Wow…that was a quick month! Holidays, finally getting moved in and a few other distractions largely kept us out of the garden, so not too much done. In fairness, the very cold weather in late February and into early March, when the ground was still frozen, did limit what we could do, so not feeling too guilty about it.
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An extravagance saw us purchase a Lidl walk-in greenhouse. The small Aldi one was a real success, but filled up very quickly, so we decided that we could make use of more space. Fortunately, the Aldi one fits perfectly inside the Lidl one, so can be used as extra staging for the time being, and moved back out as a separate greenhouse again if more room is needed..JPG)
The seeds sown last month all appear to be doing very well, with the exception of both tomatoes, which completely failed to germinate. Not sure why – perhaps conditions weren’t great with the cold weather, although the seed used wasn’t particularly new. The only new sowings since the last post is the first herbs (Basil) of the summer – a tray on the windowsill and another in the greenhouse.The peat pots have, sadly, out-performed the toilet roll tubes, with 100% success compared to just 79%. Also, the growth in the peat-pots was substantially better than in the toilet rolls. However, we only had room for 18 peat pots compared to 24 bog-rolls, so the 19 peas in those actually outnumber those in the peat pots, so perhaps something of a hollow victory?
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Next jobs, now that the ground is thawing out, is to get a bed dug for the peas and beans (something of a priority now judging by the size of the seedlings in the greenhouse), sow some more tomatoes, Brussels sprouts and herbs, get the salad bed started and sort out a compost heap. Regarding compost, http://www.wormslovewaste.com/ is a veritable bible for all home composters – we’ll be trying some of the ideas there this summer in our search for perfect compost!
Oh very nice! You have a lot of plants packed in there. How long until you can plant them out?
ReplyDeleteI actually have a large stock of the tp tubes that I have been saving to this very thing. I was so happy to see your picture here. I can see that they have the potential to be problematic, but they are free and they do seem to work. I might just go ahead and try it after all.
ReplyDeleteThanks!
BTW - love your greenhouses. I have the smaller of your two. It works great.
It doesn't take long to run out of room does it ? LOL! I have the small greenhouse and it filled up fast and the rest of the plants are taking over my kitchen now.Your plant are doing well and I find it interesting about your report of germination from the Jiffy pots to the toilet paper holder ones.Have fun with your plants.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your nice comments. We hope to get the peas and beans planted out as soon as we get a bed dug for them - hope to have this by the middle of April, but we'll have to see. The cabbages will probably get pricked out into pots and hardened off in a cold frame until we get a second bed dug - no idea when that'll happen though. Toilet rolls are great, especially for beans. I'm not fully sold on them for peas yet, but will see how the plants perform when out in the bed. Hope to try the next batch of peas in gutters, which will be another interesting comparison.
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