This Season's Progress Reports

[johhnyco15]

started my pumpkin bed this week will finish it after the festive break

[johhnyco15]

[sunloving]

I thought we might resurrect this thread before it drops of the page. A new season has begun we've had a brill week of sunny weather and I've been getting around to all those jobs I should have done before Xmas ( but had to replace the floor in half my old house instead ouch! )

What struck me was how amazing it is to make compost, I've got a big heap that I mistreated with perennial weeds and ash and to much grass and all sorts of the wrong things as I've been making the garden from irish wilderness but 10 months later I've got 27 bags of lovely rich compost ( the bind weeds still hanging on through it but apart from that it's lovely) - what amazing free stuff from rubbish! Was a two day dig to harvest though because it's tough going!

Lovely to have some fabulous seeds germinating and to have the first sprouting broccoli for teas, and sit in the deck chair with the sun on your face. Onwards!! X sunloving

[Tee Gee]

I thought we might resurrect this thread before it drops of the page.

Agreed!

Perhaps we ought to open a new thread entitled:

2017 Progress Reports

What do you think?


*******

For the moment this was some of my stuff this morning:

My tomatoes are nearly ready for pricking out:



These are a few things I pricked out earlier:

Pelargoniums / Geraniums



Lobelia



A few 'Freebie' Fuchsia I received from Parkers:

[Paulines7]

Tee Gee, is your greenhouse heated? I have no electricity to mine and I don't want to fiddle with paraffin heaters. 

I have all my seedlings indoors and they grew leggy so I have potted them on deeply so the leaves are now just above soil level.  They are mainly tomatoes, chillies and pepper plants.  However, because I have put them from large pots into individual ones, they are taking up far more room and I have now filled all the available space indoors. I have grown many more than I need as when frost is no longer an issue, I can put some on a table, set up in the village, where people put their excess plants or produce for sale and the proceeds go to cancer research.

Do you think they would survive in the unheated greenhouse if I put them in flat polystyrene boxes and covered them with fleece?  I also have propagation trays with transparent lids so I could put some in those and cover with fleece.  I want to get some bedding plant seeds sown too, so if the toms could go in the gh, I would have room for more seeds indoors. 

The alternative is that I could put an extension lead from the summerhouse to the greenhouse and then stick a fan heater in there, but I am not sure that it is a good idea to have an extension lead out in all weathers.

[Tee Gee]

Tee Gee, is your greenhouse heated?

Yes! (See here: http://www.thegardenersalmanac.co.uk/Data/Greenhouse%20heating/Greenhouse%20Heating.htm )

I have all my seedlings indoors and they grew leggy so I have potted them on deeply so the leaves are now just above soil level. 

As you can see my Tomatoes are slightly elongated so when I get around to pricking out I will sink them in upto the seed leaves (cotelydons)

However, because I have put them from large pots into individual ones, they are taking up far more room and I have now filled all the available space indoors.

Tell me about it I get the same problem every year in my greenhouse! Meaning no matter where we keep them we all seem to run out of space.

Do you think they would survive in the unheated greenhouse if I put them in flat polystyrene boxes and covered them with fleece? 

I also have propagation trays with transparent lids so I could put some in those and cover with fleece.

I want to get some bedding plant seeds sown too, so if the toms could go in the gh, I would have room for more seeds indoors.

Faced with this problem I would do as you suggest and put them in the cold greenhouse in the manner you suggest then keep an eye and ear on the weather forecasts.

If extremly cold weather is forecast you could move the boxes/containers into the house overnight and take them out the following morning when the worst of the frost has passed. A lot of work I agree but it should help!

The alternative is that I could put an extension lead from the summerhouse to the greenhouse and then stick a fan heater in there,

but I am not sure that it is a good idea to have an extension lead out in all weathers.

Well my electric supply is an overhead cable so it is out in all weathers so providing the protective coating/sleeve on your extension cable is not damaged in any way it should be OK

It would be quite easy to trail it out on a daily basis and wire up your fan heater.

I hope these suggestions help...Tg

[johhnyco15]

all looking good tg i have no heating in my greenhouses however lettuce ,leeks ,cabbage,calabrese ,dahlias and half hardy annual flowers all all doing well will sow my tomatoes this week chiilis,peppers etc are indoors at the mo not a window sil left in the house anyway at least the violas on the allotment shed are loving the spring weather   

[Paulines7]

Tee Gee, thank you so much for your help. 

My OH is not keen on putting a 3kw fan heater on an extension lead as he thinks it could blow all the electrics in the summerhouse and I do not want gas or paraffin.  It's a large greenhouse too, 8ft x 18ft so would take quite a bit of heating. 

I could put a few of my tomato plants inside the greenhouse, in a self watering polystyrene set up such as this: http://www.allotments4all.co.uk/smf/index.php/topic,80191.0.html
cover them with fleece and then, if they survive a hard frost, I could put the rest out.  I will be away for ten days in April so need to sort it before then. 

My gerbera has survived the winter like this and when I lifted the fleece yesterday, I noticed that it had a lot of flower buds coming and plenty of fresh new leaves.  Some of the outside leaves had turned brown and died but overall, the plant is looking good.

[cambourne7]

other than onion and garlic i have not managed to do anything due to a chest infection, i am hoping to get parsnips, leeks and carrots in this weekend will be my last chance till end April.

[ancellsfarmer]

Reckon you should prepare the ground, cover and then sow when you get back. Its only the 'frontiersmen' who try to get an 'earlier than him@ crop by dashing into action. Great if you can, but not to get mithered about IMHO

[johhnyco15]

black/red currants are in  about to bloom spring is well on its way

[johhnyco15]

kiwi fruit starting to bud up  will be in flower mid april

[cambourne7]

Picked up 2 bags of onions and 1 shallots in wilko yesterday and have popped these into large trays of soil for now to see what survives as some were a little soft and will put into final position in a few weeks.

Have sewn peas and beans which look like there about to pop through.

I need to get my other seeds sown but my energy levels are through the floor so just doing a little as i can :) Husband is going to help me move my greenhouse about for plannting