In October 2016 I planted 100 crocus bulbs and waited with excitement for my carpet of flowers to arrive. Sadly by the following February the show was rather disappointing. I reckon that badgers had dug up and eaten many of them.

So in October 2017 I planted some more- about 50 or so, and I covered the area with exceedingly spiny cuttings from my berberis hedge- hah that showed them, apart from the fact that thespicky branches blew around the garden and kept having to be re-positioned!

Anyway it was all worth it as the crocuses have come up so much better this year. I am hoping that they will spread, as the snowdrops have, and that by the time I am old there will actually be a carpet of crocuses to enjoy.

In this unseasonably warm February they do look wonderful.

One of my plans this year is to create a fence around the orchard, to protect my trees from gnawing rabbits and deer, and to allow me to underplant to create a permaculture garden. I was interested in how to do this cheaply and in keeping with the wild nature of the end of the garden.

I saw on Pinterest something called a ‘compost fence/hedge’ and decided that would work well as a boundary between the woodland area and the orchard. It would support wildlife as well as costing nothing, as I already have the fence poles and I always have plenty of branches/brash that I need to get rid of.

So yesterday, using my new auger I created a row of posts. Ok so not as neatly executed as it could be- but that is hardly the point with such an informal fence. The wonder was that it only took me about an hour to put in 12 posts. The first time ever that a garden project has been easier than anticipated!!

Today I started filling in with branches and other garden debris. It is a work in progress, but you get the idea. Best of all, all the ladybirds that have settled and hidden in the crevices of the branches remain relatively undisturbed and it will be a useful habitat for many more next winter. It may even do something to deter the bigger wildlife from coming through- although I am under no illusions that it will stop them entirely and I am planning to take more stringent measures on the other three sides involving chicken wire as well as hedging plants.

I think it’s coming on a treat and I can keep adding to it as I cut back the hedges at the sides and also prune the apple and pear trees. As a permaculture project, with the idea of using what you have and throwing nothing  in the garden away I think it is pretty good.

The sun has been out for two days now and the snowdrops are fabulous. Yesterday they all opened up and their scent hung in the air. I also noticed many honey bees visiting, although I couldn’t get one to stay still enough for a good picture. Spring is most definitely in the air.

Meanwhile further up the garden our builders have been busy with the roof. It’s t-shirt weather for them, if not us, and the whole site is looking much better. Harry has been busy sweeping out the water and what with the new roof we might imagine living in there one day.

With new enthusiasm I spent some time in the woods at the end of the garden, mainly gathering kindling for the fire and also doing battle with a large bramble that was threatening to overwhelm a very old greengage tree at the edge of the woods.  I am collecting the cuttings in blue recycling box ready to add to my rough makeshift ‘hedge/fence’ once I get going with that in the next few weeks.

The snowdrops are really getting going now, although they are not quite at their peak, so more to come I am sure. I am so pleased to see them gradually spreading up the garden and I think this year I will move some more clumps up to the middle garden.

I also noticed at least four ladybirds nesting on the underside of a teasel head.

If ever there was an argument for leaving ‘a mess’ over Winter this is it. In fact when I was clearing the old bean canes a couple of weeks ago I found lots of ladybirds hiding in the crevices and felt bad for demolishing their home. I couldn’t say I was ever the most tidy gardener, but you have to clear up sometimes, and this often means evicting wild-life. I can only comfort myself that there are plenty of other habitats left messily intact.

What a difference a day, and one good idea, makes! Yesterday the sky was grey and I was full of gloom, missing my garden and feeling the burden of a too long winter. I realised how much I miss walking down the garden as my favourite way to relieve stress by taking me back to nature and reminding me of all that is not man-made but persists regardless of human concerns. These days the garden does give me that feeling, except right at the end in the woods with the snowdrops, and I need to pick my way through rather a lot of mud and chaos to get there.

But today the sun is shining, albeit rather weakly, and the weather is mild. As I walked up and down, filling the bird feeders, being outside felt like a blessing rather than a test of endurance (no jacket and gloves required!) and I could imagine the arrival of Spring and the way that the garden transforms when the temperature rises.

Yesterday I also had an idea for how to create beauty quickly – a wildflower meadow! The building works have stirred up the ground in the middle section of the garden and the top soil is very thin in places with little organic matter- just the right conditions for a wildflower meadow, where the soil needs to be somewhat poor and the lack of competing grasses allows flowering plants to establish. Basically the builders have done the preliminary work for me by killing the grass and churning up the mud. The conditions of the Somme that lead to the famous poppy fields have been re-created right here in Cambridgeshire. If I get on with it in March we could be looking at a sea of poppies by early Summer, a thought that brightens my mood and quickens my energy again. Now I simply have to work out a plan of where to spread grass seed and where to sow my meadow and work out quantities to buy.

Every year at about this time I start itching to sow seed, but it is generally far too early. I end up with etiolated tomatoes and beans that are long and inter-twined before the ground/weather are ready for them to be planted outside. However, I read that jalapeño plants need a long growing season and that some important gardeners have sown them already, which of course was red flag to the bull!!  And, as I was already there, filling seed trays with compost, it only seemed sensible to sow a few other things such as hollyhock, nicotiana, Larkspur, verbena bonariensis, penisetum ‘tail feathers’, and some salad leaves for the window cill.

As to whether sowing these seeds amounts to ‘sowing the seeds of love’, I can only say that when I said over lunch that I was going to spend the afternoon sowing seeds the song was immediately recalled and then played loudly, as we all cleared up the kitchen. Thinking about it though it seems apt. Right now the garden is a sea of mud and the weather is cold and icy and I really don’t feel as in love with my garden as I usually do. Indeed yesterday, when I had planned to get out there and start some jobs and clear up, I lost motivation entirely and sat in bed instead looking at social media and feeling miserable and unmotivated. I was certainly not feeling the love that usually gets me out there every weekend.

However, this morning I found that the stipa tenuissima that I sowed last week, and which I hadn’t expected to germinate without a program of being placed in and out of the fridge, was actually sending up shoots. The excitement of new growth and the miracle of seed germination really set me up for the morning.

So now the only south facing window sill that I have in the house has the stipa, some mustard seeds that need using up and a tray of baby salad leaves;

And the propagator is newly set up as well- yay!

I know that I should actually be clearing the land, laying compost and filling the raised beds, as well as starting my big projects such as fencing the orchard, however for those I need better weather and also the energy that comes in Spring when the sap is rising and suddenly I can imagine the garden in high Sumer. Right now small jobs and small successes are better aligned with the small amount of energy that I have available.  It’s OK to take small steps when the big ones are too overwhelming and I know that the excitement and energy will come back once I have successfully ‘re-claimed’ my garden from the builders and it feels properly mine again.

Perhaps it is hard for me to commit myself to loving the garden right now when it is so often occupied by strangers who pile stuff around any old place and move machinery over already torn up land.  I have sad jolts of recognition at times when I see new damage and apart from the snowdrops there is little that is beautiful and new right now. However, I know that this will change and that when I get back to re-claiming and planting it up, it will be a treat to have many plants already raised and ready to go in. So that’s what I will do- make plants and look forward to the Spring.