Spring 2026

Spring! What joy! Ivegill erupted into snowdrops, then daffodils and croci, then cherry and plum blossom. A wonderful, creative, potential-filled time for gardening... and for poetry! You already know your Wordsworth, so how about John's recent creative translation of this poem by 9th Century Chinese Tang dynasty poet Wang Zhenbai:

Dawn. Plum blossom:

white silk in the wind —

the last snow

and spring.

The falling plum blossom has probably been the greatest snowfall of this year, after a cold winter but not one full of the white stuff, which is pretty typical now in this part of Cumbria. Spring itself has taken a little while to warm up, after teasing us all for a day or two in March with a brief spell of sunshine. Now in April however the sunshine has roared into life, as have the hedgerows and, last but not least, the leaves on the trees.

With the arrival of spring, Herbie and the team sprang into action. Having mulched four beds we had already prepared over winter, they were ready for our first crops: mint, lemon balm, nettle and raspberry leaf. We are already using all of these in tea blends and simply cannot wait to be able to use our own.

To get us started we used root divisions from friends and family for the mint; a mixture of home-grown seedlings from the greenhouse and donated transplants for the lemon balm; transplants for the nettle, and kindly donated suckers for the raspberry. We are recording all plants introduced, including source and any treatments used once planted (such as organic seaweed liquid fertiliser).

Mr. Mowdy (mole) was very active in the field next door in March, so John decided to have a bit of fun and pot up a rose that had done surprisingly well inside over winter in molehill subsoil, ready to plant out. It positively thrived and is now in the ground! Even better, the mole, clearly feeling appreciated enough by this attention, stopped short of our fence and didn't enter the herb gardens (although John swears his old trick of planting an empty glass bottle up to its neck in the ground, allowing the wind to whistle over it, keeps Mr. Mowdy away. We will get back to you when we have some more scientific evidence for this particular claim).

Then it was time to lift the sheeting and see how well the winter occultation had worked. The results were a little patchier than we’d hoped. We fear we may have simply tucked some of the weeds and grasses in for the winter beneath sheeting that wasn’t quite thick or opaque enough. A lesson learned.

John dug the first new bed in April, opting to simply turn the earth over onto a new layer of cardboard and re-cover with thick sheet for now. The ("ex") lawn that had overwintered beneath the sheets was not completely dead but soft and easy to turn. However, if we wanted to transform a plot into a bed faster, the real question is whether to go "no-dig" or to simply trench it out in good old-fashioned Victorian gardening style. At this stage, before the gardens are fully in production, we are giving ourselves room to experiment and learn. We may well try both approaches. Trenching and double-digging are the plan for the next bed, anyway.

In the sunroom greenhouse, now the lemon balm babies are heading out, German chamomile and lemon verbena will be the next project. Lemon verbena will not survive outside in the winter, so will need a more permanent home under glass.

Now spring has arrived we are eagerly awaiting sightings of hedgehogs. We have left several areas of the garden wild, and John and Frankie even built a little shelter suitable for our prickly friends. We can't wait to see Herbie again!