Busy weekend

Well, finally the sun has decided to shine, and the wind is somewhat less fierce, so maybe Spring has finally sprung! I've made the most of it and been busy planting.

Home Guard potatoes before being covered
(with garlic and onions in the corner of the bed)

Yesterday morning I planted out 12 of my "Home Guard" early potatoes. I think I probably could have risked putting them in earlier, but hopefully the extra chitting time will allow them to catch up quickly as they've got lovely shoots by now. I've still got some more to plant, but can't decide where to put them, so they'll have to wait.










In the afternoon, I put in a wide row of 30 mangetout (Delikata) and 2 rows of parsnips (Lisbonnais on a tape, and Duchess F1). I'm going to make a big effort to thin them out this year in the hope that I get better roots. I also sowed some sweetcorn (Applause F1), courgettes (All Green Bush), chillis (Hot Cayenne) and 2 types of basil Red Rubin and Sweet Genovese). These have all gone into my windowsill propagator in the kitchen.

Today I had more of a flower day, with a trip to the local nursery to buy some plug plants to grow on. I've put some sweet pea seeds in to soak overnight and some more directly into toilet roll tubes. I'm also trying another method for sweetcorn - they are sitting on damp kitchen towel in the airing cupboard until they sprout. It will be interesting to see which method does best.

More sowing

Having spent the morning tidying, I spent the afternoon sowing more seeds yesterday in the glorious sunshine.

Bed 5

In raised bed 5 I planted a row each of Spring onions, Red onions and Spinach, and a wide row (approx 10cm) of Mixed salad leaves.

Bed 2

Lupin seed

In bed 2, I planted Cabbage, Lupins and Brussel sprouts. The cabbage managed a whole row, but the Lupin packet turned out to only have 6 seeds in and the sprouts only had enough for half a row! The lupins were a freeby, given away as a soil improver, so I can't really complain, however, the sprouts I'd bought myself. Not having bought many seeds in the past, this year I've got them from all over the place. The sprouts came from Wilkinson and so far I'm not impressed - not many seeds and poor germination of the ones sown 3 weeks ago. I may have learned the hard way to spend a bit more on better seeds...

Greenhouse growing

In my mini-greenhouse, I planted Aubergine, Peppers, Courgette and Chillies (Joel's favourite!). I had intended to do half a tray of each, but there weren't that many courgette seeds so I ended up planting them all, which meant fewer chillies (I'll plant more later). The courgettes were 1 per cell, but the others are much smaller seeds to doubled up.

Sweet peas

I found some old peat pots in the shed, so filled these with sweet peas (mostly 1 per pot, but a few ended up with 2 to use them up). Sweet peas are one of my favourite flowers and can't be bad for companion planting - can they?