I went down to dig up the dead stalks but just as I was about to put my fork in, I noticed growth! I must have pulled up the only dead one. The little green shoots are not particularly numerous, but are well scattered. Some are right by the stalks, others have come up from the roots, which extend quite a way from the stalks underground.I imagine this will be like kerria – great until it isn’t!

There are several big autumn cornflowers in the beds. This is the first flower bud I’ve seen.

I did a bit more finger-picking weeding on the ledge and then scattered some compost with seeds into the barer spots. I’ve put a bunch of morning glory seeds down the back edge and thrown them into the no man’s land of the fences and up around the back of the apple tree. I can’t plant in those harder spots, but if they’d like to grow, they’re welcome to.

This year, the slightly weak orange geum has bucked up and is the first to flower – though it’s doing so towards the fence.

I did the first potting on of the season, moving the uchiki kuri, the courgettes and one JBL into bigger pots. I’ve also separated half the morning glories from the first tray into another tray. Hopefully they’ll all be solid plugs by the time I can put them out.

The first cucumbers have all gone bent in strange ways. I hope that the backups might avoid this.

I’ve bought new pumpkin seeds as I don’t like how leggy they are, but I only have one spare seed.

I just really wish the tomatoes would buck up a bit. They’re very behind my usual point. The damaged ones have their true leaves, but are still small. The replacements are slowly appearing.

I went to the plot in the afternoon. I dug down to the roots of the plants I was given for the front bed, but there’s no sign of life from them at all. So I’m pretty sure I’ve just got architectural sticks. I’ll take them out and inspect each one, but it looks like I need something else for the front bed.

I did another bunch of good grass removal and verbena cutting. Most of the grass is now gone from the left hand side, though I’m sure plenty has come up where I’ve already been.

I’ve donated my obelisk to C & V. I have no more use for it and it’s only got a year left in it. They might just use it for canes, but it’s now no longer my storage or destruction problem.

My new salvia has gone in near the elder. There’s still some clearing to do here, but I should be able to work around the plant ok. Hopefully it doesn’t mind competing with the tree when it wakes up.

I did a rough dig of Bed 10 and a full dig of Bed 5, into which I sowed a row of Red Vulcan chard.

Neither bed had any weeds to speak of so digging was pretty easy.

I sowed a tray of calendula at home. I’m seeing lots of the ones at the allotment now giving up and I’m also conscious of needing to fill space if things like my delphiniums get eaten before they can get established.

I did a second dig of Bed 10 and sowed two half rows of beetroot and carrot. Then over in the smaller bed, I sowed a row of Bright Lights radish. There’s room for another row of something in this bed later.

I did a bunch more couch grass weeding down the left hand side, cutting the verbena down as I went. It’s starting to come to life now, but I’m not sure it’ll be huge. I’ve cut down the veronica too and it’s looking ok. There’s still a bit of a physostegia remaining, but no sign of the one that died.

There’s another dead foxglove on the left, but I found a really healthy one over by the trellis. Shows that the poorly ones really are hopeless. Might be time to get myself a few replacement tall perennials.

 

 

I’ve sown all my beans now:

8 x runner beans
5 x green French beans
6 x borlotto beans

I’ve resown all the cucumbers too, as I’m not too confident about the current seedlings. They’re ok, but not a great shape.

I’ve done another tray of morning glory to follow on from these. I’ve no idea how many I’ll need for the fences, but it’ll be lots.

The grow house has gone up now, but the nights are still cold enough that I’m ferrying everything in overnight.

A lovely sunny day, but the air is still quite cold. We’ve done some good errands: bags of mown Surrey leaf mould have now been taken to the plot, along with the new broccoli cage. We spread the last old bag of wood chip under the tree to cover up the holes and make space for the leaf mould by the shed.

After lunch I did a load of grass weeding from Plum Corner, down to one of the delphiniums. That produced a whole bucket of weeds and grass. There’s still another section to go until I meet up with the cleared bit of the other end.

