A Lazy Weekend

Although higher, the temperatures are not consistently high enough yet to risk any significant sowing or planting outside, so I decided to take a break from the plot at the weekend. Saturday was sunny & warm all day and Sunday, although a little cooler was nice and sunny again. By 2pm on Sunday my resistance broke and I toddled off to the plot without a plan of action. I spent 3 hours weeding my second Strawberry bed, earthing up the plants & removing their dead foliage, damaged by the recent frosts. The temperature had lowered quite a bit again by the time I had finished.

Peas Waterlogged from Cold = Germination

An extremely heavy frost came again overnight last night, so I was glad that all the seeds I have sown into pots, trays & other containers were all still protected, either in my shed, cold frame or greenhouse. I had 2 smug feelings. One that most of them were already germinating & two, I had not yet manufactured a poly tunnel carbon footprint. I was back down the plot mid-morning & got to work sowing 2 rows of lettuce, (1 row of mixed & 1 row of crisp head). I covered 50% of each row with a cloche, leaving the other two, 50%'s open to the elements, so that I could monitor the difference in germination times. I then sowed 2 more rows of peas, (Hurst Greenshaft), in situ in my legumes bed.

160 Cabbages Germinating in Cold Frame

Then I lifted & potted 3 Gooseberry plants I had layered and planted 1 cutting to add to my 3 existing plants. This done I potted 5 Quince seeds from an old plant in my back garden and finished off the potting up, with 30 cucumber seeds (Marketmore), which will be kept inside until the weather warms up. My shed needed tidying up, from the clutter that's been accumulating there over the Winter, by the time I had moved the clutter around, without achieving a great deal, the thought occurred to me that I needed to build a bigger shed.

Almost forgotten from last October. I had a few carrot and lettuce seeds left over which were going out of date. I sowed these, covered them with cloches over the Winter and uncovered them today. Not a lot of Carrots but enough for a meal and the Lettuce are "picking up" well as the weather gets warmer. Think I will be making some more cloches for this coming Winter.

Carrots & Lettuce 20th February (Not Bad)

 

Well I suppose there's always tomorrow!!