Topic: getting ready for start of year

[laurieuk]

Bought seed potatoes yesterday so have got them laid out ready for sprouting. Managed to weed daffodil pots this morning ready for a feed of Vitax Q4.

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/800x600q90/827/4tij.jpg

[manicscousers]

Managed to get the rest of the seed spuds today and just finished putting them into boxes to chit. Propagators cleaned, all ready to go. Exciting, isn't it 

[antipodes]

Lordy i am not near so ready! But I do have most of my seeds, just got to get some squash ones.
But I have not been idle! All the fruit bushes are now moved to my new mini-plot, and I have taken up my old paths and edgings to make nice new paths and edges around my new  part of the plot. I just covered the soil where I will plant early peas and broad beans. i still have to buy my onion sets and echalotes but I am having a go at growing onion from seed again (I keep getting the seeds free! but never have any luck with them! ). this time I have put a planter outside the south facing window at home and I will cover it in plastic and try to get the seeds to come up that way.
February is when we start getting seed spuds here. I can only grow half the amount now but I will still do the Belle de Fontenay earlies that are so tasty.
I am still spreading manure too! But it is so soaked in water that it weighs a ton and kills my back trying to heave it around.

[gray1720]

Blimey - I still need splatchers to get onto mine to harvest veg, never mind starting to get stuff in!

Adrian
 

[ed dibbles]

Shallots and early broadies in pots, lettuce and radish sown in g/h. chillies and toms sown, Potatoes and oca chitting. Will sow some early cabbage soon.

Once the weather get good enough and some ground prepared I shall have things to go straight in for an early start to join the already autumn planted stuff

[BarriedaleNick]

I have done absolutely nothing apart form buy seed.  Ill get some spuds in at the weekend at the Potato day and start some chilies in a couple of weeks.
It's is still very early and we could yet have a long cold spell so I am enjoying have a nice break from the plot and garden.

[Paulines7]

I wouldn't be able to do anything in my vegetable beds at the moment as they are still too wet, despite being on a slope.  When I attempted to dig them over in October/November last year, the mud just stuck to my fork and wellies as I sunk into it.  The soil was being compacted too so I gave up.  Since then it doesn't seem to have stopped raining and the ground is worse than ever. 

A couple of days ago, the sun came out and I decided to weed a small flower bed.  The soil really stuck to the weeds and made the job ten times harder than normal.  I have a green council bin for weeds such as nettles as the roots seem to thrive if I compost them.  The problem is that the council do not want soil in the bins so getting it off the roots was quite a chore.  I found one of my sweet Williams was coming out in flower and the paeonies were up about an inch.  A welcome sign that Spring is just around the corner.   

[Tee Gee]

Tidied up a few plants overwintering in the greenhouse this morning and switched on the hotbed so let 2014 begin!

[Tee Gee]

Thought you might like to see how I have planned for 2014.

It may seen a bit OTT but with my memory these days I need all the memory assisting  data I can get ;)

This a layout plan for my two plots!

[artichoke]

What a magnificent layout!

I have dug out a long "strawberry bed" that was infested with weeds, and started to replant fresh ones from one end. Have removed satisfying bucketfuls of bindweed roots.

Have started rolling back tarpaulin and digging the ground on a wetter site - very happy to find it less soggy than elsewhere, crumbly and full of fat, lively worms. Was afraid the impermeable tarpaulin would be bad for soil and worms, but it's not.

Broad beans up, and field beans ditto except where they have been eaten, so I have to push extra seeds in the gaps and cover with netting.

[TheEssexYorkshireman]

Can't do much at the plot it's still half underwater. However I've received my seeds and collected my potatoes so moving in the right direction. Great time of year - LOVE IT!!!

[tricia]

I'm still waiting for my gardener chappie to come to spread the rest of the manure on my raised beds - but it's all far too wet to do anything.

I'm not growing any chillies this year- too many still in the freezer or dried from last year - so it will be a while before I start any seeds to germinating.

Tricia

[shifty581]

 :blob7:I have a new green house this year, so i am looking forward to growing my plants from seed,
plus growing plants in the green house, like tomes, cucumbers, pepers.
I have a large allotment, So i am looking forward to a good year.
I think I will nead sume help with dates when to start puting my seeds in trays for my tomatoes, I will be very gratful for any help
Tony

[Tee Gee]

I think I will nead sume help with dates when to start puting my seeds in trays for my tomatoes, I will be very gratful for any help

I sow my tomatoes in the first week in March, and as you are in Rugby I would suggest you would be OK around the same time.

Click on the link on my signature and you will find tomato dates and all my other sowing dates in there.

I hope this is of help to you...Tg

[BarriedaleNick]

I think I will nead sume help with dates when to start puting my seeds in trays for my tomatoes, I will be very gratful for any help
Tony

If you have greenhouse then you are at an advantage.  I have struggled in the past to stop them getting too leggy and end up moving them in and out the house to harden them off only to loose them to one to many glasses of wine and some cold weather! So I ended up sowing later and not getting a full crop.
First week or two of March for me for toms and out to the poly!

[Robert_Brenchley]

I'm just about fit enough to do a little work again, but it's going to be an uphill struggle if I don't get some help. The ground's too waterlogged to dig so I'm concentrating on the raised beds.

[kt.]

Done absolutely nothing.  Ground too wet.  When weather has been half decent I have had work on.  Used all manure last year so need to order more.  Greenhouse full of hay and straw for the rabbits & guinea pigs.  Not overly fussed just yet.

[Tee Gee]

Onions are sown and I have set up a few setts I am experimenting with.

They are some onions that did not develop last year so I thought I would try treating them as you would setts.

My guess is; if they develop they might end up splitting like shallots but I can only wait and see.

I have backed up my onion crop with seed sown varieties.

I am trying Red Brunswick, Globo and Santero this year.

The Hotbed in the greenhouse;



Onion seed;



Onion Setts

[Robert_Brenchley]

I've got one raised bed dug and almost ready for my shallotts.

[galina]

Got seeds of Red Florence Onions and Bedfordshire champion in the propagator.  Yesterday I sowed carrot seeds in a corner of the greenhouse.  This is an experiment and I have no great expectation that they will actually thrive, but I am keeping an open mind.