Saturday, March 24, 2012

Feels like summer!

Today has been one of those amazing days that are warm enough to feel like summer, we spent all day in the garden trying to absorb some vitamin D.

I got loads done, I planted three of the tomato plants in the garden and sowed some camomile and lettuce seeds around them.  I'm hoping that the tomato plants will grow tall quickly since and the low lettuce and camomile will keep the weeds away and keep the earth damp.  I've got the whole lot under a polly tunnel at the minute.  Since I have so many tomato plants I put another two into a trough planter (using more free compost from the dump) and one into an upside down tomato planter which I made out of an old 2 litre plastic bottle.  I have no idea if it will be a success or not; the tomato is looking very unhappy at the minute.

I've now weeded a fairly big section of the patio and I've put some play surface mats over the rest of it so that my son can play more safely and so that the weeds I haven't gotten to yet will be starved of light.  If we get good weather during the week I'll hopefully be able to lift a mat each evening and weed underneath it.

I also planted my first peas of the season, it feels a little early so I only put three in a pot, here they are with my herbs.

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Frost & forgetfulness

This has been a lovely weekend with clear skies and lots of sunshine.  I got lots of weeding done (I'm trying to remove the cabbage sized dandelions from the patio).  I moved four of my sunflower plants into large troughs intending to harden them off, unfortunately, I forgot to bring them in (talk about falling at the first hurdle!) so the poor things were out all night in the frost.  They are looking a little unhappy but hopefully they'll pull through.

Last weekend I planted some celeriac, artichoke, and asparagus seeds, none of them are showing any signs of life yet but my leek and swedes are looking healthy.  In the garden some of my garlic has broken through and a few of my broccoli seeds have sprouted.

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Seeds have arrived at last!

My Thomas Etty order arrived today.  I'm very excited.  I'm going to sow a small number of the artichoke, celeriac and asparagus indoors this weekend.
It is getting lighter in the evenings again so I was able to pop out to have a look at the three tomato plants I planted outside at the weekend.  Surprisingly, given the recent frost, they seem to be thriving, hopefully they will continue to do so.  
The seeds I planted at the weekend are all germinating - even the leeks which were a big fail last time.

Sunday, March 4, 2012

Beautiful day

Today was a beautiful spring day.  I planted more potatoes in potato bags and did some pottering about - weeding and tidying up.  I didn't manage to get rid of any more slabs today which is a shame, I'll have to make more of an effort next weekend.


Astonishingly the Swede seeds I planted on Friday are already germinating which is encouraging after my failure to germinate more than 2 of the leek seeds I planted weeks ago.


I'm still waiting on my seed order from Thomas Etty.  It has been over a month now but I am hopeful they will be able to send it this week.

Saturday, March 3, 2012

Oops

Yesterday and today I have been taking my tomato and sweetcorn plants outside to harden off and get a bit of sunshine (it is very mild for the time of year).  I know it's early but they are getting a bit leggy and I've ended up with so many tomato plants that I can afford to kill at least half of them and still have too many.

Unfortunately, I left them outside while I went for a walk and while I was out the heavens opened.  My newspaper plant pots are now bio-degrading a bit faster than I would like.  I'll maybe buy a broadsheet paper tomorrow and make some big pots out of that and pot the plants on to new, bigger, drier homes.

I also planted half of my potatoes in the garden (the Swift and King Edward) and some onion sets.  Yesterday I sowed more leek, swede and 'cut and come again' salad indoors and some Broccoli in a pot outdoors.  I've got 400 Broccoli seeds so I figure I can mess up about 375 of them and still have too many.

As an experiment I've planted 3 of my tomato plants in the sunniest part of the garden under jam jar cloches.  I'll take a photo tomorrow if they are still alive!

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