Egg shells and tea leaves

For those of us who are unable to have a compost heap (and there are few compelling reasons for this, including laziness), I would recommend the shortcut of saving the egg shells and used tea leaves from your weekly consumption.

My grandma used to crush eggshells into her potted roses and I started to do the same last year. Eggshells are rich in calcium, add valuable nutrients to the soil and improve drainage. Strewn around the base of young plants, the sharp edges of broken egg shells also serve as a deterrent for slugs.

Recently, during a spring clean of my kitchen I found an old ceramic teapot that has a glued-up handle making it rather unsuitable for tea, but certainly could serve as a decorative storage for used tea bags in our pantry. Tea leaves break down to provide humus for the soil and they contain trace minerals that are good for plants.

Over the weekend, my tea pot and the egg-shell container were brimming, so I emptied the crushed egg shells around our roses and tore up the tea bags around the base of our peach tree. It is important to crush egg shells as finely as possible so that it breaks down more easily into the soil. Tea bags should be torn as most tea bags in the UK are not made of degradable material.

This weekend was the definite signal that spring is here. There are daffodils everywhere you look around the country and our garden is kicking into gear as well, with blooms of hyacinth and buds of cherry blossom and peach.

We planted three young climbers against the back wall, two yellow honeysuckle and a passion flower, supported by little tepee shaped stakes which should be adequate till we can create a trellis.

Have made first step towards growing our own veg. Sowed seeds for French beans, courgettes, basil, tomatoes, carrot and kale, and a few sunflower seeds too, and have left them to work their magic in little pots on a warm window sill.

To prune, or not to prune

Come Feb-March and I am always left wondering which plants I am meant to prune. I recently came across this rather useful phrase that goes, 'If it flowers after June, then Prune', courtesy Monty Don. The rationale being that these plants flower on new growth and if you don't prune them most of their energy is spent on growing the plant rather than flowering. Also explains why the cherry blossom which flowers in April does not care for a prune! Armed with this piece of wisdom and our secateurs I set off into our garden last weekend. The buddleja went down several notches and the clematis got a bit of a trim too.

Found tender, bronze miscanthus shoots in the front bed so I transferred them to the new bed at the back garden. If they grow anything like the grasses in front they will provide quite a feature. Meanwhile, Mr Macaron gave the barbecue a good scrub down, brought out the geraniums in the troughs and put up the hanging baskets. Felt rather pleased with our efforts and the garden looked cared for after the self-maintennance spell over the winter.

Shopping at a new food market this weekend, we found a packet of bulbs that seemed just the sight for our front bed. Our front bed lies adjacent to our red door and red garage shutter and we wanted to have blooms and foliage in colours that would complement it. So we needed little persuading to buy a pack that said 'bulbs in red mix' and Sunday afternoon saw us planting thirty anemone bulbs and fifteen each of crocusmia and gladioli. The packet says 'summer flowering', not sure if that means summer of 2012 though!

The front bed now has one cherry blossom, two rows of miscanthus, box hedging, a couple of oriental poppies, couple of red roses, heucheras, holly hocks, alpine plants and lots of sedum overlooked by a hanging basket of geranium and sweet peas. Quite the planting scheme if there ever was one!

The packs also came with red dahlia tubers, a species we have had no success with previously. Held back from planting it along with the other bulbs. Plus, there's only so much red our neighbours can take from the front bed!

Wrapped up the Sunday afternoon after a top-up for the bird feeders and spray of Bordeaux mixture for the peach buds. If we are spared the blight of peach leaf curl this year, we should have lots of Peregrine peaches this summer.