Wednesday 5th March 2008

What a fantastic day. Sun shining, so lottie time this afternoon.

Threw down some lunch and raced up the plot, armed with parsnip seeds and lettuce seedlings.

(Forgot to take the chitted new potatoes......duh me.)

A good 3 hours was had. Dug over one of my raised beds, that had had sweetcorn and the squash frames in it last year, and the soil was lovely. Weeds came out easily too.

Moved the black covering with the sweetcorn holes onto the squash patch where they will be growing this year.

Put glass panes over the top end of the bed, in which today I have sown parsnips.

Was a bit lacking in 'snips this year so hopefully this lot will germinate well. Did 4 rows.
Opened up the cloche made from old plastic greenhouses and polytunnel plastic,(put up on the 10th Feb) and planted in lettuce seedlings. No sign of the carrots yet. Have to say was pleased to see some ex slugs though after my sprinkling of slug pellets, which I really am loathed to use, but figured under cover they will be away from the wildlife.

The broad bean plants looked very healthy today, just hoping this is the year I actually get a good crop, am going to sow more in about a weeks time outside.

Pootled around the plot, repaired some of the wood for the beds and generally had a great time.

Put the butternut frames back up, and had to do my usual repairs, thank goodness for battery powered drills. Have laid a thick layer of wonderful manure, then covered it with thick cardboard, which I am going to plant the squash through, bit of an experiment really.

In the polytunnnel at home this week, I planted some International Kidney seed potatoes in the border, as well as a row of peas, Kelvedon Wonder I think.

It is getting quite choka block in there as, as soon as the seedlings are coming up in the house they get moved out there.

Bought a few shrubs from our local nursery Jordans on Sunday, to try and create a jungle type area in front of the poly, to hide it, so they are resting in the poly.
Sister-in-law came to stay and bought me a tree fern for my birthday, am over the moon as I have always wanted one, just hope I don't kill it.

Have had major frosts the last 2 nights, so have been covering everything in the poly with fleece, so far it seems to be doing the trick. With the sun out during the day, the temperature really gets up in there, so it is doing what it is supposed to.

The pond has been frozen solid every morning, and so of course has the frogspawn, will be interesting to see if it does anything.