Homeschool Garden Club - The blossom is all out this week!

This week, whilst the weather has not been great we have had a lovely time in the garden. The blossom is out in its full glory. We have apple, cherry, pear and plum trees all out. Can you identify which is which?

In this week's session, we have been finding out what survived the heat of last year and then our rather cold damp winter. We have lost some, mainly in the pots. The blueberries have been totally wiped out. Most of our chive plants have taken a beating, The ever hardy mint is all gone - all six different varieties did not make it. However, both the wild and cultivated strawberries have managed to make it through. The currents are looking a bit battered and their blossom is not great. The gooseberries have already been pollinated and have plenty of little berries already swelling. We have had new neighbours to our road, who we met at our seed swop in January. Over Easter, they started to work on their gardening and came across in the undergrowth a gooseberry bush and thought of our Homeschool Garden Club. We now have an extra mature gooseberry bush in the garden. No fruit this year, but by the time it has settled in next year - we will look forward to its harvest. We have no idea what variety - so a surprise waits us!

Even after we had to take that very difficult choice last summer, as a Garden Club, when the temperatures hit 40 degrees, and the water butts ran dry - not to continue to water using the hose. The conversation evolved around the environmental impact, the water usage, the skills we have as gardeners to restock the losses. We prepared ourselves for some loss, it could have been worse! So, we are calling our choice - the right choice and a success!

We left the weeding until this week to give things a final chance to see if they would show any signs of life, this spring. We used the RHS weed guide we have (because we are a member) to identify the weeds and work around our lower layers of our forest garden.

The next door sycamore had dropped loads of seeds which needed to be taken out now. Depending upon which team you want to have won the competition - will depend on your count of the seedlings found. My best estimate - we had around 350ish seedlings which we hand weeded out. Thank you to everyone who turned up for that session and well done everyone for looking where you put your feet, protecting the new life coming through. For those of you who miss out - can you spot the seedlings?