This weekend I was involved in a couple of local radio gardening phone-ins - Garden Plus on BBC Essex on Saturday and Dougan Does Gardening
on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire on Sunday. It would seem that everyone is
desperate to get growing, probably because of our extremely mild
January weather - is this climate change?
Everyone wants to
start sowing seeds - both inside and out. Now I'm as mad keen as the
next person, but as I told the listeners and as I said in my last blog
- be patient.
In my own garden I decided the time was right to do
some planting out. I have trays of broad beans in the lean-to frame and
lettuce seedlings in the greenhouse, but wanted to get some of them
into the ground.
First things first: it's too cold to grow them
outside unprotected, so armed with a sponge and a bucket of warm water
I cleaned the glass of the growing frame; at this time of year you need
to make the most of the low light levels. With everything nice and
shiny and clean we manoeuvred it into place on the raised beds.
The
next day with the soil slightly warmed, it was time to plant out. There
was enough room in the frame for four rows of broad bean ‘Aquadulce
Claudia' with a row of lettuce ‘Arctic King' in between; they should
crop before the beans get too big and steal all the light.
I was
also hoping to sow some chilli peppers and early brassicas, but time
didn't allow - there was far too much FA Cup football on the telly! But
there's still plenty of time, so nothing to worry about.