The wind changes

A slight silver lining to this cold spring:  the flowers have lasted a lot longer than usual.  One apple tree (Laxton Fortune variety) has had a profusion of beautiful pink/white blossoms for two weeks now.  The other tree (Sparta variety) is less fulsome, but I'm hoping that means it might break its biennial tendencies;  ever since these two trees started fruiting, they've produced only every other year.  I've even tried thinning fruits, forcing them to bear less so they would flower/fruit every year, but no luck.  However, if Sparta only has a few fruits this year, maybe it will fruit next year too--and then if it goes biennial again, it will be in the alternate year from Laxton Fortune instead of both going fruitless at the same time.

This week however does seem to have a change in the wind, going from north easterly to south westerly;  it's gone a bit warmer.  Hopefully it won't change back until the growing season is done.  My allotment in particular is looking very bare;  I feel like I should have several rows of beets and peas at least, but have not a single one yet--the seedlings are still too small to transplant, despite sowing about a month ago.  I sow my trays outdoors for these cool weather plants as I don't really have the room for them indoors--maybe I should have made the room this year to get some growth on them.  But too late now;  just need to get on with sowing more.

At least my transplanted broad beans at the allotment are looking healthy and strong;  only one or two have been lost to pests and the rest are great.  The garlic too, planted out last September, looks very vigorous and healthy.  In fact, it almost looks like it's ready to pull now, but probably not actually ready for another month.  In past years I've harvested in July, but over the most recent years it's been ready in June.  I'm down to the last couple of heads from last summer's harvest--and using them very sparingly!--so I might pull up one or two during May.

Something else growing in this cold spring are fresh herbs;  I've recently cut back on my caffeine intake and have replaced my daily black tea with herbal tea, harvested from my garden.  This has included nettle leaves most days, adding one or two other herbs such as mint, lemon balm, fennel, rosemary, dandelion petals, sage, lavender, alfalfa, comfrey.  There have been a couple I did not like at all--blackberry leaves were too bitter for instance (though raspberry leaves weren't).  I quite like the nettle tea on its own;  hard to describe the taste, but it reminds me of the smell of new hay.