BUSY TIMES DURING LOCKDOWN

| gaiainaction
These tulips have been flowering for well over a week and are still doing great, and very beautiful.
This year I decided to grow some more potatoes as last season it was such fun to harvest them with my grandchildren, and besides my inner child wants to dig them up too 🙂
We have had some lovely days and then it is our delight to have our lunch in the garden, very healthy too now that we need extra vitamin D for our immune system. We are both under strict total lockdown which means that we cannot leave the front door at all, so our garden is the only place where we can get fresh air and sunshine, and we are grateful to have such.
  • Two year old cut and come back celery, and a fine feverfew plant
  • Broad beans
  • Broad bean flowers
Already the herbs and some of the broad beans are doing great. And there are lots of little seedlings that are almost ready to go into the raised beds.
  • Bumblebee nest hole
  • Bumblebee rescue
So I accidentally came across a bumblebee crawling into a hole in the decaying timber that surrounds the raised beds. I’ll keep my eye on that, exciting, I read recently that the first bumblebees that fly around early in spring are the queens which are looking to make a nest which can give home to up to 500 bumblebees. I have seen perhaps more than usual number of bumblebees in our garden this spring. Perhaps it is because last summer I let the whole garden grow wild with lots of flowers. This season I will be growing more vegetables again.
  • Flower of life
Meanwhile and on the less pleasant weather days I am enjoying a bit of mandala drawing and painting, a work that is relaxing and enjoyable.
  • Helleborus
  • Camellia
  • Forget-me-nots
As well as all that I noted in my nature diary that the garden is full of brightly flowering dandelions and white three-cornered leeks flowers. Even the kaffir lilies have started to flower as well as the many primroses and pink oxalis flowers. I have a trailing rosemary bush that is bursting with pale blue and purple flowers, it is brilliant. The forsythia and the tulips have been giving us much joy too as do the forget-me-nots and the camellias. The hellebores and grape hyacinths are now almost finished and ready for a rest until next spring. This year I planted gladiola, that’s something new for me. I am also hoping that the irises, freesia’s and the agapanthus which I planted last season are going to flower again. Every year I like to grow something new, it is interesting.
As far as birds are concerned this spring there is something to tell ~ also from our garden ~ we have a resident wren that sings his heart out day after day and it’s such a joy to listen to his song. There are a black bird pair that are building a nest in the uncut hedge, the song of the blackbird has travelled with me right through my life and I can say that it has been a constant joy. Robin and black cap males also give us regular sessions of song, and to top it all I have heard the cuckoo a few days ago from our front garden, something I did not experience for many years.
Finally and to end this blog on my experiences in the garden during the lockdown and on this fine Easter day while I miss my daughter, son-in-law and my grandchildren I can only wish you all to stay safe and keep well. Happy Easter!

23 thoughts on “BUSY TIMES DURING LOCKDOWN”

  1. I felt for you when you were talking about your grandchildren helping you dig up potatoes last year. All being well, this might still be possible later this year 😊

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  2. These are such unusual times. I’m sorry that you haven’t been able to get out. I pray that the time passes quickly until you are united with your family again. I miss the hugs the most I think.

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  8. We are so fortunate to be able to spend time in the garden and get moments of peace watching the wildlife. We are staying home over here also and I am missing my adult children who live on the other side of the country. The entire world is having the same experience, it is not a great one, but it does bring us together. It is heartening to hear from blogging friends everywhere. Stay well.

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  9. Planting potatoes seems like a great idea. There is a blackbird that sings a beautiful song in the tree at the bottom of my garden. Birdsong is one of my favourite sounds in the world.

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  11. Hello, my favorite gardener! I wish you knew how your photos and tales fill my head with possibilities, even now after I’ve moved into a condo. I have dug a small garden at the bottom of the stairs…and I’ve lined my balcony rail with long pots with Dutch iris and pansies currently the most evident. I keep throwing seeds in the pots and in the garden. My neighbors are unbelievers, and tell me to wait and see, nothing will grow…but the 30 Dutch iris and the rhubarb I planted are poking out of the snow HAA and the Stella d’oro daylilies are stretching and greening up. We shall see most definitely…and little will any of my neighbors know that YOU have encouraged me with your writing. Happy Spring!

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    1. I am touched by what you write Roxy, thank you. It is lovely to receive an encouraging message. I am also very happy that you were determined to go ahead and plant your irises and rhubarb, you will be pleasantly rewarded when they flower later. Growing plants and seeing them flower does keep us hopeful for a continuing life and a better world isn’t it. Let us know how you get on. Kind regards, Agnes

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  14. I’ve noticed the bumblebees in my garden seem to be enormous this year, as are the dandelions I’m seeing along the verges of the roads (I can still go out and do my government allowed exercise!). I’m wondering if the reduction in traffic is having an effect on them. The dandelions, I mean, not the bumblebees.

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