This Season's Progress Reports

[Hector]

Spent last weekend tidying out Greenhouse (8x4 meters) as left last season due to illness in family. Weeds had got in.

Therapuetic digging out/washing pots and equipment. Put down weed membrane and path.

Put together big old Humex propagator and linked up in greenhouse. Planted six varieties of chilli and five tomatoes.
Chillies: Red Demon/Apache/Caribbean Antillais/Prairie Fire/Pasilla
Super Chilli.
Tomato: Yellow Pear/Garden Gem/Garden Treasure/ Irish Gardeners Delight/ Tiny Tim....(a bit of fun :)


Also planted some older Chilli seed I'm hoping is still ok. Chilli Monkeyface/Padron/Alberto's Locoto

Hope they will be ok at Max temp had been 20 and min 8 in cold Wales. Put in a heat mat to help and spiked to max 36 and low 6. Eek!!

Also planted some lettuce (Drunken Woman) and coriander leaf.

Sunloving...the irony of manure on election boards gave me a real giggle

Edit to add: Also planted Harrier Butternut Squash

[Hector]

[squeezyjohn]

The bubble wrapped greenhouse has had mixed results ... I've got sweet peas, chard, kohl rabi just poking their heads through and my onions and early leeks are all nice and healthy out there - but my lettuces are refusing to show themselves.

On the windowsill in a heated propagator I've got some tomatoes up, but the celery and peppers seem to be saying no!

Most of the season's progress has been more winter than spring ... I've built myself a lovely new staging in the greenhouse which can stay there permanently because it's got removable shelves that plants put in the soil can just grow through and it can even be support for tomatoes ... I'm quite proud of it!  Over on the allotment I've been shovelling some wood chips that have been left by the roadside in to sacks and lumping them on there for paths ... I must have done about 60 sackfuls in the last month!

[Robert_Brenchley]

Slow progress over the winter due to my mother's death and the weather. I've done two new raised beds, moved the rhubarb and most of the raspberries, and I need to get two more beds done this month for my potatoes. So far I've got Allium christophii and Fritillaria meleagris - planted last autumn - coming up, and various alliums planted. I've been quite pleased by the way potatoes and other tender things have come through in pots under a couple of layers of black plastic. A couple of pots of ulluco I forgot and left outside have come through with tubers mostly intact. This year I won't be growing so many TPS lines so I'll have more big post available for other things.

[caroline7758]

Finally got some shoots on my broad beans sown in the cold, leaky greenhouse so feels like things are starting! Sowed herbs, leeks and beetroot plus more broadies yesterday (most of these are now on the kitchen windowsill) and some sweet peas.
I've decided I'm going to buy in tomato plants this year rather than grow from seed and concentrate on the easy stuff like squash (hoping we get a better summer than last year!).

[Digeroo]

Broad beans under bottle cloches showing signs of green.  Some without cloches have disappeared.   Time to sow some more. The Wizard beans are showing signs of perking up, some had died back to the ground and and now sprouting again.

Planted out some Tesco parsley, I am sure the pots are getting smaller again.  It is a bit of a ceremony to celebrate the date I find started the lottie.  Keeps me in Parsley most of the year.

Trying to shift some manure it seems more difficult, I seem to suddenly feel older.

I do need to prune the raspberries.   Might poison some of the dead nettles cannot shift them.  They just reform.

[Hector]

First Tomato and Chilli seeds germinating. Such a wee joy seeing the start of the growing season :)

Harrier squash seeds also showing life.

Disinfected all my posts and containers and we put down membrane in both greenhouses and replaced slabs....so walking like a penguin. Laid out all pots in place for planting.

Only two seeds of lettuce have germinated....thinking I need fresh seed...this was an old packet.

Itching to start weeding outside but still too wet.

[BarriedaleNick]

Had a great weekend - potted on some aubergines, chilies and tomatoes, sowed most of my toms, sorted out the polytunnel, potted up some strawberries, and a couple of fruit bushes and had a good clean up in the garden.  Plot is also looking good with no digging to do, all the beds manured and the last few winter crops fast running out.   House is still a mess due to the loft extension and we haven't had a proper roof for almost three weeks so it's hard to find a windowsill to keep seeds on at the moment!

[johhnyco15]

edged the paths and cut the grass today sowed lettuces cabbages and potted on fuchsia cuttings all dug manured and potash around my fruit 15 45ltr tubs planted with first earlies just want the wind to die down so i can cover my tomato bed for this years crop then bingo come on spring

[cambourne7]

Been sewing seeds most of the morning ran out of soil as i wanted to grow some carrots in pots so picked some up before school run and now I am back am heading off back into the greenhouse :) So nice being able to potter about in and out of the greenhouse and garage without having to get welly boots on was wearing slippers most of the morning :)

So far have sewn mostly Herbs, a couple of bell peppers and am heading out soon to get tomatoes and chillis started

Cam

[sunloving]

Robert sorry to hear about your mum, lovely to see things you planted last year , what is ulluco?

