The Best Laid Plans

Well with the great weather that was looming for this weekend just ended I planned to gets lots done in the garden, well eh! eh!

I went to bed Friday night with a slight sore throat which was niggling me all day and woke up Saturday feeling like someone had shoved a red hot poker down my throat. I got Nathifa off to drama classes went back to bed as I was feeling really sleepy at about 10.00am and didn't get back out of bed till 7.00pm when hunger and general aches and pains from lying so long drove me out into the living :).

So a quick update on what little I got done from Friday till today and any other updates.

Friday

• Resowed my cabbage seeds today as after two Weeks there was no germination which is a bit odd for members of the brassicus family I sowed lots more than what i need with the hope I'll get exactly what I need.

The lentil sprouts were also ready to eat and we all enjoyed them in their raw state. crucnhy with a slady flavour.

Saturday

• Woke up and found in the fruit section pond frog spawn yippee!! I was so excited I almost forgot my sore throat. There was also lots of very little snails in the pond, not sure where they came from???
• The kids freebie seeds from the BBC arrived.

Sunday

Woke up feeling much better although a bit weak probably due to some dehydration from lack of fluids on Saturday's lay in.

• Made a mixture of wildflower seeds along with the kids freebie seeds and some grass seeds thrown in with some compost and with their help we prepared the mini meadow area first by raking the surface to a fine tilth and the sifted the compost with the seed mixture onto the area. We then watered the area and netted it against the birds eating the seeds and cats using the area as a toilet.
• The mangtoute peas I sowed a few days earlier have started to germinate and the beetroot and spinach beet seeds are almost all up now.
• I then decide to potter around the garden and did some tidying of leaves from the autumn leaf drop from around the vege pond boggy area and at the back by the compost bins. The were all added to the green compost/ leaf litter bins. When they finally rot down I'll lots of great leaf mold to use in the garden as mulch and light plant feed.
• The daddy of the frog spawn was also seen and heard calling to other females so may be we would get even more spawn.
• We also saw our first peacock butterfly enjoying the warm sun rays.

I also spotted some scat/ animal droppings which I got help in identifying from me A4A forum as hedgehog droppings which is nice to know. It means they are still about and are waking up from there long winter's sleep :)

Busy

A lot has happened since my last post the preparations for the growing season are hot at this time of the year with lots getting done everyday. So in this post I'll be updating you on all that's been sown, on the progress of current seedlings and other gardening tasks that I got completed.

First off the weather (this is England after all), its been fairly decent temperatures which have been improving day by day. We've had equal amounts of sunny and cloudy days, with a little gusty wind thrown in from time to time. Only had rain on Tuesday where I got soaked picking Thifa up from school :(.

So lets begin;

Monday

• I pricked out the salvia and celeriac seedlings into individual cells or pots planting them a bit deep as they were a bit leggy, they were both moved out to the greenhouse.


• I also decided to try something new (for me at least), that is sowing my peas in guttering. The theory is you sow them in guttering and when it comes to planting out time you dig a shallow trench and just slide them into place (yep watch this space!). I also sowed some french marigold flowers.


• The watercress has started to germinate.

Tuesday - I spent the most of the day out with Na'imah at the local museum for storytelling and craft activities which they hold the second Tuesday of each month, she really looks forward to these outings so I make every effort to get her to them. The story this time was "The Greedy Bee" and for crafts they had to make a beehive mobile and and some related colouring as you can see in the picture.

I also prepared a rice dish which had my home grown bean sprouts as one the ingredients, everyone love the taste and texture of the beans so will really endeavour to keep up the sprouting of seeds and such. With the clear tray available I sowed some lentils which I hope to use in Friday's meal.

While I was out I bought three fruiting plants redcurrant, blackcurrant and a blueberry, all for a pound each, not to sure about the blueberry cause although its green it doesn't appear to be coming out of its dormant period where as the others have young green shoots starting.

Germination of the perennial dianthus have started.

Wednesday - after the drenching I got Tuesday afternoon the sun came out today and with it the first blossoming of the garden's tulips. This one is in one of the kids playhouse planters.

• The tasks that got done, was the pricking out and potting up of the melongene, sweet peppers, hot peppers and melon seedlings, again they were planted quite deep due to them also being leggy. These were left in the conservatory as the night time temperatures in the greenhouse is still to low for these plants.


• I also got the opportunity to sow my tomato seeds I'll be trying twelve varieties this year. To many winter squashes were also sown simply because I couldn't choose, I only need eight plants but sowed one each of ten varieties :). The plan is what germinates and grows will get the opportunity to be planted, it will probably be just my luck that all will germinate still leaving me with the difficult task of which to grown on and which to give away. I was able to use more restraint and only sowed two varieties of pumpkin though.
• Germination of the spinach beet seeds were observed.

