..and today back to work..

The sun continued to shine this morning, so I got to work in the garden. I've started with clearing the two beds in front of the polytunnel...the left hand side one needs some brambles/couch grass and Buttercups digging out as I'd foolishly left it to it's own devices for too long.


The seeds I sowed before we went away have all come through. These included some modular sown Boltardy Beetroot and Snowball Turnip. I will simply plant these out as clumps. I tried this last year and found it worked very well. It seems to be less work overall than sowing and then thinning....you just need to plant out the clumps a little further apart.

I'd also sown a pot of Salad Leaves Speedy (from Thompson & Morgan). They seem to be a mix of Mizuna (red and green) with other Oriental leaves. These will probably not be terribly long lived at this time of year....but I'm hoping to get some salads from the plants and then no doubt the hens will enjoy them too. They have now been pricked out into a modular tray.


Sweet Aji Peppers, Red Russian Kale and Little Gem Lettuce have also been pricked out into a modular tray. This year inspired by Charles Dowding I'm planning to use modular trays more...and to use trays with more modules per tray. I noticed while reading his new "Vegetable Course" book that he seems to use these smaller modules with perhaps 60 to a tray to get plants to planting out stage. I'm guessing by doing this you get more plants from a smaller amount of compost. This has got to be a good plan. Cheaper overall...and anything to save lugging heavy stuff about!

I couldn't resist taking a picture of the blossom on the Peach tree in a friends greenhouse...