Slow progress over the winter due to my mother's death and the weather. I've done two new raised beds, moved the rhubarb and most of the raspberries, and I need to get two more beds done this month for my potatoes. So far I've got Allium christophii and Fritillaria meleagris - planted last autumn - coming up, and various alliums planted. I've been quite pleased by the way potatoes and other tender things have come through in pots under a couple of layers of black plastic. A couple of pots of ulluco I forgot and left outside have come through with tubers mostly intact. This year I won't be growing so many TPS lines so I'll have more big post available for other things.

[cambourne7]

Sorry Robert must have missed that quote hope your well :)

Slow progress over the winter due to my mother's death and the weather. I've done two new raised beds, moved the rhubarb and most of the raspberries, and I need to get two more beds done this month for my potatoes. So far I've got Allium christophii and Fritillaria meleagris - planted last autumn - coming up, and various alliums planted. I've been quite pleased by the way potatoes and other tender things have come through in pots under a couple of layers of black plastic. A couple of pots of ulluco I forgot and left outside have come through with tubers mostly intact. This year I won't be growing so many TPS lines so I'll have more big post available for other things.

Spent another hour outside and have filled 2 trugs (round type) one with seed sewing compost and one with multipurpose compost and rather than sewing more seeds had a tidy up and repotted some of the plants i moved into the greenhouse a few weeks ago and they look a little crampted. found and removed 3 slugs !!

[sunloving]

Monkey face and drunken woman sound very exciting!! 

Spent last weekend tidying out Greenhouse (8x4 meters) as left last season due to illness in family. Weeds had got in.

Therapuetic digging out/washing pots and equipment. Put down weed membrane and path.

Put together big old Humex propagator and linked up in greenhouse. Planted six varieties of chilli and five tomatoes.
Chillies: Red Demon/Apache/Caribbean Antillais/Prairie Fire/Pasilla
Super Chilli.
Tomato: Yellow Pear/Garden Gem/Garden Treasure/ Irish Gardeners Delight/ Tiny Tim....(a bit of fun :)


Also planted some older Chilli seed I'm hoping is still ok. Chilli Monkeyface/Padron/Alberto's Locoto

Hope they will be ok at Max temp had been 20 and min 8 in cold Wales. Put in a heat mat to help and spiked to max 36 and low 6. Eek!!

Also planted some lettuce (Drunken Woman) and coriander leaf.

Sunloving...the irony of manure on election boards gave me a real giggle

Edit to add: Also planted Harrier Butternut Squash

I've been digging my new fruit beds which has been such hard work because they are
New ground filled with conifer roots, stones and clay. It's probably good that I don't have allotment neighbours because of all the grunting and puffing , blowing and deep sighing I've been doing!
Lovely now though and they have a thick blanket of manure on them to help the worms recover for the turf striping. I've been chilli seed watching but the buggers just don't want to make any show, the only one even remotely trying is Hungarian carrot and I fear it may be to hot for me. at least the tomatoes Re going great guns now!

[Silverleaf]

I haven't done very much yet as we're in the middle of replacing the old raised beds and making some new ones.

Moved my perennial onions into the new perennial bed and planted shallots and garlic the other day, finished off the legume bed and built a cane structure for the peas/climbing beans.

Tomorrow I plan to sow peas, chickpeas and broad beans outside, and tomatoes and chillies in the propagator inside.

[Hector]

I haven't done very much yet as we're in the middle of replacing the old raised beds and making some new ones.

Moved my perennial onions into the new perennial bed and planted shallots and garlic the other day, finished off the legume bed and built a cane structure for the peas/climbing beans.

Tomorrow I plan to sow peas, chickpeas and broad beans outside, and tomatoes and chillies in the propagator inside.

Silverleaf, we will be copying you next week. We are re-doing our beds to make them more physically accessible for family member. I suspect wheel-barrelling lots of soil may be a bit "interesting".

Sunloving, I grew Drunken Woman before...it's lovely.
Drunken Women and Monkeyface sounds like a reality TV show.

[Nora42]

i missed the autumn clear up because I have not been feeling at all well - it turns out I had an underactive thyroid which has taken six months to get back up to speed. went to the plot today the grass paths have encroached on the beds so I pulled the grass back ready for the chop. the brambles are also growing again so I need to dig them up but we are winning the war. It's still cold and damp here in north London so the potatoes can wait for a week.. I am thinking of peas in one bed.

Going to school tomorrow to plant potatoes in bags.

Nora

[johhnyco15]

today sowed my long carrots in split 4" tubes around 4ft long and prepared my stub nose carrot tubes will sow them tomorrow weather permitting all topped off with bottle cloches  to keep them snug might takes some pics tomorrow again weather permitting 

[johhnyco15]

on this dull day on the east coast thought id finish my long and stub  carrots notdone many just thought id give it a go

[johhnyco15]

and the stub

[Silverleaf]

I'm cursing my chilblains because it's just too painful to stay outside for very long, so everything's going really slowly at the moment.

[galina]

Definitely, with this grey, cold drizzly weather, it was a greenhouse only job for me.  Even so I got quite chilled and had to have a large mug of cocoa afterwards.