We’ve had a really mild winter this year, I’m not sure if it’s saving all the snow and ice and ickiness until February, or whether it’s just going to carry on being a bit rainy and windy and dreary until spring. I have my fingers crossed for the latter.
As it’s not been too horrible, we’ve been able to start on sorting out the garden a little bit…boring chores like turning compost heaps and cutting back the huge climbing rose, and general other tidying tasks. AND! moving the greenhouse!!! I love it in its new location, it’s actually on soil now so I can plant in it, and it gets the sun pretty much all day long.
I did some sawing and drilling and put a couple of beds in, but will need the assistance of awesome boyfriend to help dig in some sand and compost before it’s plantable in, though given the short work he made of digging over the plot and the trench for the base, I’m sure it’ll only take him 10 minutes or so.
I really want to plant EVERYTHING RIGHT NOW, but I’m resisting as it’s just too early for the majority of things. I contented myself with making a spreadsheet listing all the seeds we have and when they need planting and planning which heirloom varieties I want to try this year. So far I think my list is hugely tall climbing peas, some sort of climbing french beans, various tomatoes, and watermelon. Everything else will be leftovers from previous years, or from super cheap packs we got at the garden centre. I do like the idea of collecting seeds year on year and never having to buy them ever again, but I want to start off with easy stuff that isn’t hard to collect and doesn’t need hand pollinating or separating from everything else to prevent crazy inedible cross-breeds.
After entering the insane amount of seeds into my spreadsheet, I noted that there were a couple of things that were okay to plant in january, so I did! My dining room windowsill is now sporting trays of aubergines, early tomatoes for the greenhouse, onions, and various herbs. We planted autumn onion sets here and at J’s plot, so hopefully with the seeds I planted today, and more seeds planted directly into the ground in a couple of months, we’ll have a good crop of onions that lasts us all autumn and winter.
I also planted some sunflowers a week or so ago, we are going to have a giant sunflower growing competition, which we will both win, as we’ll end up with lots of yummy sunflower seeds to eat.
