Red sky at night

As it was wet yesterday, I spent much of the day painting the kitchen, leaving the rest of the week for gardening. Today was lovely, sunny and warm. The next two days are set to be pretty much the same. Perfect for getting some more stuff in the ground.

In the garden, I started by sowing some salad crops in troughs for picking and coming again over late Spring and Summer. These were garden cress (Wrinkled Crinkled Crumpled), corn salad (Verte de Cambrai) and rocket.

Then I sowed some brassicas for planting out later in the season. These were broccoli (Sprouting Calabrese), Brussels sprouts (Bedford) and cabbage (Greyhound). These have gone into the mini-greenhouse. Alongside them, I also sowed Swiss chard. For germination on one of the windowsills, I sowed some celery (Tango F1 Hybrid) and coriander. I haven't tried growing celery before so this could be a challenge.

While out in the garden, I repotted the lime plant which was starting to get a bit pot bound. It was helped by the fact that I dropped the plant a few weeks back and cracked the plastic pot it came in. I also gave it a good feed as it was started to look a little yellow between the veins on the leaves.

The lemon plant is looking good though...(I need to improve my photography - it looks like I shot this at night when I didn't)



I wonder if the fruits are going to continue to grow and become edible.

A peek into the cold frame in the garden reminded me that I have lots in there to plant out (see below) in the way of onions and mint.



There is also a sea kale which looks well.



Now I can refill the cold frame with more stuff (yippee!).

A brief spell over on the plot was dedicated to the sowing of peas. Two types: main crops (Early Onward) and sugar snaps (Delikett). Instead of fighting with bamboo canes to construct straight frames for rows of peas like I did last year and the year before that, this year's peas will grow up wigwams of canes. Even I should be able to manage a wigwam or two.

I hear that mice like to eat germinating peas (although apparently they lose interest once they have germinated) so I started by pegging down down wire mesh on Beds 3 and 6. I then sowed 3 circles of sugar snap and 4 circles of main crop between the squares of the mesh (see the photo below for an example) where each circle was made up of 8 stations and where each station was sown with 2 or 3 seeds. I will thin the stations down to 1 seedling and the leftovers can be used as pea shoots in a salad. I have meaning to try pea shoots but have not got round to it.



Oooo, red sky at night, shepherd's delight, eh?