Jerasalem Artichoke

These are now planted outside the wall in a bed next to the compost bin, and seem to be settling in well, despite the neighbour cats' best efforts (hence the stone rings).

Spring onions

In the small polytunnel. No sign of the radishes yet.

Greens and bits and pieces in the coldframe

Some komatsuna and kale under the new cloches.

Other things in the coldframe seem to be enjoying the bit of sun we've had lately.



A blurry picture of very small red cabbage seedlings.


Broad beans.

Horseradish

These are sprouting. Who knows how long it will be before we get enough roots to make horseradish sauce!

Borage

All three pots of borage have grown quite a bit. Since I haven't grown it before, I'm not really sure what the ultimate size of the plants will be.

Strawberries

These are really coming along now. I've been a bit worried about them with the sunny days, afraid that the greenhouse is getting too warm for them.

Spinach

Still coming along under the cloche. I need to plant more of this.

Lemon Balm

These are also taking off. I was reading about a lemon balm tea recently that I will have to try once these are a bit bigger.

Honesty

The honesty plants are happily blooming away now. I'm glad to have something nice for bees this early in the season. It appears that they are also a member of the crucifer family.

Mustards under cloches

These are growing fast enough now that we've had some in a stir fry. I think the leaves are a bit tough, and not as nice as when we had them in the autumn. But what do you expect for plants that overwintered outside!

Courgette plant

The courgette from my neighbour, transplanted into a larger pot, and now spending day times outside, and night times in the greenhouse.

Gardeners Delight Tomatoes

The tomato seedlings from my neighbour seem to have survived their traumatic transplanting. I've got six plants now which are now spending day times out in the garden.

Parsley

Several small parsley seedlings.

Potato pots!

Finished planted the last of the chitted potatoes today. Long overdue. We now have a total of 11 potato pots planted.

The first plants are coming along now. They're all from our veg box.

Post Holiday Update

Back from a fortnight's holiday, hoping that most things survived in the garden. The coldframe was covered with fleece while we were gone. From the lack of rain where we were on holiday, I worried that they would dry out. However, typical Peak District rain kept everything well-watered (probably too well-watered, in the case of the spring onions and mustard).

Borage and radish look fine in the coldframe.

On Sunday, we set up a couple of the rigid plastic cloches I got. I moved some mustard seedlings that survived the winter out in the bed into the cloches. They're relatively cold hardy, so we'll see if they take off with a bit of protection.

When we set up the cloches, I worked on shifting the existing herb plants back near the wall (where the slugs will hopefully feast on them first!) This bronze fennel plant is already in the correct position, and has started growing quite well. I hope it's not knocked out by a late frost. This is the first one I've had, and I've read they are a bit tender.


I also took the spinach seedlings that had started and moved them out of the pots, and under one of the cloches today.




On Friday, the new strawberries I had ordered from Thompson and Morgan arrived. I've been moving them into tall pots over the past couple of days. I tried six inch pots last year, but they seemed to dry out too quickly. My hope is to keep them in these larger pots for two years. I mixed half purchased compost with finished compost from the bin. We'll see if that works.

I set up the portable greenhouse to protect them a bit first after the transplant shock. I hope to move them outside in a couple of weeks.



No pictures of the other on-going project: putting chitted potatoes into containers. I've set up three pots so far, each with two potatoes from my organic box. I'll start doing the proper seed potatoes next.

The compost bin has been yielding lots of finished compost for the pots. I've got a second new bin filling now, so hopefully there won't be a shortage later. It seems a bit extravagant to use a 50/50 mix with purchased compost, but I'm trying to reduce my reliance on purchased inputs.