I woke up this morning to a strange noise on the conservatory roof -
a noise that I remembered from a long time ago. What was it? Oh yes,
rain. Rain! I immediately jumped out of bed and shot into the garden -
remembering to put on some clothes first. All the protective covers
over the crops were either removed or opened to let in this precious
downpour.
Where I live in the East Midlands this is the first rain we've had
this month. Last Sunday morning I spent nearly three hours watering -
and this is April! So I wanted to take full advantage of whatever was
falling.
So, what's happening in the Hodge veg garden?
The greenhouse is packed full of young seedlings - brassicas, peas,
sweet corn, runner and French beans. Most of these are bound for the
allotment as soon as they're ready and have been hardened off. The
coldframe is now bursting at the seams with young plants - tomatoes,
peppers (sweet & chilli), aubergines, basil. I know in my last blog
I said we'd got 66 plants and that should be enough (actually more than
enough - Gino from The Pasta Shop will be getting several 'Costoluto
Fiorentino' this year, that's for sure). Well I forgot we hadn't sown
any 'standard' tomato cultivars and I'd forgotten about another pot of
young seedlings that hadn't been potted on. I daren't think how many
plants there are now - but I've started buying the large pots and
compost they'll be growing in; I thought if I did it gradually and over
a month or so the shock to the bank balance wouldn't seem so great.
These extra seedlings have taken up the room vacated by the broad
beans, carrots, beetroot and French beans growing in the Rootrainers;
these have now been planted out into the raised beds. I was heartened
that four of the eight French beans did germinate and they seem to be
growing away happily.
The tray of trial lettuce have also been planted out. I planted a
row of each cultivar in the raised beds, but had five of each of
'Pandero' and 'Freckles' left over, so these have gone into individual
7inch pots.
The potatoes in the plastic sacks are growing well and I've topped
up each one with more home-made compost. And all the seedlings sown
directly in the raised beds are doing well and have been thinned out
once or twice. All that is, except the spring onions. No germination
whatsoever - but then the seed is three years old! Time to go and buy
some more.
And the rewards of our labours are beginning to show; we've got more
purple sprouting broccoli than we can keep up with, we've had the first
of the spring cabbages, the spicy salad leaves are adding a tangy bite
to lettuce leaves harvested from the growing-bag in the glasshouse.
It's all systems go, but at least the rain is doing one of the jobs for me...
Don't forget to let us know how your veg is doing.