31st March

I went to the allotment after work with the aim of planting out my onion sets in the ground that has been warmed under the plastic sheet. First I had to dig out the weeds that have been thriving in such good, warm soil – bindweed being the worst, as well as grass and dandelions. There was also a multitude of little annual weed seedlings that resisted a scrape from a trowel. Anyway, after a good 90 minutes, it was high time to get home for tea, so the plastic sheet was replaced and the onions were taken back home for another day, although I had finished the weeding.

 

After tea, my wife presented me with a no occasion present, the book ‘Your Allotment’ by Clare Foster. Wow, what a wife! It was being sold by one of those bookclubs at our 4 year olds’ preschool playgroup and she ordered it for me a couple of weeks ago. It was good timing as, on this last day of March, I have finished the April edition of Gardeners’ World magazine (well, if they send it out 9 days before the end of the month, what do you expect?).

 Traditionally I am not one to go on about the weather. When I used to work in the NHS I would have to listen to 20 moans a day from a succession of patients. I would say ‘good morning’, or ‘good afternoon’ and the reply would be a typical ‘what’s good about it?’ or similar. It was always too cold, too damp, too misty, too dry, too hot, too humid or too changeable. Typical English! I am not the sort of person whose state of happiness is dependant on the weather. When my wife and I were on holiday in Greece, we had a 3 day storm blow over the resort. We woke one morning to hear the birds singing and concluded that the rain must have stopped. We drew back the curtains to find out that it was still pouring but we coined a little phrase we now say to others: ‘birds sing whatever the weather’. I’m not saying I am an incredibly positive and life-affirming person akin to Father Christmas on pep-pills, it's just that I allow other things to make me miserable and the weather is not one of them – well not unless I plan to go to the allotment and it starts to rain a few hours before I can get away from work. Anyway, the point of this little ramble is to say that because I don’t usually go on about climatic conditions, I had misunderstood the phrase ‘in like a lion, out like a lamb’ to be referring to April, whereas apparently it concerns March. Well I’ve noticed that it has been quite true this month. The icy winds, the numb fingers, the rain that we seemed to have had since last June were certainly lion like, but this last week has been a joy. It has been great to be out in the garden without getting chilly (OK I’m not in shorts and T-shirt yet).

Next post: 2nd April

30th March

After playing with my charming 4 year old  in his Bob the Builder play tent in our bedroom, and having made a campsite with my proper, grown up stove, mess tin and camping kettle, we ventured out into the garden. After another while I was inescapably drawn into pottering around with seed trays and the like. The Sweet Marjoram has sprouted – they are tiny little green shoots, like needles. I sowed some more herbs – Russian tarragon and fennel, which has a lovely pungent aroma like aniseed. I plucked out my far too long, pale and leggy cauliflower and sprouts seedlings and re-sowed into the now vacant modules. I also sowed some more sprouts of both Bedford-Fillbasket and Brigitte into those little mushroom pot propagators. I potted-on 3 sprouts seedlings and I will just have to see if they grow robust enough. The sweet peas are looking good, probably a little too tall before their first leaves come through, but seem to be OK. I pinched out the tops of 2 of them as I had read this was a good idea to make them branch out and be a bit more robust. I only did 2 as I feared killing them (that’s me just being paranoid). Apart from that, the Nicotiana seedlings are just popping up. They are the faintest, tiniest little things I have seen, and it is a wonder that they will one day be vibrant plants giving (hopefully) lots of flowers.

Next post: 31st March

27th March

We’d had a bit of rain yesterday so the allotment was probably not a good idea. My garden, however, was bathed in sunshine and so I pottered around a little after work before tea. I potted up 2 sycamore seedlings into recycled plastic cups (must remember to put holes in the bases!) as well as filling some propagator trays and biodegradable pots with compost. I have turned some mushroom trays into propagators. I don’t mean mushroom growing trays but the rectangle plastic tubs you buy them in from the supermarket. They are annoying because the council does not recycle them, so if I can get one other use out of them, so much the better. The great thing is that they come with their own clear plastic lid (well the Asda ones do!) which keeps in moisture and slightly increases the temperature. I will sow a few more cauliflower and sprout seeds in these, and I was toying with the idea of sowing leek seeds in the modular propagator tray. The packet says to sow the leeks straight into the ground in a seed bed, then transplant when large enough to their final growing positions, but as the clay soil takes longer to warm up, I thought I could use the tray as their seed bed. After coming indoors and after tea, I read the instructions, and they say to plant the seeds half an inch deep, so the modules are not deep enough. The instructions also say to sow in March/April, but the coloured coded calendar chart shows you can sow Jan to mid April and plant out mid April – July!