At least one of the foxgloves has died. Its leaves are dry and brown and a lump came away, so it might be root rot. I’m not sure my verbenas are going to do much again. They might just be a bit past it now. The delphiniums keep getting eaten, but keep fighting back too. There are some huge cornflowers and still lots of geums.

I’ve been putting some of my trays outside in an effort to stop them running off and getting leggy indoors. Yesterday’s cold air was too much for my tomatoes though and suddenly they looked very sorry for themselves. I brought them in and put them under the lights, but they didn’t really recover.

I’ve resown all the ones where the droopy leaves stuck to my finger when I ran it underneath the  leaf. Some looked a bit sad, but didn’t stick to me, so I’m giving them a few days to prove themselves indoors. I shouldn’t have put them out in such cold air when they were so small.

The broccoli in the same tray might go leggy again indoors, but if it does, I’ll just resow again in separate pots so they can do their own thing. I have lots of seed.

I made a start on digging the grass out of the mint, but ultimately decided that I won’t put the mint back. The grass on the other side is couch grass, so it’ll only come back. There were also a number of hawthorn seedlings in there, with cress and so on. I’ve got the bulbs I dug up in a temporary pot at home while I decide what to do with them. There’s more to dig up, but this is a good start and the rest will need more careful extraction.

I’ve had a look at the elder and I’m hopeful it might be coming back to life. The black buds seem to have little red dots on them now.

In the afternoon I did some seed replacing and sowing. I’ve resown the broccoli and cosmos, as they’d shot off. I’ve also redone one Ferline and one sweetcorn, as they’d not appeared. Other things are growing quite well. The trays that are outside are starting to wake up too.

I’ve now sown:

• a tray of French Marigold (my seed!)
• 4 x Mars pumpkins
• 3 x Jack Be Little

All the beans will be done next week, once I’ve fetched the root trainer from the shed. Then that’s  pretty much everything sown until we’re into the direct sowing.

When I got to the plot this morning, there was a mystery hole in Bed 3, which I refilled. One geum flower was almost open in the triangle too. One pear blossom is open, but the apple tree has a way to go yet.

I weeded all along the trellis bed and filled in the field vole holes. The one everlasting pea I was concerned about is actually still there and coming back to life, so hopefully it will recover and not be burrowed through again. The purple loosestrife is coming back really nicely.

I took out more grass and cress, and some lemon balm along the right and in the triangle. I can see signs of the bear’s breeches coming back. A number of calendulas have been pulled up as they were completely dead after a few years of pretending to be perennial. So I will definitely sow some replacements.

I stopped when I got to the mint. It’s sprouted at ground level, but you can see how overrun it is with grass at this point. The mint in the front bed is nothing like this. So I think it’s time to dig this up. What mint survives can stay, but all these weeds need to be stopped before they get even worse.

Still no sign of life from the stalks, but look at that over-wintered cornflower!

Good Friday and time for some gardening at last. Having had a bit of a rake through my Normandy oak leaves, I found a lot of twigs and sprouting acorns, which confirmed the need to mow them. Mum and I mowed the content of all the bags and we’ll repack them in new sacks at the plot. The leaves have already done some good decomposition, so it might only be a year before the leaf mould is ready to use.

Before I could sow seeds I needed to make my compost mix. I hydrated the coir, mixing two blocks with half a bag of peat-free compost. I think it’s made a pretty good mix of material and nutrients. This amount was enough for more than 6 trays.

I’ve now sown:

 

3 x Cucumber – Burpless Tasty Green
2 x Courgette – Soleil
3 x Uchiki kuri
4 x Broccoli – Tenderstem
9 x Sweetcorn
3 x Cherry tomato – Gold nugget
4 x Plum tomato – Roma
5 x Tomato – Ferline

8 x Dwarf sunflowers
10 x Nasturtium – Orchid Flame
10 x Zinnia – Jazz
40 x Morning glory (2 per cell)
4 x Cosmos – Peppermint rock
4 x Rudbeckia – Chocolate orange (last chance to see if these will ever germinate)
8 x Snapdragons – Sachmo
5 x Malope
15 x Cornflowers (hardy)
5 x Californian poppies (hardy)