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