The Garden At The Belvedere Centre (10)

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This week we planted over two hundred plants in the two beds at the front of the Belvedere Centre, following our preparation of the ground over the winter.

The plants from Robin Tacchi Plants Limited were delivered on Monday morning in a big planting crate and two of us planted half of them in the afternoon. Then on Tuesday we planted the rest, with lots of help from volunteers from Broadland Council Training Services (BCTS).

On Tuesday afternoon Helen & Barry brought along Primroses from their back garden and we planted these in an area of shallower soil. They should self-seed themselves and spread about to fill in the gaps where the tree roots are too close to the surface for us to plant anything bigger.

Enough words – here are the pictures:

Planting CrateReady to plant

Planting Primroses

Watering In

Finished Planting

Finished Planting

Planting

Planting

Planting

Planting

It Feels Good To Have Planted Our Potatoes

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At last, today feels like spring. Although the early winter was quite mild and pleasant, the novelty of snow or just cold easterly winds wore off by the middle of March.

According to the Met Office, today’s high was 8 degrees Celsius. But the wind has dropped and it was warm enough to sit out at the allotment and watch the season’s first Small Tortoiseshell butterflies flying in the strong sunshine.

Normally we plant our potatoes at the end of March but it was simply too cold this year. But today we planted “Foremost” (first earlies), “Charlotte” and “Kestrel” (second earlies) and “Picasso” (early maincrop). All four varieties usually do well in the sandy loam of our allotment.

It feels good to have planted our potatoes.

The Garden At The Belvedere Centre (9)

Jeremy Bartlett's LET IT GROW blog Posted on by

Since I last wrote about the Belvedere Centre Garden (4th December 2012) we have done more work on the two beds outside the front of the Belvedere Centre, between the Centre and the Belvoir Street foot and cycle path.

In the last couple of weeks, volunteers from Broadland Council Training Services (BCTS) have helped us and today, after a final bit of clearance, we finished the preparation for planting. There are some Siver Birch roots very close to the surface and we will need to plant with these in mind. Today we found a group of violets growing on the edge of the car park and carefully dug them out and replanted them at the base of a couple of Birch trees, where the soil is very shallow.

In early April we plan to fill up the beds with a range of plants ordered from Robin Tacchi Plants. These will include shade and drought tolerant Common Polypody ferns (Polypodium vulgare) and Greater Woodrush (Luzula sylvatica), Carex morrowii “Ice Dance” and an area of Purple Moor Grass (Molinia caerulea “Heidebraut”) mixed with hardy Geraniums, Verbena bonariensis, Rudbeckia fulgida “deamii” and Veronicastrum virginicum “Fascination” to provide colour and also flowers for insects. Hopefully the Purple Moor Grass will provide autumn colour in front of the Birch tree trunks, just as it does on heathland in the wild.

Preparing the ground

Preparing the ground at the Belvedere Centre.