28/29 March 2009 - March winds

Two weekends to catch up on. 21/22 March was busy and so was 28/29 March too. No slacking, no sirree. Due to technical issues we were not able to take photos except the one on the left, which is of the new carrot seedlings in the Rolls Royce carrot bed.

Bed 1 - Shallots are now springing into life. They look like anenomes and are rather exotic looking. Chard is looking good and strong and the spinach is also looking better. Chicken manure pellets scattered to refresh the overwintering onions as they have had a hard time over the winter (predictably). They also got a drink of Magic Juice which hopefully hasn't fermented into some toxic brew since we last used it in September.

Bed 2 - Garlic looking good, no onions as yet.

Bed 3 - Nasturtiums and french marigold sown round the edge. This is supposed to divert the nasties from our lovely cabbages etc.

Bed 4 - Great news. The purple sprouting broccoli is now actually sprouting as it should and is very tasty. We had the first harvest with our neighbours for our Earth Hour celebration - very primeval.

Bed 5 - Kale hanging on in there and we planted two rows of peas in the bit that had previously been prepared for beans. We are flexible and dug the other side of the bed into trenches with kitchen waste for the beans, though there is still an on-going debate as to the sort of beans (french and/or runner) we are planting. Runner beans will definitely feature in the Pagoda though. Sowed radish and rocket in between the kale on the first weekend, and radish, as ever, has won the race to appear.

Bed 6 - We sowed two rows of peas and a row of mangetout.

Bed 7 - Carrots are finally showing their little feathery heads (see above).

Pagoda - Sticky wrappers were applied to the fruit trees. This is the organic way of preventing ant infestation. It traps the little sods. We forgot to mention that we have added a loganberry to our little orchard. So - raspberries, strawberries, apples, blueberries and loganberries will be ours for the munching.

Seedbed - Various seedlings are bursting forth and we sowed another row of leeks. The red cabbage and summer sprouting broccoli are the latest to be displayed. Some are in plastic bottles, others not. They seem to grow nonetheless, though the very first we sowed are definitely looking larger.

Bank - Rhubarb has grown exponentially and is clearly happy. No sign of the asparagus.

We were somewhat diverted by another security incident which necessitated the creation of a working party on Sunday to repair the torn fence and to plant hawthorn whips inside the boundary. We will add holly and there is the prospect of free fence panelling. Interesting that this time we decided to do something practical fairly quickly, although details remain to be sorted out. We have to protect our plots, not just from the wrigglies but from other vermin too.

Weather note: fairly unpredictable - warm sunny spells but windy and cold patches too. And some rain, which is good.