A Robin and a Pig

I bought some Organic carrot seeds on the way back from Rosie's on Sunday afternoon. When I got home, I raked over the patch again to make a seed bed for them and watered it with some seaweed fertiliser solution. I'll probably start sowing them in a week or so. Once I'd finished raking, my little Robin friend flew down to eat some worms I'd dragged up. He's been down before, but this time he came really close. No fear.


After raking, I dug drills for my first two spuds which have been chitting in the shed. One had really long roots, but few shoots, the other, longish shoots, but few roots. It'll be interesting to see which sprouts quicker, although I'm not too sure which one was which now.

I then thinned out my radish shoots which survived the frost and have got a little bigger.

Finally I filled some yoghurt pots with compost and put some tomato and sprout seeds in, before leaving them on a tray in the bathroom. Following instructions in my book, I placed brown paper over them and put them in a plastic bag (instead of under glass). No sign of life so far (Weds) so not sure if they're not wet/hot enough or just slow. Will have to see...

By the way, when I went for a walk with Rosie earlier in the day, we made friends with this huge pig!

Milk bottle cloches

This is probably being a bit over protective, but with icy cold weather and snow predicted, I made some D-I-Y cloches out of old milk bottles the other night to protect my radish seedlings. I also put some newspaper down on the newly sown seed. Now my veg patch looks more like a rubbish tip, but it's better to be safe than sorry and I can probably reuse the cloches for starting other seeds.

Chitting spuds and radish shoots!

Found my first shoots coming up on wednesday night after work! Went out with Rosie and to find them just poking through in the torchlight. By Saturday they were this big and loads more had also shown up! Don't they look happy? :)


I used the morning to sow more parsnips and onions, as well as plant bits of garlic at the end of the patch. I'm sowing parsnips and onions every two weeks so they hopefully don't all come at once.


I also had a look at my potatoes which I got from Henry and have been 'chitting' in my shed since feb. Everyone looks at me funny when I tell them this, but all it means is that they're growing roots before I plant them. They look pretty happy too, but still need another few weeks.


We've got some frost forecast for early this week, I hope it doesn't kill everything....

Sowing

Had the day off work on Friday, so I took the opportunity to take some photos in the morning and sow my first seeds in the afternoon. Did a row of parsnips (white gem), a row of onions (half hystar, half red baron) and half a row of salad onions. I mixed radish seeds in with the parsnips and onions to act as row markers, because both take a long time to germinate and the radishes will be pulled before they're ready.


I used some seaweed fertiliser to prepare the seed bed, which I had raked over last weekend in preperation. For each row i used two sticks linked with string to mark it out and a trowel to make a 'drill' to plant in. I spaced the seeds out as it says in the book, using a tape measure to get the distances (maybe a bit odd, but I've worked as a surveyor and old habbits die hard!).

Can't wait to see my first shoots!