The investment paying off

Blackcurrant in flower

I spent a lot of money on my garden last year. A lot. Certainly enough to make me ask whether I was throwing money away in my enthusiasm, and to question each purchase's necessity. But for the first time since I started on my path towards self-sufficiency, I had a chance to make big leaps towards that goal and I decided that it was worth spending a lot of money in a short time to make leaps in time-saving. So I indulged, and considered it an investment. Now that investment is paying off...hopefully!

Blueberry flowers

It looks like we'll get a decent crop of soft fruit this year. The currant bushes - three whitecurrant, three blackcurrant and one redcurrant - are all on flower, as are the five blueberry bushes. I hadn't expected to get blueberries for another year. The grapes, which survived a cold winter outdoors, probably won't flower this year but they'll overwinter in the greenhouse next year to give them a chance. We'll get strawberries although they haven't yet flowered, but the real prize is this:

Cherry blossom

The morelly cherry, one of the orchard in pots, is flowering profusely! Hopefully they will translate into cherries if there's another tree in the vicinity, as my other cherry tree has one lone blossom. But the Victoria plum and one of the plums on the dual-plum tree are also flowering so we'll hopefully have plums. The apple, pear, plum and cherry trees on the land are in full flower and as I cleared them of brambles over winter, hopefully they'll fruit as well.

This fruitfulness is extending to the vegetable garden. We're still eating potatoes stored from last winter, and the last of the parsnips. We're also eating overwintered leeks: I just cut the tops off them and let them regrow. I'm getting a handful of purple sprouting broccolli each week which isn't quite enough, so I'll plant more of that for next year. The celery is looking great after recovering from the winter. I'm still eating small leaves from the last of the spring cabbage as they run to seed, plucking the leaves individually and tossing them into stir fries. There are new veg, too. Lots of garlic, onion and shallot tops to toss in salads and stir fries, new Red Russian kale, deer's tongue and little gem lettuces and salad burnet for salads, and hopefully soon pea tops and broad bean tops too. The two laying chickens are giving us 10 eggs a week, which covers all our needs with some to give away.

There have been losses. I learned last year that the seedlings in the heated propgator need checking for drying out and watering every single day. Apparently I didn't learn that well enough, and have fried and dehydrated an entire tray of tomatoes and half a tray of chillies. I've resowed a few more and bought some seedling plants from locals to fill the gap, but there should still be enough for this year's purposes. Similarly, we've learned that it's not clever to take seedlings down to the greenhouse and leave them there for a week without checking whether they need watering. I may have killed off some squash plants, but had intended sowing some more anyway.

We've had an almost total crop loss on the broad beans I planted last autumn. This will be due to predation from rabbits. So I'm now covering all new sowings with fleece to prevent nibbling. The other thing I've learned is that planting beans and peas in small trays in the greenhouse to sprout is self-defeating because mice come into the greenhouse to dig them up and eat them. I've lost an entire flat of soya bean seeds to them. So I'll have to either sprout beans at home, or plant them direct. The soil is warming so I'll try planting them direct now.

Digging and planting continue apace, as I try to sow something every week to stagger crops. Next week I'll sow beans and plant out the maincrop potatoes.