First garlic this year

A very quick note now... the summer has been pathetic and I never quite got around to doing any gardening! Some of the garlic has withered enough that it clearly won't grow anymore, so I pilled up three squares.
On the right is white garlic from Square 6 (see autumn post last year); in the middle are what began as bulbils from Square 5; and on the left are some Icelandic reds from Square 3.  The remaining three squares look like better plants and still have a bit of green so I will leave them until August.

May: Carrot time!

I decided not to bother with the early sowing of carrots this year. It was a miserable spring, with a late snow. Yesterday I added old mushroom compost and chicken manure, and mixed it into the top few centimetres. Today I sowed pinches of carrot seed and then covered with a thin layer of sowing compost, and watered it. The weather at the moment is lovely - yesterday and today at least - 14°C and sunny.
The garlic is all looking very good, hard to tell which type looks best. I put carrots in all the empty squares in the garlic box. I grew carrot in that box last year too, but the other one has all sorts of odds and ends in it so this was easiest and quickest.
Might try and plant out the potatoes tomorrow.
There is a lot of grass everywhere, especially among the strawberries. I collected some sea weed last weekend and have put some around the rhubarb.

Winter is coming

At least I suppose it must be, but actually it is still very mild and wet. I sewed a couple of ag. fleece bags: one for the lilac tree and one for the two blueberry plants which are still in pots. I hope that the bags will stay put better than the wrapped fleece which I have tried before - that always seems to work loose in the wind. I put another bag over the raspberry plant since it showed willing and actually produced two raspberries this year! Really must sort out that bed next summer though.
I covered the "special plants" in the back-right box, and also sowed two squares (front one on left side and the square behind it) with sweet chestnut and spindle seeds. Doubt if they will come up and not sure what I will do with them if they do! And I put fleece over the strawberry beds.
There are still some carrots in the left box so that is still uncovered but since the garlic is in there too I will need to put fleece over it later.
As I said, it has been mild, and the blueberry plants and the rose bush looked as though the end buds were either swelling or actually producing leaves. That is probably not good.