking season and the traditional method of grape treading is employed during the crushing process, the wine has been given the ‘imaginative’  nomenclature “Chateau La Feet”, so the matured product should have a good ‘nose’.

There goes the ‘Head Gardener’s’ bell, seems ‘much used’ these warm spring days, must dash, see you soon.

Stuart.