Tuesday 24 March 2015

Sow satisfactory

The sowing table
The sowing season is in full swing and it's lovely to see the conservatory filling up with seedlings of all kinds. So far I've sown tomatoes, chillies, peppers, aubergines, tomatillos, leeks, peas, beetroot, most of the annual kitchen herbs (turns out lemongrass is an annual here) and some flowers. I'm waiting until the first week in April to sow all squashes and brassicas.

I've sown a bunch of salads, radishes and little round carrots under my new mini cloches, courtesy of Lidl. I've snapped up four of them and am using them to warm up the ground for the peas, protect the onions (and later the peas and brassicas) from the thieving blackbirds.

Lidl cloches in action
Unfortunately I spotted the first flower heads on our winter staple food, kale. I guess all good things must come to an end eventually, but there is still quite a lot of kale to eat in the meantime.

Kale flower 
Lots of black plastic has come off in the garden and it's so nice to see the back of it. Jim's been digging every day (shades of deja vu), but this time it's a lot easier since the plastic was down for an entire year.

The new veg growing area
The jerusalem artichokes (Fuseau) have already gone into the bit at the front of the picture. We'll probably have to stake them, but then they might provide windbreak for the new windbreak hedge.

Another new arrival in the middle paddock is rhubarb. My neighbour gave me a couple of hardy plants for my birthday. Hopefully they'll thrive in their bed, which we'd painstakenly covered in manure last autumn before covering it with more black plastic.

Birthday rhubarb
The black plastic has already been moved onto next year's new growing area, which will be a lot smaller. Jim is contemplating a little tobacco grove there. Has anybody got experience of growing tobacco from seed?
New bed for 2016
The last of the new fruit bushes are scheduled to arrive at the end of the week. I'm especially excited about the two Saskatoon berries - a taste of Canada without the long flight.





4 comments:

  1. You are so organised it's all looking so fresh! Too bad about the kale but I love the kale flowers they look like a ready made posy! Got to get my finger out - the polytunnels are done so now I can focus on the veggie plot why is it that everything happens at once...just to let you know I've moved my blog to wordpress - mangetout was taken so it's now called:
    https://jensjardin.wordpress.com/

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  2. Good to hear that the kale flowers have their function! Jim's just mown the lawn for the first time this year and I think that's why the garden looks so good now. Great that you have your tunnels up and running. Lots of space for the seedlings to go to.

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  3. Your seedlings look promising - how warm is the conservatory? No danger of night frost? - Your Lidl seems to be better equipped than ours...

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    1. It's not warm enough yet to leave any of the seedlings in the conservatory overnight, apart from the leeks. We had frost last night. At 1730 every evening I can be seen carting all seedling trays back inside and occupying all windowsills in the house, then at 0730 they get taken back for their daily sunbath. I hope they appreciate that! I do like the Lidl gardening stuff, Jim just got a nice new fork there. Oh, and good news, the Gusto Purple is showing signs of life.

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