Ssssshh!

    It has not rained all week. Ok, that has done it. Anyway no rain means time to get busy! Priority was to get the potatoes in. Earlie's, second earlie's and main crop. Mission 
accomplished! All seed potatoes planted despite the efforts of the chickens to dig them up once sown! Varieties - a popular french early variety, ANOE, second early my favourite, Belle de Fontenay and main crop, another favourite of mine, DESIREE. My tomato seed germination so far is proving to be very poor. Typical. As for cabbage? I am off to the market to buy plants.

Digging potato trenches

   The parsnip seed have done nothing so I have resown. The seed must be good because another person I gave some to have had success in germinating them! Also transplanted some self seeded parsnip seedlings in more of an experiment than any hope of them taking.  I have sown the first lot of mang tout. That annual chore of grass cutting has started. First crop of the year....18Jour radish! Pulled a few from the poly tunnel. Last year more out of a casual hope that any feeling of sucess I took some rosemary cuttings. Of course, sods law, they all took! I have,oh twenty four, very healthly looking rosemary cuttings. Transplanted four to one of the herb beds and four to pots to give away.
   On the animal front there has been a change of the guard with the chickens. Poor old Bonaparte got way laid by my daughters cat and was out of action for a couple of hours. I thought I had lost him but he recovered, however, in the time he was out of circulation Mr. Chick made his move and is now top coq. I found them fighting the next day, neck feathers up and really going for it but Mr. Chick was not giving his ground and now Bonaparte is the outcast. Sheep are being sheep enjoying the spring sunshine and newly growing grass.
  So at last it is  go go go and I need to get on before everything overtakes me which it will do if I do not persist!

Need the rain to stop

   Ok has the weather improved? Barely, however, I sit here looking out of the window and what do I see? SUNSHINE! Forecast is good over the next few days so here is hoping to getting most of the spuds in! Unfortunately I pulled a back muscle but it is on the mend.
   I have transplanted Great Lakes lettuce to individual modules as I have with Bedfordshire Champion onions. The tomatoes are starting to show and I expect a flood of newly germinated tomato seedlings in the next few days! First lot of Batavia Blonde lettuce plants bought from the local market (Aigurande) and transplanted into a poly tunnel bed. I looked to see when I did this last year and I was within a day! Ha! Radish in the poly tunnel thinned out and some winter savoy type cabbage sown into modules. No sign of my summer cabbage germinating yet. 
   The sheep are acting like spring lambs. They are running about, prancing and head butting each other. The chick is still with us and Mrs Buffy is being an attentive mum. The chickens are doing just fine.
   Right I need to get on! Hi Ho Silver! 

Egyptian walking onions 

Foreground broad beans background garlic

Well, almost

   The good start made last week did not last that long. Wind, rain and then days of wind and drizzle was enough to discourage one from doing anything very much outside. Tomato seeds sown in seed trays (all gathered last year) varieties Crimee Noire, Jens Orange, Gardeners Delight, Andine Cornue, Potiron Ecarlate.

Tomato seed on the window ledge

   Also sown Golden Acre and Precoce de Louviers cabbage in modules really with fingers crossed as I do not have that much success with brassicas sown from seed. Moss curled parsley sown in pots last years surviving plants now starting to struggle.
   I did cut some daffodil's and put them up in a vase on the mantle piece. My wife always enjoyed the first daffodil's of the  year.

Left Great Lakes lettuce Right Bedfordshire Championship onions

   The chick is surviving and Mrs. Buffy is proving to be a module mum. Sheep are being sheep and the chickens continue to lay well. Once more they are being annoying in the garden scratching at any disturbed soil. My nice beds end up virtually flat!
   Here is hoping for some better weather to enable me to get on more.

Pace is quickening...

   The pace is now starting to really pick up. It has been a busy week. Lots of forking and weeding done with the onion set and shallot beds made ready and planted! Lots and lots of onion sets! Ha! This year I have planted a french onion set, variety Jaune Paille des Vertus as something different to the usual. The other variety I have planted is Sturon. They did quite well last year and I thought worth any other go. I found a packed of Bedfordshire Champion onion seed in my seed tin so I have also sown those in a seed tray. Nothing venture nothing gained! Also the first lot of lettuce seed sown in a seed tray, variety Great Lakes. Soon be time to buy lettuce plants from the local market. A row of variety Touchon carrots sown and I must remember to sow more in couple of weeks! The early planting in the poly tunnel usually works well. More tidying up done and I have had a bonfire. I have cleared brambles from around the bee hive. I do not know if the bees have survived the winter as it is still generally to cold for them. The asparagus bed has been weeded and some compost added. I also fenced it off to stop the chickens from scratching up the newly disturbed soil looking for worms!
   On the animal front some good news. Our Buff Orpington hen has successfully hatched out an Ixworth chick. She had seven eggs, one was broken and one chick so far. Hoping for a couple more. Hens are laying well, sheep are being sheep! 
   The seed potatoes are in egg trays chitin away! I bought a new variety as a early potato, a french variety called Anoe. Also bought the usual Desiree and I went back to a favourite, Belle de Fontenay.
   First mow of the year done. Not a complete garden but about a third that was just getting too long.
  Plenty to do. More seed sowing over the next week I should think and always there is tidying up.

Mrs Buffy and her Ixworth chick