February 24th – a weekend of sun and warmth

Unseasonally warm is how the met office put it.  A record February temperature of 19oC in Wales on Sunday puts nature into a spin and myself duped into thinking it is spring and I can start sowing and planting as if it was April.  Yet a year ago we were knee deep in snow with harsh frosts. Self restraint is called for.

Since I put some organic slug pellets around the pot of lettuce seeds sown in the greenhouse they have managed to come through.  The broad beans had a 50% germination rate in the greenhouse so I have sown more to fill in the gaps.  They became slightly singed by…too much heat!

In trays of plug units I sowed chilli, mizuna and purslane lettuce, beetroot and shallots last week. Too premature? we’ll see.  The compost I am using is from the pile of garden ‘stuff’  that has been accumulating for years.  The wasps used it as an ideal home last year.  I know this because I was stung twice, once with a bad reaction which involved the Drs surgery.  Digging at the bottom of the pile topped with woody twigs which look reluctant to break down I have managed to sieve through a sizeable amount and there’s more.   I imagine it is full of weeds and I will spend the rest of spring trying to differentiate  the wanted seedlings from the unwanted ones..

The old peas and beans steeped in water in the kitchen have shown some promise.  Yesterday I put the germinated peas into plug units, one a plug and the suspect non germinated three/four abreast into the remaining plugs. I wonder..will the mice sniff them out and help themselves?

Meanwhile in the kitchen the French beans are beginning to stir and some of those will be planted out today.

Outside I have declared war on the tangled mass of marguerite daisies and Michaelmas daisies.  Over the years they have proliferated at a rate which has checked some of the ground alder but at the same time, takes over everything else.  So far the ground alder hasn’t surfaced but it will..

February 11th and the days are lengthening

The sun is out, the birds are singing enthusiastically and green shoots of daffodils, bluebells are poking out proudly.

It was windy over the weekend and the silver birch tree in the garden has left a carpet of spindly brushwood branches on the lawn.  I’ve been sweeping these up and tying them into small bundles ready to use as kindle for the log stove. They burn rapidly so that the logs are blazing in no time.

It’s been 9-10 degrees today, much warmer than last week and it is this factor more than any other that encourages me to get out into the jungle.

Time to check on progress of the broad beans and lettuce and sowed in the green house two  weeks ago.  Tiny bean shoots are appearing so all good there but the lettuce..I am pretty sure I saw a few tiny shoots a week ago so I am wondering if the slugs have beaten me to it 😦  Try again.  This time I have scattered a few organic slug pellets over the soil. Something like this product

Another factor may be that the seeds are old.  So I’ll try germinating some on absorbent towel in the kitchen and if they sprout, then they’re okay.

 

I’ll report back!

 

 

First week in February

Time to make a start on clearing up all the dead debris in the greenhouse.  The greenhouse has been with us for over 20 years.  It was bought from a school in Newnham on Severn who were offering it for sale. It’s a large domeshaped greenhouse, trendy at the time.  It’s pros are that there is a larger groundfloor area than in a conventional rectangular greenhouse and rather than two beds on either side, or shelves depending on how a greenhouse is set out, there’s an elliptical bed for about one half of it. There’s some low shelving on the other side and two tables which serve as shelves.

I find it difficult to regulate the temperature, especially in early spring though.  When the suns rays are becoming stronger, before leaves have appeared, the suns rays sear through the glass and overheat seeds trying to germinate.  I know.  I should white wash it/shade it but I don’t.  Then in mid summer it becomes unbearably hot in there.  There is a difficult to reach window within the roof which flops open then I can’t shut easily. There are side vents which I presume offer some air circulation and then the door.  The door is like a stable door, in two halves.  I can open both but that becomes an invitation to the rabbits.  I need a better plan.

Back to the clearing up.  The main problem was brambles which had successfully colonised the area underneath the shelving and tables.  Brambles are notorious for refusing to budge.  If they are chopped off at ground level you can almost here them chuckle as their instant response is to sprout a rash of vigorous shoots just below the surface.  Digging them out becomes almost impossible.

Alys Fowler  A horticulturist / journalist is often an inspiration to me in her weekly newspaper magazine column.  Two weeks ago she urged us to sort out our boxes of seeds, discarding or putting to one side seed packets older than three years and then taking stock of what is left.  With the discarded packets I could try an initial germination test on some absorbent paper.