Rain all weekend but none of it ever came, resulting in quite pleasant weather and time spent both in the garden and a the allotment.   I cut down the buddleia and eucalyptus tree in the garden and bagged all the bits up which I took to the plot the next day.   Clocks changed which meant it felt very early to be at the plot on Sunday where I burnt a load of old cuttings and weed roots, small bits of the cuttings the day before but being just cut meant a huge amount of smoke and not a lot of burning, and so I left that for another week.

In the afternoon we all returned withe the aim to plant strawberries from Wilkos that we bought a couple of weeks ago, and to sow some seeds in pots and put under some fleece to keep them safe from the cold for a while.   The strawberries were just bundles of roots of which I am expecting to suddenly spring into life over the next couple of weeks.  They looked all pretty sorry and so I hope something comes of them.   I  thought we had bought enough for both raised beds but I could only fill the one, so maybe we shall buy some more for the second bed.

Meanwhile, we sowed:

• broad beans
• broccoli
• sprouts
• leeks

Put the pots in the “cold frame”  and covered it in fleece and netting.   I am thinking the end of March is not too early for this sort of thing.  During the summer we will build a real cold frame which will help protect things better.

Courgette seeds from last weekend sowed indoors are starting to show, nothing yet from the 10 year old sweet pea seeds….