Picking Up At The Plot

 I have been indulging my newfound interest in flowering plants and particularly wildflowers recently. Despite appearances I have been keeping up with the production of edibles too.  To bring the record up to date, here is a statement of the current state of play.

I went for alliums in a bigger way this year growing autumn and spring planted garlic as well as shallots and onions from seed. These were sown indoors in February .  The garlic has emerged and shallot and onion have been planted out on site yesterday and today. 

Broad beans sown in cells and planted out a month ago are now sitting pretty at the plot. 

Peas on the other hand have refused to be cajoled into germinating early. As a last resort I have started them sprouting in a jam jar in the kitchen and only "sown" them in cells after germination and exporting them to the greenhouse and then the plot.

Still on legumes I have sown 5 varieties of Dwarf French Bean into deep cells in the hope that the improved night temperatures will help them get started.

The greenhouse has been stuffed full each night with the paraffin heater lit on any night when the threat of frost is flagged up by the weatherman.  The main beneficiaries are flowers: Cosmos, Marigold, Lobelia, but also tomato, cucumber and pepper 

Tomatoes and Cucumber

Pepper Hungarian Hot Wax

I have attempted direct sowing at the allotment but tend to hedge my bets by using up remnant seed supplies (open packets from last year or out of date ones).  This way I don't get upset when they fail - although failure is also more likely as a result!  Parsnip, carrot, Swish chard have been experimented with in this way - and have all been resown recently..

Good Friday is a traditional potato planting day.  Easter Saturday and Sunday saw me getting all but the maincrop Rooster in. 

Potatoes in waiting

The patch allocated to potatoes in my rotational plan still had "spring" cabbages at one end and leeks at the other.  Now that's what I call bad planning! The leeks are going into the cookpot.

The ground for runner beans, celery and celeriac has been thoroughly prepped with plenty of buried organic matter.  The celery and celeriac have been growing on at home

Celery and Celeriac  - Can you tell which is which?

 but the runner beans have yet to be sown.  The courgettes squashes and sweetcorn haven't been sown either yet, but I have recently prepared a bed for them too.  My method is to bag all my weeds and trimmings in old black lined compost bags and leave them for a year or two to rot down in the hope that after another year buried underground any weed seeds will not be viable.  This keeps all the nutrients recycled on the site - all except the edible part of any crops.  

Weed suppression is something I take very seriously.  The best method is to have a crop growing but failing that deployment of weed suppressant fabric in the early part of the growing season saves hours of repetitive weeding.  As the sowing season progresses so the aesthetically unpleasing fabric gets rolled back. 

Brassicas tend to be at their best late in the growing year. None more so than purple sprouting broccoli which is currently in full production mode. 

 One again my lack of planning means the row of PSB plants is right in the middle of this year's carrot patch (under the fine mesh).  The PSB needs nets to keep the pigeons off while the carrots need fine netting to keep the carrot root fly off. so it is a bit of a logistic nightmare to cater for them both simultaneously.  As the early carrot sowing show no sign of germination yet perhaps there is no imminent prospect of running out of space just yet - the main crop carrots can wait until the PSB harvesting season is over.

This years brassicas and leeks are coming on at home in readiness for planting out. It iis going to be busy for the next month or two!

Early season brassicas

Leeks