Here we go, here we go, here we go!

    Fingers crossed, the worst of the winter is behind us. Currently the sun is shining and the air is feeling warmer. That means the weeds will grow even faster! I have been out in the garden planting shallot and onion sets. The surviving autumn sown onion sets have been identified and gaps filled in with fresh onion sets. First row of Early Nante 2 carrots have been sown with a fleece put over them mainly to keep the chickens off.  A couple more days of sun and I will risk the first sowing of beetroot.

   The seed potatoes, which are currently in seed trays in the dinning room, are sprouting away and I guess within two weeks I will be planting the first earlies. The pace is picking up! 

Left to right - x4 trays Rosabelle, x2 trays Desiree and 1/2 tray Bleue D'Auvergne

   We have guests for three weeks of April so I am now turning my attention to tidying the house garden and its borders while still having one eye on the vegetable plots and seed trays.
    It is time to consider taking herb cuttings. My "by the poly tunnel" herb bed is growing rapidly.  This consists of cuttings of common thyme, lemon thyme, rosemary, golden oregano and lemon balm taken last year along with a blue sage, Bolls mint, and chives. I think I may take one or two of the thyme plants out and put them in pot to display outside the house. 


POLY TUNNEL UPDATE
   Onion, shallot, leeks and the odd cabbage and lettuce seed planted in the poly tunnel fleece cloche are growing away. No sign of the tomatoes yet.  A small row of Early Nante 2 carrots have been sown in the poly tunnel. It is looking like I have only lost one of the six All the Year round cauliflowers. The Early Onward peas in the loo rolls are growing and I will shortly plant these out with the hope of some really early peas. No sign of the Limousin turnips germinating but Salad Bowl lettuce is up and the 18 Jour(day) radishes that survived the freeze are picking up and moving on. A few purple sprouting plants at one end are looking perky but I fear they were planted too late to be productive. Some Celtic cabbage, again planted late, look good so even if they do produce late I should get something to eat.


More later time permitting!!

Rush against time!

  The current spell of cold weather has passed by. Early this morning the temperature was -5C but no wind so it did not feel cold. Bear in mind that where we live is sheltered and the sun does not come up above the ridge until later. By late morning it felt warm and continued to feel warm through the afternoon. That means one thing! The weeds will grow! One thing I have learnt gardening here at Champeau over the last year is that the weeds grow fast, really fast. I have to keep on top of them so today I used my onion hoe and hoed between the garlic removing the weeds. I ended up with a half full wheel barrow! The autumn sown garlic is the one crop that has stood the cold weather well, followed by the second autumn sowing of broad beans.


Winter Garlic bed after hoeing

 Lesson learnt with broad beans here is not to sow too early. They only need to be about one to two inches high else they get hit by the frost. Some of the first sowing that have been frosted may still recover. I wait to see. I lost the first sowing of broad beans in the poly tunnel so I have re-sown. I suspect that they will turn out to be spindly as there will not be enough light.
  The soil is very wet and sticky but is drying fast. I have dug up the frosted brassicas (mainly "fourager" and purple sprouting) which were well and truly kaput and put them on the compost heap. Shame about the purple sprouting as it was just starting to come into season. Such is the throw of the dice. The smell of rotting cabbage and leeks was in the air! Yesterday I dug up my badly frosted leeks and rescued what I could for the table. I would have thought they would have stood the cold weather better but I guess too many days and nights of below zero just took there toll.

Frosted leeks

  In the poly tunnel things are moving fast. Early Onward peas, sown in loo rolls, are sprouting and I am looking to plant them out once the soil has dried out a bit. Mice have been at work and some have been dug up and eaten! Little blighters (I had another word to put in but thought I had not better). Brassicas in the tunnel are showing signs of recovery after the cold spell. I guess they did not get the coup de grace! In the fleece cloche the onion seed is growing on with all varieties now germinated. Leeks too are up. The surviving lettuce are poised to go!
  I managed to get my seed potatoes and they are now set up in the dining room in seed trays for chitting. Three varieties - Rosabelle (very successful last year), Desiree and a lets have go one called Blue D'Auvergne. They produce blue potatoes but not all the way through. I have also purchased onion sets (Red Baron) and shallots. The idea here is to supplement the seed sown onions with the sets.
  So, the speed of the season is accelerating and there is more and more to do.

Nature is winning I fear!

  The weather has been cold cold cold. Continuing minus temperatures over night (-10C and below) means that the polytunnel has finally given up. I went in the other day to find the soil frozen and my fork solidly stuck in the ground! The polytunnel fleece clouche is slowly but surely getting cooler. Average temperature over the last week has been around 10C. Germinated seeds close to the entrance have been touched by frost and I have lost those, however, the more cold tolerant seedlings, onions, leeks, early peas continue to survive and all I can do is keep my fingers crossed! Such is the joy and sadness of trying to beat the weather. This time last year I was out in the garden digging and enjoying warm sunshine. The water butts have frozen solid and one has fallen over, a solid lump of ice. Trying to harvest winter crops is impossible. Leeks are frozen into the ground as are swede and turnips. I managed to dig a swede out and found that it was giving in to frost damage. Not surprising really. Well, I still need to get my seed potatoes and bar a major snowfall a trip to the nursery next week will have to be made.
  The river is freezing over. Two/three feet out from both banks is thick ice and areas that are running slow the ice is almost touching the bed of the river. Weather outlook is for it to get milder by a few degrees!

The white stuff has fallen!

COPPICED HAZEL COVERED IN SNOW

SNOW COVERED TREES

DEER TRACKS

   Snow has arrived at Watermeadows as these pictures show. 


  Yes! It has snowed. The snow started to fall around 2200hrs on the 30th January and continued over night. By morning there was a good covering of powdery snow. It would prove to be good for snow ball fights but poor for building snowmen and sledging. As I write this on the evening of the 1st February the temperature has dropped to -4C but no more snow - yet.  

  While taking a  brisk walk around the boundary of Watermeadows I have seen deer tracks in the snow. The tree branches are covered with snow and look very pretty.

  The poly tunnel fleece cloche is maintaining an overnight temperature of 11C and more seeds have germinated. Spainish onion, leeks and peas in loo rolls (you read it right - peas planted in loo rolls to aid germination and get a good long root. Last season I did not have any garden peas germinate at all!) and the poly tunnel itself is above freezing. The last of the winter vegetables the garden (broccoli, curly kale, beetroot, leeks, a few carrots, parsnips and turnips are looking a little sad.