Sunny but cold

It was deceptively chilly today as the sun was shining and there wasn't much cloud in the sky. It must have been noticably sunny because our cat spent a while catching some rays.



I started the weekend's gardening by resowing some onions. I sowed some a few weeks ago and most germinated but perhaps the light levels weren't quite enough for them to really get going. Then I sowed half a packet of Aquadulce Claudia broad beans into seed trays and put them in the mini greenhouse on the patio. I'll sow the rest of the packet in a few weeks so the beans don't all arrive at once.

Bit of a nice surprise in the post this week - some Santero onion sets. I think they must have been a free offer as part of a seed order I placed back in October. Nice. It'll be interesting to see how these compare to any seed-sown ones that get planted out.

Finally headed over to the plot and it was a lot wetter on the ground than I expected so digging wasn't really an option. I found some cauliflower plants growing well under some tunnel cloches. A few of them had bent stems, probably because their growth had been restricted by the low cloches. I decided to remove the cloches, replant the caulis a bit deeper and cover them with netting.



In the piccie above, they've got that sad-sack look that just-moved plants have. Fingers crossed that they'll perk up. I decided not to water them in as the soil was wet and I didn't want it to freeze around them.

I had 5 elephant garlic cloves at home which I had potted up with the rest of the garlic just before Christmas. 4 of them had developed roots so I planted them all out next to the other cloves planted out 2 weeks ago.

Before leaving the plot (my fingers were getting frozen with all the cold mud on my gloves), I put the sodden brassica plants from Bed 7 (from which I removed the netting to use for the caulis) onto the compost heap. They were joined by some of the rotten leaves around the base of the globe artichokes.

Worth the wait

Today was a lovely day for gardening on Plot 35. At last! The sun was shining and it got up to 10C at one point. Barmy!

A couple of days after Christmas, I covered over Bed 1 with some clear plastic to keep it snow free with the idea of planting the garlic some time in the New Year. Since then I have been waiting for the opportunity and today was the day. It was lovely to do a spot of digging after so long and the revealed soil was damp but nice and crumbly. After digging and raking, in went the 9x9 cloves of garlic that had been in the lean-to in seed modules since a few days before Christmas. Some of the cloves had started to sprout while almost all of them had developed roots.

So in order of transplanting, there are:

Albigensian Wight
Wight Cristo
Early Purple Wight
Iberian Wight

Lautrec Wight
Messidrome
Germidour
Picardy Wight
Chesnok Red



The Picardy cloves had rooted the least and are tiny cloves. It'll be interesting to see if they catch up, and indeed if any of them survive the move. I also have 5 cloves of Elephant Garlic in pots at home so I'll plant them out another time.

On the way home, I nipped over the garden centre to check out the spuds on offer. I have always ordered these from catalogues but this is relatively expensive and you never quite know when to expect their delivery. The garden centre had a great range so I bought loads and I'll put them in the lean-to to chit now that there is space. I purchased the following:

1st early - Swift
2nd early - Wilja
Main crop - Cara
Late main crop - Pink Fir Apple

Just before I left the plot today, one of my fellow plotters came to say hello. We got onto the subject of potatoes and he mentioned that he had been recommended Wilja by a farmer as they are not so readily attacked by slugs. I have grown Cara before and they worked well. I was a bit disappointed by last year's harvest so fingers crossed for a good one this year.

I hope everyone else has had a good day gardening.