The weather has not been friendly toward getting out and gardening
until now. Many jobs have been waiting to be done, on hold until
the rain stopped for a while and the ground started to dry.
The vegetable beds at the front of the house had become completely
overgrown with grass and weeds. I ended up hand digging the whole lot
with a garden fork. It took me several days, doing it between showers
and giving my back a rest.
With the two beds at the front dug and the pathways compacted between
them. Yesterday I planted 16 potatoes, these had been left to sprout
for a couple of weeks and then the larger ones cut in half and left
for the cuts to dry out. The raised bed was tidied and some Lollo
Rosso lettuce which had been growing through the winter moved to make
room at the back for the 6 Ailsa Craig tomatoes. We had enjoyed the
Ailsa Craig tomatoes much more than the Gardeners Delight last year
and so this year decided to plant more of them. 4 Gardeners Delight
were also planted out into large pots.
This morning I finished digging the first of the two vegetable beds
at the back of the house. On completion I planted 80 onion sets, this
turned out to be around one and a half rows. The rest of the row I
sowed with leek seeds. The ones I planted in the tray in Feb have all
but withered and died, maybe two survived. Two rows of Nantes carrot
seed and a row of Boltardy Beetroot seed were also sown.
After a conversation with one of the Radio club members on Monday
nights club net, I discovered that most likely the onion sets that
were pulled out last year were caused by a blackbird looking for bugs
underneath. To try and avoid that this year I have temporarily
covered the sets as best I can and also put some bean canes with
shiny metallic flags on to try and scare away any birds.
Tomorrow I will plant another 16 potatoes in the remaining free
vegetable bed at the front of the house. That only leaves me to dig
the second bed behind the house and decide what I will grow there.
