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red wrote:most of my woad seedling have been eaten by slugs. if i spot some blue slugs i will know the culprits

If mine hang on I'll fetch you some red

great. I still have a few... at the mo!

red wrote:saw about 2 flakes of snow.. colder today than yesterday - had suncream on yesterday!

sowing more peas in modules as my experiment with direct sowing was a feast for something. despite the netting. all these lovely teeny shots and the pea part eaten...

so bad to module sowing for me! also sowed some gherkin.

It'll be the mice Red, I suffer from th elttle blighters. Couple of tips:

They don't eat broad beans, but do the peas, I have them planted together
If you get the peas that can be sown late in the year for early peas, they don't eat them, and they are too well grown by the time the mice come round...well its works for my mice
Make your shallow trench, water it, put the pea's in and cover them with chimney soot, then the soil. They hate the soot and wont dig them up....but they do let them grow then nip out the shoots.
Soak the peas over night in chillie oil, this has worked for some of our lottie people, I did mine for a couple of hours and didn't work!.

Finally I'm now back to module growing, or if I get some gutter, you can fill it with soil (elastic band over bags on at the ends.) plant the peas in it, then when you are ready to plant them you dig a trench the same size as your gutter and slide in the soil/pea plants.

thanks for the tips. think i shall stick to module sowing.. worked last year.

pulled radishes from the greenhouse, and picked rocket - from last years plants.. I did not expect them to last another year..

and ate them in my sarni for lunch!

Well braved the weather and got my spuds in on Saturday. Did a bit of weeding yeasterday and planted in the propagator sweet corn,pumpkin,squash. Planted in cold (very!) greenhouse red cabbage,celery, french climbing beans (cobra and blue lake)

checked on the onions in trays in light area of shed, wished for water wings as plot very wet after snow, bought packet of beans, dreamed of having a greenhouse so that I could bring things along in the early part of northern spring - came home

Sowed broad beans in compartmentalised seed tray with a cover and put them in the cold frame (with the shallots which are sprouting away merrily). Overkill, you may think - but I was happily watching the mice and voles skipping around earlier yesterday.

Onions are in, we were going to plant beans today but its raining, so Rick is working on the new woodshed instead.

We've been transplanting comfrey and Rick weeded and transplanted the garlic.

Its a very cold Spring here so far and I feel like I'm running behind already.

Hopefully one more year and we'll get it right

Lois

Green Rosie wrote:

Millymollymandy wrote:Got all my spuds in this morning!

Grrrrrr - only got 3 rows in so far but OH has dug over the area (with his digger) so I hope to get them in soon.

Spuds in now + more broad beans and peas

I planted two blueberry bushes yesterday. Because of our soil, I had to dig a bit wider and deeper than usual, then fill the hole with a lower ph potting soil to make the blueberries happy.

I used the soil I dug out to fill the containers we'll be using for the tomatoes when the frost danger is past.

started sowing the spuds. bit later than last year.. things got away from us.

I have 2 lettuces germinated and up already and looking back I only sowed them last Thursday.

Since then we have had frost, hail, sleet and snow!!!

Will get onions in tomorrow.

Only got one more row of spuds to put in and the broad beans I`ve grown in root trainers are about ready to go in.
Haven`t been on the plot this week as I did my back in just pulling open the bottom drawer to put the ironing away. Eeeek the pain!
OH was very sympathetic but said it was a good thing that I`d actually finished the ironing first.

Started tilling the main garden today. Found it to be still too wet to do much.

At the house garden, I planted some chicory for salads and rabbit food and set out a few lettuce plants. Some of the lettuce plants went into the containers that the tomatoes will be going in later. Hopefully the lettuce will be ready in time.