Six on Saturday - 3 February 2018

My first Six on Saturday for 2018 and there are signs the garden is waking from its slumber. Of course, proper spring is some way off yet and the cold snap that is due next week will be a reminder of that. But here's what has been happening in my garden over the last week.

ONE

The daffodils are on the march already. These ones are in a small bed in my front garden and always put on a stunning display.

TWO

Another sign that spring is on its way are the aconites that pepper my front lawn. No idea how they got there but they are now dotted across it and starting to spread into my neighbour's.

THREE

Along with the aconites, the yellow primroses have started to put in an appearance. Again these are dotted around my garden in the flower beds and the lawn in the back garden, along with tiny little purple violets.

FOUR

One of my favourite vegetables to grow are sweet potatoes. I love that they are a little different and provide a talking point on my plot. You can read more about my experiments with growing them here. In the meantime, this is the first slip for this year. It's a Murasaki sweet potato which has a dark purple skin and cream coloured flesh. The white tubers seem to grow best for me and although they taste the same, I kind of still prefer the regular coloured ones.

This particular slip grew several inches whilst I was away last week and this is just before I broke it off the tuber. Once broken off, I put the slip in water for a short time to encourage root growth before potting them up.

FIVE

I managed to sow some seeds a couple of weeks ago. Yay! Always feels good to get the growing season under way. I sowed sweet peas; five seeds to each pot, five different varieties. Not all of them germinated so I add a handful more seeds last week to fill in the gaps. I've just started pinching out the growing tip on some of them.

SIX

And finally, my favourite flower for this time of year. Hellebores! I discovered my love of them after moving here, having not really known of their existence before then. The first flower opened this week, the pink one that was budding in my last Six on Saturday. By the look of it, it won't be long until the Double White is in flower too...which reminds me, I was going to add to my collection wasn't I?!

So, that's it. My Six on Saturday. Linking up with The Propagator Blog.

Joanna