Sunday 10 February 2013

Let the Season begin!

This weekend has, against the odds, been a great one for gardening. Now you may think I am mad - it's been wet, cold, dark and downright impossible to get onto the plot but m'dears we have gardened.

Saturday saw us dusting down the heated propagator, sieving the compost and sowing the first of this year's seeds. Chillis and sweet peppers both need heat and a long growing season so now is the time for us to get them started. This year we're growing jalapeno chillis plus sweet peppers from the Heritage Seed Library - Sweet Banana & Soror Sarek and the Real Seeds Catalogue - Kaibi Round #2. Soror Sarek and Kaibi are old favourites and indeed old seed so we've sown quite a few in case they struggle to germinate - if they all come good then we'll just have extra plants to give away at the Transition & Allotment Society Plant Swaps in the spring. Sweet Banana, however is new to us so it'll be interesting to see what comes of it.
Brussels 2007
We also got an early start with our brassicas - Bedford Winter Harvest Brussels Sprouts for him, I loathe them with a passion it has to be said but the Other Half loves them so each year we give them a go - and Snowball Cauliflowers. Cauliflowers are one crop we fail miserably with year after year but as I love cauliflower cheese I'm determined to give them one more try this year. Keep your fingers crossed folks

Finally we're trying our luck with an early sowing of lettuce and basil - both of which should be ok but it may be a little too dark and cold just now. We're sorely missing home-grown greens at the moment and that's only going to get worse so let's hope these little seeds make it for salads in late March.

Oh and remember those seed spuds from the potato day? - They're now safely chitting in the attic. Let's hope it stops raining long enough for us to prepare their beds before March.

3 comments:

  1. beloved Lady T you are blogging! wonderful! I have been over the moon with the winter greens I got from Dobies back awhile, they were all plug plants bar the pea shoots which I admit to forgetting and only planting today lol!!!! but the kale,cavelo nero and rainbow chard are all doing well in my unheated greenhouse and the lettuce has kept the girls and I going over the winter, I think next year,hang on thats this year isnt it?!?!?! I will double up on the lettuce, I have just left the plants and picked leaves off.
    I washed the greenhouse down last weekend and t looks so! nice now! I stnad there admiring the green~ness within.......!
    Inside I now have trays of various tomatos that hopefully wont take too long to start peeping out of the soil.....
    Heres to a good year, it cant be any worse than last.....can it?
    GTM x x x

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hello there,
      yes I have ventured into this scary world :) Ooh you've started your tommies - still resisting here - chillis looking good but that's another post! Nights still very cold up here and days too short but tommies will be soon:) Hope you and your lovelies are doing good.
      Take care and thanks for dropping by.

      Delete
  2. My toms are inside on the windowsills T, in the sitting room where the woodburner chugs 24/7. I have noticed today some peeping up hurrah!There is nothing more cheering than little green shoots is there.
    GTM x x

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for stopping by and taking the time to comment, due to an upsurge in "odd" comments all comments are moderated. I hope it won't put too many of you off. I think I've also finally fixed the issue that meant we couldn't reply to comments
Tx