 

Over the Easter weekend, some of the tulips came into flower. They have been promising for a little while, and now we have 2 red ones in bloom at the start of the border, just in front of the line of daffodils, and another red one after the daffodils, just in front of the deep blue hyacinths that have been out for a while now. The tulips aren’t as tall as I thought they would be, and looked somewhat dwarfed by the daffodils. Some are taller but they are only in bud, some which are about to open look even shorter!

Next post: 30th March

24th March

(The year that I wrote this had an early, March Easter.)
Easter has been a cold and wet affair. It is surprising how chilly it is. Easter Sunday itself was one day later than the earliest Easter can possibly be, but I remember a few early Easters – in the last week of March - that I have experienced in this house, and all previous ones I remember were warmer. I’d be out in the garden accomplishing some huge task like the first mow of the year, or clipping the privet hedge and I would make a day of it and be out for ages. (I used to get 5 more annual leave days than my wife and I often left 3 or 4 of them until late March to do such job.) I never remembered my fingers going numb with cold like they do at the moment. Today my fingers went numb whilst plucking more sycamore seedlings, I am now up to a count of 1900; surely that is a wood, albeit a baby one.

 

 

25^th March
Back to work, but I’m sure it is suddenly warmer. The computer on my work’s car says it is 5°C as I drive off, whereas recently it has been 4°C. Not a great difference – maybe the sun being out makes it feel so much warmer. So it was off to the allotment after work for another good hour and a half. I built a 3 sided compost bin out of the pallets, and shook dirt off a lot of the grass clumps and put the grass clumps into the bin. The rest can wait – they need to dry off more so it is easier to shake off the clayey soil. I did some more edging on the second section as the path was seriously encroaching on the section so now I have the propensity to actually have some decent lengths of carrots growing north – south. Rows should apparently be aligned like this so that they catch the sun both sides. It being a warmer day, and with the sun out, it was a pure joy to be out working. I also raked away at the clods to reduce the soil to a finer tilth, although much remains to be done on that front. I had a good chat to the man next door too.

Next post: 27th March

19th March

Today I plucked up more sycamore seedlings that infest my garden. My running total is 1300 with a fair few more to pull up. I potted 3 into plastic cups – these are the start of my eco drive at work. Last year our company had a press release in the local paper to say that they had donated about £2000 to a local animal park to plant new trees as an environmental project. I have the idea of using our plastic cups from the water coolers that are just thrown away (the cups, not the coolers) and divert them away from landfill, to be used as plant pots, and for staff to see how many tree seedlings we can grow. This would be a recycling bonus, it would save money, and it would get far more people involved in environmental issues. We then donate the trees. Think how much better a publicity item that would make. We could award prizes for the most trees grown by one person to encourage people to really go for it. When my transplanted sycamore babies are stable, I will bring the idea before the managing director who is the environmental lead. I say lead but I doubt whether anyone is following.

 

Indoors, I sowed Nicotiana seeds in modular trays, and oregano, sage and sweet marjoram for the herb garden into biodegradable pots.

Post script: Later in the year I presented my seedling idea to the Managing Director. We had a very profitable conversation about various energy-saving and waste-reducing matters, but the seedling idea did not, er, germinate.

Next post 24th March

18th March

18^th March
Fantastic! The last few days I have had some lurgy that started on Saturday with me feeling a bit off colour and drowsy but mainly with a few muscular aches. It worsened through the day and was the same Sunday and Monday. The aches give stiffness as well as if I’ve just over worked the muscles in a frenzied attack on the gym. It affected, among other things, my forearms which meant that opening jars and peeling the foil lid off milk containers was a little tricky. I had a very slight glimpse of what people with rheumatoid arthritis must suffer with. Anyway, I was determined to get to the allotment after work, and I did. 2 hours of work in the open air and my viral aches were replaced with working aches that didn’t last long and at least were proof that I’d actually got on and done something at last. The fresh air was great too. I finished digging over the last section and getting the weeds up so now all 9 sections look good, with a few of them have their clods breaking down thanks to the rain.

An added bonus was that there was a large pile of horse manure kindly donated to the allotments with a ‘help yourself’ notice. I collected 7 bags of it and spread it where I will be growing the squashes. It was good as I had been too behind at work to pop in to my usual stables to bag up some manure earlier on in the morning, and as I usually load up 2 bags, this has saved me 3½ trips. I was in pigs’ heaven. There are still more preparation jobs to do at the allotment. I need to tidy up the edges of some sections, one particularly requires this as the pathway has encroached and it has significantly reduced the width of the strip. I need to rake the soil to reduce the lumps to a finer tilth, I need to build a compost bin – so far I have 3 pallets which are the sides, so I want one more (available free from work) then to nail them together. The greatest job is to erect a fence of wire mesh all around the plot to keep rabbits out. The trouble will be finding some free or reasonably priced mesh considering the length of it I need. Anyway, one very happy and satisfied gardener arrived home to a lovely mug of tea and a great meal.

