Mid-April and things are picking up

Plants are starting to grow despite the near-freezing nights. There's very little in the front garden right now, since the back is more protected -- just a few herbs and onions. 

I plan to move most or all of my herbs into pots and keep them in the front garden during the season. The onions on the left are bunching ones that have overwintered. The ones on the right are Centurion sets.

I've moved the Honeoye strawberries to the allotment. These are Alice and Florence. Some of them are starting to form flowers, so they can't be transplanted for a while, and will stay here in the back garden for the moment.

I've started several pots of Orla second early potatoes. The ones in this coldframe were the first ones started. It's cold enough at night that I've got to shut the frame. The water bottles help keep the temperature stable, which is helpful since it gets quite warm in the back garden during the day.

These four Orlas are inside the plastic greenhouse, and were started a bit later. I've got one more pot in the house, so I need to do a bit of rearranging.

In the aluminium coldframe, there are the overwintered chives and parley, about 20 lettuce seedlings (All the Year Round), and a couple of pots with radish and carrot seeds. It's been so cold at night that the carrots have taken three or four weeks to germinate.

My neighbour gave me a couple of pieces of glass, and I've set them up as a windbreak that's covered at night with a plastic bag cut to be flat. There are lots of bunching onions and onion sets, two pots of overwintered carrots (got about 250 grams of carrots last week now that they're growing again), a pathetic spinach plant, and the last of the fennel herb plants.

The bed is almost empty now. Next to the house, I've put out sprouted buckwheat to see if I can get a cover crop. That should tide that space over until I can put out some basil and amaranth when it warms up. The green on the left are the remaining mustard and kale plants. To their right are a couple of herbs (oregano and lemon balm) that will be dug up and put into pots.

Lots of the herbs died or were badly hit by the hard winter. Near the wall are the remnants of herbs that I'm trying to root to see if anything can be salvaged.

Outside the wall, next to the compost bin, is the comfrey plant that I saved last year. I found it thrown down next to a path with its roots exposed. It would have died had I not brought it home and planted it. Now it's flowering. My good deed for the year.

The red cabbage planted outside the wall in the autumn has started flowering. I decided to leave it for the bees for the moment.