Topic: Hurry up Spring, I'm ready to Rock n Roll!

[teresa]

Hi JJ
go for it start a new thread and I will tell about my rhubarb leaves etc

[carrot-cruncher]

went to my lottie today.   left with most of it attached to my boots. think i need a week of dry weather so i can start digging it over ready to plant.

[Mrs Ava]

I managed to get up to the plot this morning for a couple of hours of chocolate burning!  ;D.  Forked over about half of the plot, including all around my fruit bushes and apple trees, and altho the ground ws wet, it wasn't sodden so the ground dug and broke up wonderfully!  I was able to oik out a few docks that I had missed when I first  cleared the site, and thanks to the rain, the ground around the apple trees was soft so the stinging nettles I couldn't get out in the autumn pulled out along with about 3 foot of roots!  How satisfying is that!  ;D  Spending this afternoon up in my greenhouse pottering, cleaning and making room for the spring sowing of veggies and flowers.  

[markymark]

Pottering in a greenhouse sounds the perfect way to spend the afternoon.

Went down the lottie this morning, and although there's nothing much to do, managed to add a few barrowloads of steaming horse poo to the compost heaps. Doesn't matter how many times they are filled to the top, they always seem to want topping up! :-/

Also managed to tidy some of the shed up.

My eldest has just bought a new digi camera, so be warned there could be a few pic's coming up in the next few weeks!! :o

If I had a greenhouse EJ, I'd be doing the same.....lucky moo! ;D

[Garden Manager]

A word of Caution

Nice idea all this diging to work off the christmas excesses, but perhaps you might all be doing the soil more harm than good??

I know the idea of winter digging is to expose the soil to winter weather (ie frosts) to break it down, and perhaps this is still valid in the 'frozen' north.  However here in the south we are more likely to get heavy rain than penetrating frosts, so digging will loosen soil and make it more vunerable to leaching and erosion.  Perhaps down here it would be better to leave (lighter) soils undug until spring. It would be more stable and any weed growth would serve to protect the soil.

Just  a thought. My soil tends to loose structure if it is well dug then rained on. It becomes sticky and heavy to work and takes a long tome to dry out afterwards, this is why I generaly avoid too much digging in winter.  Come spring it dries out quicker and can be cultivated earlier.

[ciaozzy]

Cant wait for spring either for it is the time of the budding trees moons... we who belong to the thunderbird clan who fly dead high... thing wiv this growing malarky... just cums easy to me... I dig. sow then watch.. then harvest... its all that happens in between that rocks my world...

oZ

xx

[Mrs Ava]

Well Markymark, had a great afternoon and got so much done!  It piddled with rain, but I was lovely and dry and hub bought me coffee at regular intervals.  I have so much growing in the greenhouse.  My problem is I am addicted to growing anything, but at the moment my greenhouse is packed with tender things that were sent to me from south america.  I have a box full of seeds I received from Australia, but they will have to wait until after I have sown toms and peppers.  I have a hedge of parsley and a lawn of lemon grass.  My wee olive tree has put on so much growth in the last 8 months I am hopeful of a flower or two.  I was going to try and overwinter some chilli plants, just as an experiment, but they weren't happy so I binned them and decided it is no hardship to grow new each year.   Looking forward to seeing some pics of another Essex lottie Marky.  ;D