What have you done today in the Garden?

Popped out to the lottie to check on things and pick the last of the sprouts. Got an large harvest. The tops we will eat later in stamppot. (Odif may like this as well).

 

Yesterday, I dug over a new patch. I also built two tunnels up and transplanted lettuces into one of them. I planted rucola. Today I turned a compost pile and prepared my second tunnel. I will now go and transplant more lettuce and plant some radish seeds.

 

It's still cold and very wet here in Essex so no sowing anything out of doors for a while, especially as we have a big drop in temperature forecast for this coming week. I have however started sowing seeds in trays in my conservatory, chillis, tomatoes, sweetpeas and broadbeans. Later on, after another warming coffee, I will have a tidy up in my front garden as the daffodil bulbs are all bursting through.

 

I turned compost and I transplanted 50 lettuces as well as planting 60 garlics.

 

Odif, how warm is it where you are? what zone? are you in the a mountainous region, a valley? Lettuce won't happen outside for several months.

 

Hi Carolyn, we can get down to -15 Celsius in winter. Not every year though. So far this winter we have not had it too cold. We are in climate zone 6b to 7. My garden is south facing and gets all day sun. The lettuces are all under polytunnels I also have radish and rucola that has just come up. We have frosty nights and warm days, except when it snows or rains. The problem here is that our last frost date is in mid may, so we have to be patient even when it is march and warm. We often get snow in April here. This afternoon I was in the woods cutting with my new chainsaw and all the sunless north facing slopes still had snow patches. It was a nice sunny day and I went round a corner and suddenly I was in a frosty winter wonderland. We are in the medium mountains, but we are on the south side so we get a lot of influence from warmer Spain rather than chillier France. The only bad thing are the north winds that can be extremely chilly and they will often be 50 miles or more per hour. Luckily they don't always blow.

 

Yesterday a parcel arrived for me with seeds. Lettuces, Rucola, spinach, cauliflower and two types of peas. This morning, I planted lettuce and cauliflower seeds. I also turned some land to plant my peas. I harvested some rucola too. I need to build a new tunnel for rucola and spinach.

 

I am amazed that you can plant already Odif. My seeds are here but few are planted. mainly I have started the geraniums, begonias, thyme and taken a few cuttings of older geraniums and begonias but nothing outside is even close to planting out. we still have oodles of snow on the ground. it should be gone by mid week though. its warming up.

 

Carolyn, we have no snow lying, it melted straight after snowing.
Nothing that I have transplanted or planted is outdoors. Everything is under tunnels. My peas, will have to wait till mid to end of February depending on the temperature before I can plant outside, luckilly, I can plant a few hardy vegetable types under cover in the winter here.

 

I walked out to the high tunnel to dump compost material in there and the lettuce under the row cover looks beautiful. no frost in the row where it was covered. looks like it ought to churn right through Winter and Spring. I even saw newly sprouted seeds where it was covered. I dumped a packet of seed in there when I got done transplanting in the Fall.

 

I planted four more rows of onions, and I'm sore! Getting back into gardening is hard on the body, but good for the soul. Right now my soul is fine, but my body needs a soak in a hot tub!

 

We harvested the last of the sprouts. We waste as little as possible in the garden, so we ate the remaining tops on the sprout plants. The empty and headless sprout stalks look a bit pitiful standing there in their plot.

All that is left now are leeks. they are thin little things this time, but we hill hold a mass harvest soon and process them for stir-fry's and casseroles. I really like leeks a lot.

I am waiting for the ground to dry soon so that I can get back to work on my lottie.

 

Well, not a lot in the garden...but I ordered the seed potato's:

Harlequin
Ratte d' Ardeche
Alouette
Acht Wochen Nudeli

I can hardly wait to get them and begin chitting. I shall hope to have them in the ground in the middle of march.
The seeds we will not be getting until the first week or two of March.

 

It never stops raining to do anything.

K

 

Not in the garden exactly, but we washed off the plant starting shelves and brought them into the guest bedroom. I'll attach the grow lights tomorrow, and plant a couple of herb varieties to put under domes. The lights get turned on after the seeds germinate and the domes come off. The second set of shelves come in later to hold the plants that no longer need the grow lights, and have moved to larger containers.
We have two sets of shelves--one for the domed trays and the young plants that need the grow lights, and the other for the more mature and hardier plants that can survive with just sunlight. This is from last year: