Spring fruit, vegetable, plant and flower inventory

Victoria Rhubarb. Two crowns planted last year. Peeping through their mulch.

Asparagus bed. Twelve Crowns. Planted as mini-plants in spring 2007. Can't remember which variety I planted, so I'll have to look it up, but that's another useful post perhaps...I've used modular raised beds fitted together to make a large unit and various kinds of mulches. Cocoa shells. Rabbit manure last year. Seems to be doing well. It's always slow to show itself in spring. Some say the mulch means the soil is slower to warm. A small trench at one edge and reclaimed fabric I found when I renovated the plot keeps the couch grass from the old path at bay.

Our favourite Autumn Gold raspberries ready to do their stuff. I'm going to wait for a good spot of rain and then mulch them again to keep the moisture in the soil.

Our lovely peach tree (Avalon Pride) made it through the frosts with buds (so far) intact. Compost heaps for perennial weeds directly behind it and on our half plot behind that we have onions, garlic (planted in autumn last year). Shallots planted a few weeks ago. First early Lady Christl potatoes went in last week. One bed on the half plot and two on the main plot. I haven't bothered watering these yet, that's my low maintenance approach, so hoping for some rain soon. Some broad beans under a cloche. Two comfrey beds in all. One on the half plot and one by the shed.

The large square structures on the right don't belong to us. Once the cherry plum bushes which frame the half plot come into leaf, I'm hoping you won't see them so much. I'll have to prune these cherry plums during the summer (they say if you do them in the winter there's a risk of silverleaf which is a fungal disease). There's a wild heap of rough twigs at either end of the full plot, good for ladybirds to overwinter and the occasional fox. I'm not going to remove this pile now until next autumn as spring is a busy time on the plot.

The smallish bed in front of the posh wooden compost heap is destined for Globe Artichokes, which are growing nicely in our mini-greenhouses at home. Blackcurrant bushes on the left, (you can't really see them yet as they've not come into leaf.

So that leaves the black plastic beds in the foreground, six of them if I remember rightly. I've just planted out some Chanteney carrots in the bed in the foreground. The blue pellets are organic slug pellets which I occasionally use for special things. Hoping I won't need these though, once the frogs are up and running! I'm chancing it a bit planting these out now, but there's a bit of a traffic jam at home with all the plug plants I'm raising, and since we've got serious kitchen gardening ambitions this year, there's no room for slackers!

Four more compost heaps. That's six heaps in total plus two huge 'wild' ones. An indication of the huge amounts of green waste we've composted so far on our plot. In three years we haven't burnt anything. We're not allowed to as far as I know.

This is the view I have when I sit on my deck chair in front of my shed. The plants on the left are lavender, majoram and sage. Majoram for pizza toppings. Sage for that wonderful sage and onion stuffing. And lavender for the bees. I'm so looking forward to seeing them again...