February 2012 Blog Posts (50)

29-2

Today started with the mundane task of unraveling another half tray of shallot seedlings, then up the lotty to bung them in..Local Inn keeper has been saving up the wood ash from his inglenook for me, had a sack full. Riddled that out, and incorporated it into Runner Bean trench and brassica patch. Was going to put peas in but left them at home again.......der.. But it leaves something to do tomorrow. My mate Paul made an appearance so stood and put the world right with him for…

As its warmed up a little now, I decided to plant out some of my red onion electric sets.

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Wrapped up against the cold wind, and with an anxious feeling about the size of the task ahead, I set off to the allotment wondering whether the recent warm weather would have ignited the weeds. But I returned with happy thoughts inspired by garlic!

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It's time to chit some early potatoes at Garden Posts.

First up are some nice looking Charlotte seed potatoes.

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Put together some simple frugal planters for strawberries. Hoping to get a bit of an early crop from them and leaving enough room for my tomatoes and peppers.

http://ploughyofurrow.blogspot.com/2012/02/maximise-greenhouse-growing-space.html

Shallots planted, trench taken out for peas, no peas left them at home on the table, grrrrrrr. Did some hoeing and noticed the temp. plummet. Manyana....

For the last couple of weeks my mum has really been getting into planting her seeds. She has even started getting into the whole biodynamics thing, in fact she is now almost as much of a geek on the subject as I am which is saying something :-) and as a result, I'm now itching to plant something myself. A distinct lack of funds at the moment means I can't afford a greenhouse just yet and it's really not warm enough to plant things straight outside, so today it…

I recently had to admit to being a ‘seedaholic’.  This realisation led to me to think of other afflictions that are unique to the gardening fraternity - the Prof had a lot of fun with this game and eventually had to be banned from playing as my self-esteem began to suffer –here are just a few I came up with....

Been sat untangling shallot roots (half a tray) took an hour, make a mental note not to sow this way again...

Now of to the lotty to plant. Taking Air Rifle to see if we can reduce the rat population..

Last week's seeds are already germinating, 

http://meand2veg.wordpress.com/2012/02/28/speedy-seeds/

Hey there folks, hope you are all keeping well?

Managing to avoid all the kids' lurgies and bugs at the mo (not holding my breath though, bound to catch something soon. . .!). Weather has been up and down, mostly sideways with the wind just now!! But I have managed to pop out now and again and do the odd bit.

Wednesday: I put some onion/shallot/garlic sets in a few places. I am dotting them about rather than lining them up to see if I can improve their size and quality…

Ordered from seedparade Purple Cape caulie, Cucumber/Gherkin Mohican and Calabrese Marathon. Thought i,d give them a try, see what quality seeds we get.

Set 7 red alert tomatoe seeds, moved kelsae onions from light box to corridor windowsills and vice verca. Shallot seedlings are going mental, i think we'll have to put them in the lotty tomorrow under a cloche. some of the caulie seedlings to.

Planted garlic cloves, burnt remains of next doors shed, rats are about.

Built with my own fair hands this morning, with a slide out front so I can just wheel the wheelbarrow up to it and tip it in  :-)…

I have a serious addiction to buying packets of seeds!

Potato kit arrives, a surprise too be had and a general catch up as we approach March. All found here

http://gardenteacakesandme.blogspot.com/2012/02/garden-mystery-to-solve.html…

The first pea shoots of the season have poked their heads above the compost.

I sowed these in a container in the greenhouse twelve days ago, along with some broad beans in another tub which have yet to appear. Because we like fresh peas so much I’ll be making small successional sowings every couple of weeks…

I'm finding sites that use Blogger really frustrating - here's why.

I read a post that I find interesting and feel that I can contribute to the comments, so I type it out, select my wordpress profile and hit the button to make the comment. The page then refreshes and nothing happens. I hit it again and the same. Some of these sites do come back with 'comment awaiting moderation', some then go to a captcha page where I input a code but most of them just leave me hanging and I have no…