Selfsufficientish.com

I made a start today with seed chitting. Started off 2 varieties of French beans, one dwarf and one climbing, 2 varieties of tomatoes and a couple of courgettes. All are destined for my heated greenhouse as it was a reasonable success last year, and I still have about a quarter of a tank of left over paraffin.
Sometime next week I will start sowing some lettuce, spring onions and carrots in that greenhouse to take advantage of the heat too.
I'm looking forward to having an almost empty big greenhouse this year, which at the moment just has a 10 foot row of first early potatoes and a small twig of a young grape vine. The potatoes will be finished by the end of April and will then be filled with a variety of different things. Strawberries in the front, tomatoes in the middle and the empty back bed will be filled with sweetcorn and anything else I fancy trying there. That bed is 20' x 4' with a growing height of 10' so almost anything is possible

I put winter onion sets and garlic sets on the allotment in raised beds under netting in November knowing that I'd be off the road training the repaired knee when they should go in if doing spring ones. That's the extent of growing for now.

We've not got round to the tomatoes yet. Helping the gal pack and move have taken over for the moment. So next weekend it'll be then.

I am so envious of your heated greenhouse! Would love to see a photo. We are in US, buying land in West Virginia and working to homestead.

Cheneybaltz wrote: ↑Sun Jan 03, 2021 3:29 pm I am so envious of your heated greenhouse! Would love to see a photo.

I took some photos last year, together with the hydroponics system in my bigger greenhouse.
You can see them here viewtopic.php?f=55&t=30047

Look for my posts about half way down the 1st page.

Today I mowed my top lawn. Not the first time I've got the mower out this early as one year I mowed the lawn every month of that year, but a fairly rare occurrence none the less.
That is one of the downsides of living here, the grass doesn't stop growing. Good for the beef farmers but not so good for lazy gardeners.
Weather has been good for the last couple of weeks, unbroken sunshine most days and no rain for at least 3 weeks. It did get a bit chilly last night though with a hard frost (for here) with an overnight low of -0.7c , but even that is welcome as maybe it will reduce the pests.

Excuse me but it was -7.0 here last night. That's just plain cold and not growing weather.

No mowing needed here, either! Ice on the road again this morning... Had to chisel a leek out of the ground for my soup.

Flo wrote: ↑Sat Jan 09, 2021 4:14 pm Excuse me but it was -7.0 here last night. That's just plain cold and not growing weather.

Ah, I remember those sorts of temperatures well when I lived in Kent, except in those days it was 19°F
Hope is maybe on the way Flo, overnight we had another hard frost, but then had light rain and a fast increase in temperature. Now it's sunny and a relative balmy 12.8°c

Odsox wrote: ↑Sun Jan 10, 2021 2:12 pm Now it's sunny and a relative balmy 12.8°c

12.8??? That's 2 degree more than in my bedroom, where I sit huddled in my duvet...

just harvested the garlic, red and white onions - they did really well this year with the mostly mild spring; apart from the leeks which took exception to the early spring 30 C days and bolted but I will save the seed.
Blackberries are fruiting madly, raspberries yet to start; soft greens (except sorrel and rocket)finished and with temps rising to 35-40 C now I won't bother planting more. Toms have also had a great year but we have failed dismally with capsicum and zucchini. First spuds to be dug in a couple of weeks and late crop sown post onions and garlic

I really thought I would have had no problem growing lettuces, last summer. They were in the shade and in the North Scottish Highlands we don't get that much heat! They obviously thought differently as, along with the radishes, which put on very little root, they bolted quite quickly.

However, I discovered why the trend for eating radish seed pods that was about a few years ago was just that, a trend. They're rubbish - completely tasteless and not a very nice texture.

Got up to walk round as the knee gets like that in the middle of the night - well somewhere near dawn or something. Anyway the snow has settled so not gardening weather. But the son-in-law raided the allotment shed yesterday and found a dozen potatoes from last year's crop that will keep for starting off in tubs this year. With being down to one allotment, the hard standing is going to have to be used well. Luckily have managed to find enough really big tubs to use for growing spuds.

We grew all our spuds in tubs last year - not a mammoth crop but enough for our, limited needs, and some currently chitting for this years crop.

I'm very pleased to announce our first chilli seedling of the season is through, very quick - we only sowed them last Sunday. A Serrano - good all rounder.

We got 5kg potatoes for free at work... (The institute I work for is quite big in potato breeding - this was Mayan Gold.) And I eat so few, I'm sure they'll last me all year!