Thursday (today) -

• I received from an A4A member two cuttings of a herb called Vietnamese coriander, I have placed it in some water till tomorrow then it will get potted up.
• I potted up some Greek basil cuttings I had rooting in water to pass on to friends and family as I already have three good specimens. The thyme seedlings were also potted up and moved out to the greenhouse. The fruit bushes bought on Tuesday got potted as well and my fear that the blueberry was dead turned out to be true.


• Sowing of basil, onions white and red along with the flowers aquilegia and nasturtiums got done today. Also sowed some butternut squash seeds.


• Germination of the french marigolds have started in earnest and I had just about given up on the ochro seeds and had plan to resow today only to wake up and find two had germinated, will keep an eye on them and may resow Sunday to replace any seeds that haven't germinated by then.


• The radishes growing outside are doing well and as you can see the greenhouse is fulling up.

. Na'imah was also busy today enjoying a little glue play with the creating of a collage.

A Productive Weekend

Saturday started off beautifully with lots of sunshine, after getting Nathifa of to drama classes. I went outside about 10.30am to do a spot of weeding. Normally I dread this task but the areas to be weeded is full of light fluffy soil with young weeds which were easy to pull out. Here is a before and after shot of one of the three areas I did today. The after shot revealed some young beetroot and kale plants that can be used in salads over the next couple weeks.


I finished just after 1.00pm and stopped for lunch. While I ate the weather turned to cloudy and the wind began to pick up which changed the temperature drastically, so I called it a day. Before I went in though I took a few pictures of some more spring blooms to share with you all.


Sunday (today) also started off beautifully so I took the opportunity to lay some more bricks which I am using to pave the areas around and in between the vege beds. I'm afraid that kept me busy for about just over three and a half hours then the weather turned decidedly colder with strong winds and later hail and rain so I called it a day once I had finished the front of the vege garden area. the picture shows before and after shots of part of the area I did.

A quick peek in the greenhouse has shown the large sunflowers to be germinating.

Today I got a picture of a young frog in the boggy area around the vege pond, not sure if its the same one I saw yesterday in the pond but it was about the same size.













We started harvesting the alfalfa sprouts since yesterday and they are going down a treat as you can see in the picture with most of it been eaten. Will be sowing some more tomorrow, I also sowed some mung beans for sprouting on Friday so those should be ready for stir frying in a few more days.

A Symbiotic Relationship

Well I tell you if it wasn't for this blog I would not have done any gardening today (it doesn't help when the weather is gloomy) but the blog and the garden seems to have developed a symbiotic relationship, with both of them encouraging the progress of the other.

So on that note the tasks that I accomplished today were;

1. The planting out of my 1st early seed potatoes. 3 seed potatoes of the variety Foremost went into a large pot and 5 seed potatoes of the variety Colleen went into a grow sack. In tidying up the pots I found a dead potato plant, so I recycled the soil into a bag for later use and unearthed a small growing tuber of a main crop variety called Fir Apple. Normally the main crop spuds won't be planted till late march but since it was trying to grow already I stuck it in a medium size pot of fresh soil and we'll see if I get anything from it (maybe we'll get a meals worth). All the containers I used were left outside the greenhouse but once the leaves begin to show I would bring them under cover if late frosts are forecasted.

2. I also got some more seeds sown, a spring onions variety I grew last year called 'Deep Purple' (it produced spring onions that thought themselves to be actual onions with huge bulbs produced that stored well in situ where they were planted) and a red cabbage variety 'Kalibos' called were sown and left in the greenhouse. Some ochro was also sown and kept in the warm conservatory.


I have been scaling back the household's diet to a less processed one, not that we eat a large amount of process foods to begin with but a few months ago I started phasing out the tinned Beans that made up a large part of our diet and started to re-add to our diet dry peas which I have to prepare from scratch with a pressure cooker etc. Now this is how I preferred to cook anyway but picked up this bad habit of buying beans in tins a few years ago. Thankfully that is now under better control with only bake beans (I once found a baked bean recipe on-line, so watch this space if I find it again it will be bye bye) and the odd tin of corn (will be swapping to frozen very soon) being part of grocery list.

Another task today concerning our diet was to restart growing sprouts to add to our sandwiches and salads. Again I use to do this a lot about four years ago and dropped the habit out of laziness no doubt, well I have been promising to restart since last autumn when I unearthed the sprouting trays. So after washing them in the dishwasher this morning I sowed three types of seed - red cabbage, mustard and alphalfa.

Well that all I got up to today, the weather is forecasted to be bright and sunny tomorrow so I plan to get some more sowing done along with other things. I will fill you in on my progress when its all done.