Kitchen Garden Forum

Certainly looking more like spring now

Bunching onions, parsley, coriander, pak choi and lettuce in a corner of the tunnel.

...and with reference Spring....I'll add this of a few wood anemone....

Clive.

Not a sign of my Anemones yet but everything else is changing by the day. Guess we'll get Swallows on this warm gale from the South.
Mad planting out day today; Peas, Feltham First and Delikett; Sweet Peas; Shallots from seed, Matador and Zebrune; Celeriac. Some of these with protection. Waiting a day or two before doing the Onions from seed. Peas and Potatoes in tunnel growing rapidly.

My other half walked the dogs on Sunday morning and saw a swallow...just the one. Has anyone else noticed the lack of cuckoos over the past couple of years?

MW

Nice photos Alan & Clive.
All I have to show at the moment is a nicely dug vegetable patch with rows of string all ready for sowing things, plus a few bush tomato & chilli seedlings on my lounge window sill.

I heard the jetstream was moving North - hadn't realised it was getting lower as well!

Still miserable and cloudy here with frequent showers. However, I managed to get three rows of potatoes planted this morning and some rotavating done

It's nice to actually get something planted

Parsons Jack wrote: It's nice to actually get something planted

Same here, PJ. I planted our first potatoes yesterday: Kestrel, Sante, Rocket and Anya. Jolly glad that they are underground because today everything is being viciously battered by the SW winds! Last week we nearly blew away from the east and now it's from the other direction - you can't win.

The few vegetable plants which are already outside (luckily in the much more sheltered garden rather than on the very exposed allotment) must be really rough to withstand all this wind!

At least the sun is shining and everything in the greenhouse is snug.

It's surprising to see how much things have come on in the last few days of warm and sunshine. Buds on the trees, grass green again and growing, signs of blossom buds on the fruit trees........

Just waiting for the inevitable hard frost which will kill off all the fruit blossom and the flowers on my magnolia stellata which are just opening up !!

I planted my early spuds, onions, peas, runner beans, and broad beans, 7 weeks ago as I was going away for 5 weeks, came back on Monday last week every thing looked dead no sign of anything, a few warm days over the weekend and the only thing not showing as yet are the spuds but I did cover them well and lots of straw and horse manure mixed in so I am hoping they have survived

After a long way away off the forum, health stuff, change of job and a new hobby of canadian canoeing, I thought it would be rude not to say Hi after spending a while on my allotment catching up.

No manure on the plot this winter due to waterlogged allotment track and no chance of getting a tractor on the site.

The plot has twenty bags of mushroom compost stacked up and ready to spread (probably won't go very far) also various items sewn in the plot greenhouse.

The soil itself is still a bit soggy and cold but looking good and half dug hope to crack on with it further this weekend

Nice to be with you all and glad I am still allotmenteering, speak to all soon

Not been brave enough to go on an inspection tour yet after the night we have had. Horrible strong lumpy wind and pouring rain. (1 m/s = 2.23 mph)

I do like the description of a 'lumpy' wind, good word!

I've got my towels pegged very tight to the line this morning as there's a 30mph wind blowing in off the channel. Very fresh! But I agree that all of a sudden things are greening up.

MW

According to Richard Mabey in his book 'Flora Britannica', the Lady's Smock, or the Cuckooflower -

"it's full blooming was an accurate predictor of the first hearing of the cuckoo itself in 10 different locations in 1994".

I say this because on Tuesday on our weekly wildlife walk in the National Botanic Garden of Wales, we spotted the first first one in bud. So maybe in a week or two we hear the cuckoo.