Next post: 19th Match

10th March

10^th March
Last night the South was ripped by 80mph storm force winds and quite a bit of rain too. The only thing noticeable in our garden was that the lid of the recycling wheelie bin had been blown open, and one small pot had fallen. A neighbour’s fence panel had come down with a post and hit his car (he has a garage that would have been safer!). After work I visited the allotment to check my plastic sheeting was in place and it was. Unsurprisingly, no one was working there today. I really want to finish my last piece of digging but it is so wet and with the clay soil it takes a long time to dry out – good in hot, dry spells, but not right now. I also went to the garden centre and bought another trailing fuchsia for the hanging baskets that we don’t have yet, and 3 bags of 60ml general purpose compost – for the price of 2!

11^th March

Unless I am not much mistaken (cue somebody yelling ‘you are much mistaken), there is a small fuchsia stem growing from the transplanted and hacked at cutting in the front garden. If this is the case, it is a big relief. There are now 4 tall cauliflower seedlings in the propagator, and 15 sprouts seedlings!

13^th March

Last summer I seemed to be cursed to the extent that whenever a certain lady at work wanted to be enjoying herself outside of an evening or over the weekend, she told me not to have a barbeque. It seemed that after years of planned barbeques going ahead as planned, last summer it always rained when I was due to cook one (with one notable exception on Father’s Day). Mind you, last summer was monsoon season so I reckon most people felt they were cursed. Anyway, this year it seems whenever I announce ‘If it stays fine, I’ll go to the allotment from work and do a bit more digging’, to anyone, it rains. Today the rain began just as I was starting my lunch break and persisted all afternoon and into the evening. That means I have to wait until the ground dries up a bit – some days after the last rainfall due to the heavy clay soil.

14^th March

I showed my impressively spindly sprouts and cauliflower seedlings to my Dad and we both agreed that they were too tall for their age. My fear is that at 3 inches high, very thin and with 2 small leaves at the top, they are heading for a rather spindly life. As they will not be entered into consideration for a basketball scholarship, they need to be shorter and stockier at this stage, to help support the weight of all those vegetables groaning on the stems come the end of the season. So in the evening I uprooted the ones that have germinated, and sowed more seed.

I decided to pull up the curry plant we have to make more room along the border for the expanded range of herbs I intend to grow. The plant was very woody, only had silly little yellow flowers, and smelt of a fragrance that is great for one type of meal a fortnight, but not for a garden plant. I dug in plenty of home made compost and rotted horse manure and gave it a good digging in.

Next post: 18th March

2 - 9 March

2^nd March
Mothering Sunday and the weather is bright and sunny and in the garden the daffodils are practically all out in celebration of the mother whose husband planted them all.

 4^th March

I have sown my first seeds of the year. Half of my 40 module propagator tray was filled with compost and 20 cauliflower seeds were sown. The lid was put on, and the tray was put up into our loft (which is a proper room) by the radiator.

5^th March

I finally got round to washing some of the plant pots from last year. It is always good practice to do this as there may be soil and/or plant disease that can be transferred to the new sowings. I meant to do it last summer and then store the pots neatly in the shed, but they have been stuffed behind the raised paving slab since last spring and summer. I washed as many as I could fit to dry on the draining board, I’ll do more later.

 6^th March

I have added sprouts seeds to the other half of the propagator with the cauliflower seeds. These are the Bedford-Fillbasket variety which, according to the instructions, are to be sown a tad earlier than my other variety, Brigitte. I have also been digging at the allotment and applied some horse manure to the area I am growing the squashes in.

7^th March

I have been weeding in the garden again. At least starting early in the year and popping out fairly frequently and doing this will stop weeds becoming established. It is, however, seemingly crazy that I have weeded so often already this year because it has been so warm (to weeds, not to me!)

The garden is awash with sycamore seedlings that have sprung up from the seeds shed by the tree last autumn. They are extremely prolific.

I transplanted the pepper plug plants into slightly larger pots and placed them into a tray on the kitchen window sill. Unfortunately, due to my neighbour’s extension, the kitchen window does not get good sunshine in the winter, even less than the meagre amount it would get if the construction were not there. At times the window sill feels positively chilly and it is little wonder that I have given up trying to germinate temperamental seeds on it.

8^th March

I was passing by the propagator in which the cauliflower and sprouts seeds are planted and the faintest hint of colour caught my eye. On closer inspection, 3 cauliflower seedlings have emerged – not bad for 4 days, but also, a number of sprouts seedlings are about to pop their heads above the parapet too.

9^th March

Today I sowed the sweet peas into pots. 5 seeds per 5 inch pot as per instructions. The varieties were Red Arrow, Charlie’s Angel and Sweet Chariot. The pots were watered (and not to be watered again until the seedlings appear!) and placed in the large tray I bought recently. They are up in our loft next to the radiator.

Next post: 10th March