Spuds In

What a glorious day to be out in the garden and about time too! Today I needed to get the first batch of potatoes in using 17 litre polypots filled with Medwyn’s Potato Mix – these are aimed at the SW Show at the end of August. There’s 12 bags of Winston, 10 bags of Kestrel and 8 bags of Amour. A week later than last year.

These were then sunk into the large raised bed with some Vitax pellets in the bottom of the trenches. It’s now just about managing the water and any feeding through the season until they come out in the middle of August.

I’ll fill up some more polypots to go in the trench along the back edge of the lawn and the rest of the spuds will go in up at the allotment next weekend, along with the onion sets which are coming along nicely.

Other jobs to do today are plant out the broad beans and shallots and get on with more sowing and potting on. I can really feel the new season starting to kick in now, it makes a big difference having the sun on your back for a change! Have a great weekend all!

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April showers…..

More like April torrential rain today! I feel like this year is already well behind with the cold winter and early spring. Hopefully we’ll get some decent weather and everything will catch up soon.

There’s three main areas of activity at the moment. Firstly the south-facing living room windowsill the best place for young seedlings. There’s a couple of pots of rocket – interesting in exactly the same conditions Runaway is far outstripping Va-Va Voom – Lettuce (Little Gem), Aubergines (Money Maker), Chillies (Joe’s Long), Celery (Morning Star) and Tomatoes (Sungold). All are making good progress and I’ll keep sowing rocket and lettuce every couple of weeks throughout the season. Later in the spring these will be sown direct into a three tier planter that I’m putting near the kitchen door for ease of picking when we need a few leaves.

Next is the cold greenhouse which is housing shallots and onion sets that haven’t gone out yet. Broad beans (Longfellow), and various brassicas – Cauliflower (Romanesque & Cornell), Brussel Sprouts (Wellington), Cabbage (Ramco), Calabrese (Aquiles), land cress and more lettuce.

And lastly there’s the pipes that I covered in the last post – and the carrots and parsnips have germinated so the cover is off and each one has the top portion of a plastic bottle protecting the seedlings which I’ll thin down to one in the next week or so. The stump carrots aren’t through yet but should be by next weekend. I’ve started three potato planters with Charlotte and the task of filling the polypots and getting the Kestrel, Winston and Amour out has begun and will be finished next weekend. On the showing front I’m aiming for the NVS SW show which is at the end of August so I have time yet.

I hope you’re all having a nice weekend and managing to get some jobs done despite the miserable weather. Here’s hoping we actually get a summer this year!!