A super sunny weekend which promised likewise for the weekend but turned out not to be. That was my thoughts when I looked out the window and wondered if I should stay at home or go and do lots of planting. I made it out in the end, cold and cloudy start to the day. As the morning progressed it remained cloudy but got pretty warm, perfect for putting out small plants.

The parsnips I started off in loo rolls had all germinated and were now looking like maybe I had left them a bit too long before I planted them out, all rather annoying. I made deep holes for each one and all but four were planted out giving us millions of parsnips later on in the year if they don’t end up being a twisted mess when we pull them up.

Cucumber plants too had suddenly doubled in size and so I planted out 3 or the 6 pots for these outdoor cucumbers that are meant to creep along the ground much like a butternut squash I suppose. It will be interesting to see just what does happen.

A number of plants in the seed trays at home had suddenly grown over the last week. I had doubted leeks were going to show but now I have millions, I am sure I do the same each year. Likewise I was very worried about the yellow beans, french beans, and runner beans, all which were showing bad rates of germination. The recent cold weather has maybe been holding them back because after last week’s warm weather and bright sun, it looks like I might have millions of beans during the summer too. Not a problem, it was one of the crops last year that we wished we had grown more of, there is always room for beans somewhere.

Likewise with peas, an initial sowing of 7 plants looked a bit feeble when I planted them out the other week and so I sowed another 14 and half of these looked ready to plant out, the second half will be next week.

Rainbow chard had been a surprise last year and part of this year too as we were still eating it way into spring. I had sown some more this year and I needed to find some space to plant it out today. I did so between the carrots and the blackcurrents. I’m not too sure where the courgettes will go now, I’ll worry about that when the time comes.

General tidying up and watering:

• loads of strawberries growing
• gooseberries and currents having more of a chance since I covered them to keep the birds off
• picked loads of over wintered broad beans, larger pods now and still lots on their way
• small pickings of rhubarbs, its gone past its best but still some weeks left
• some small radish from the second sowing
• lettuce that I stripped back last weekend had all grown back, so I did the same again

I wasn’t finished when I got home, I sowed for undercover growing:

• multi-coloured beetroot
• kale
• purple sprouting

I re-potted:

• celebrase
• cacti (not strictly allotment related but have been meaning to do it for ages
• half of the tomatoes for growing at home, the other half will go to the allotment

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