Early signs of life....

There are signs that spring is not far away despite the stormy beginning to 2008 - so I thought I'd share these with you... I love the continued little surprises each day you wander round the garden noticing new things appearing in the ground, in spaces you'd forgotton about - it's very exciting! It's signs like these that remind me of the nights starting to draw out more and the thought of warm sunny days.... and at the same time the sense that none of us ever knows what lies around the next corner!
A garden is a place of constant change - a bit like life - every day you get flowers dying and in their place new flowers appearing. Each year it takes on a slightly different shape, certain plants do better than others, some plants get moved and others get added - just all part of life's rich tapestry!

The waters continue to rise!

The rain has been amazing here - I think this is the highest we've seen our little "stream"... luckily I can say that since this was taken the water has started to go down and we've not had anymore substantial rain here so since, so watch this space!

The plants are definitely benefiting from a good soaking now. It's reminded me of the benefits of keeping your areas of planting well mulched - this can help prevent unnecessary evaporation of water from the soil during warmer weather, helps keep weeds at bay and helps the soil to retain many of it's natural minerals which would otherwise be washed away in this kind of weather. This way plants really experience the longer term benefits of heavy rains at this time of the year, thus helping them to survive any warm dry summers too.

Adding extra compost as well as mulching the can be particularly beneficial to soils with a high clay content - this really helps with overall drainage and also means that the soil becomes more workable earlier in the season too.

Just so you can see how much the stream has risen - this is a photo of it last summer!

What... no butts?!

After a phenomenal amount of rain fell last night accompanied by strong winds - I woke up to discover that the stream which runs through our woodland had become a torrent... causing flooding to the surrounding fields and with more rain forecast... I was very lucky to see a young pair of water rats this morning enjoying themselves in all the extra water but they didn't hang around long enough for a photo - so you'll just have to take my word for it!

Unfortunately it's making the job of doing a great deal in the garden right now quite difficult - so have decided to spend my weekend planning our vegetables for 2008 and working out what to buy and when to plant - all good stuff!

Despite these pictures - it's good not to get complacent with the quantity of water right now - a good time to ensure you have some water butts in place to store water for when we really need it - with the way the weather has been going, your guess is as good as mine as to what weather we have in store this summer. So now is the time to start getting prepared!