Episode #30 - Unidentified flowering objects
1 - 11 April: Tulips, more tulips and slow broad beans.
Full-on tulip mania this week, but with detective work needed to identify the varieties I know I didn’t buy, or which don’t look quite how they should. They’re UFOs. Plus the apricots have arrived!
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This week’s Plot Shot
The year’s tulip mania is in full swing on Plot 101. This is of my absolute favorite tulip on the plot right now, a beautiful pink-coral. It is one of several tulips that I don’t have labels for, as these were bulbs which came by mistake in a delivery several years ago (read on - there’s an emerging theme here) and have come up reliably every year since, whatever the weather conditions.
I’ve scoured the bulb catalogues and Tulipa ‘Menton’ looks the closest match, ‘Pink Impression’ a close second, although many of both look much paler pink and none I’ve seen have a thin white edge on the leaves. These are deep pink with a coral wash - exactly the colour of a full satin skirt I’d love, but would have no reason whatsoever to wear.
(Technical note: there are usually a *lot* of photos, mainly mine, in this post, and it might not all fit on your email. Hitting the View Entire Message button at the end should sort this out, as will reading via the app or online versions of Substack.)
Plot work in progress
It is the time of year now when plant deliveries turn up - orders from catalogues placed months ago and long forgotten about. This week it was a pack of fuchsia plug plants which were on a special offer somewhere, and which I thought might be good for some hanging baskets later in the summer.
They have some growing to do. These are in standard 9cm pots, and they are not taking up much space.
Apricot excitement
Perhaps the best news is that we have apricots! Lots of apricots!
After an anxious ‘will they, won’t they’ couple of weeks, both trees now have small fuzzy fairylight-shaped fruit. Every time I look at the trees there are more than I spotted the time before. I already know that I won’t spot them all, as every summer there are fruit which somehow manage to keep themselves out of sight until they are bright apricot orange. They hide.
It is going to be a good year for the apricots, peaches and nectarines - all the trees across the site are loaded with more fruit than we’ve seen for several seasons of wet springs and late frosts. Pears are just coming into blossom now too, the next wave of trees to do their thing.
Slow Horses
While the fruit trees are racing ahead in the warm, dry spring weather, my veg are slow out of the blocks. Broad bean seedlings are starting to flower, but the plants haven’t really got going yet. I’m hoping that pinching the tops out and more forecast sun will help but it will be a while before any broad beans are added to the plot’s produce tally1.
The good news is that there are no blackfly yet. Probably shouldn’t have thought/typed that - they’ll be arriving in hoardes now.
E17 Local Heroes
My heroes for this episode are definitely the tulips, which are coming in hot.
All the varieties seem to be up, even if some of the bulbs have come up blind (some were quite small, and they were planted very late in January, so that’s probably why). My fault. Note to self: plant new bulbs earlier next year. I’d love to say that I knew which tulips were which, but despite my best efforts at tracking back which bags I planted where against the orders, there are a few which don’t seem to be the ones I picked. I’m not exactly a pastel pink kind of girl, but pale pink is what’s hiding behind the purples.
I’m sure there will be more tulip photos as I try to work this out. My phone’s browser is full of open internet pages of bulb varieties as I track down the interlopers. ‘Apricot Beauty’ is nothing like an apricot for colour, that’s all I can say.
Community of Practice
Across the site, everyone is checking their trees for fruit setting. It isn’t competitive at all, more everyone being pleased for each others’ successes. Not that we (the humans) are doing very much on the fruit front - trees, pollinators and weather are doing the job for us. But as the trees come into leaf, its clear how well (or not) we’ve done our pruning, and which trees will need more practice when the time comes.
What’s also clear this spring is that 2025 is much warmer and drier than the spring of 2024, which was a wash-out, and plagued by slugs and snails making the most of the wet conditions, munching everything in range. Bees and other pollinating insects are buzzing about this year in a way that they just weren’t in 2024. We’re all hoping for a good growing year.
Weekly Fox News
No photos of foxes this week, as they’ve not been out and about on the site much. The vixens are all in dens with this year’s new cubs and their boys are keeping a low profile. We’ve not seen any cubs yet, but there’s a lot of high-pitched squeaking in the places we know they are.
Until next week, by which time I’ll hope to have identified a few more tulips.
Ang
Plot produce tally for 2025 static at £13.35 for the year to date.