It’s amazing how you can just spent hours on your seeds and seedlings and avoid work. I have spent most of this morning sorting out my first seedling work. Now that some are out and enduring their slug test, the rest needed tending.

I potted up the cabbage, tomato and capsicum seedlings and climbing beans into larger pots (reminder to self: bring back more pots from the allotment shed, they are doing no good up there when all my potting takes place in the kitchen) and generally had a good old sort out. Some seedlings came up, others just shivered and huddled and didn’t put on any more growth.

I had to replant whole lots of little seeds: the purple sprouting broccoli, the black tuscany kale, the greyhound cabbage (usually a germination doddle), the cleome spider flowers, the chocolate alpiglossis, the scabiosa black cat, the antirrhinum (is that how you spell it?), the nicotiana and three soya bean seeds.

And I had a good rummage in the seed box. So many more things to plant up this month. Can’t wait.

Well Rino’s dire warnings have had me reach for the five day weather forecast. If there’s a frost, my potatoes are going to take it hard.

Nearly all the rows are up and surging away. I didn’t have time to admire them for long before Rino came along and worried over them. He has a lovely phrase ‘next week’. This usually covers all the seeds he is going to sow, plant or put in his greenhouse. ‘Too early’ is another one. But I persist in being early with my crops and have to keep my hopefully green fingers crossed.

I did grocery shopping before coming up to the allotment this morning, and most of the groceries were for the garden. I am now a proud owner of a case of the cheapest own-brand lager for the slug traps, a jumbo pack of oatmeal (ditto slugs) plus more supplies of food to store out in the shed for when I get the munchies and forget to bring my lunch.

To get to the plot you have to drive along a fairly busy highway and exit rather deftly to the annoyance of drivers behind who don’t expect anyone to do anything but surge along at speed. Today I was thinking of my seedlings and looking behind me to see who was going to get annoyed by my slowing down and imminent exit when the car in front braked suddenly without much warning. I had plenty of time to brake as well, but naturally the force of the breaking meant that all my seedlings in boxes lurched over managed to get crushed by the weight of an 80 litre bag of mini bark chips in the boot.

I could see the stems all bent and crushed and had that usual range of vocabulary reserved for people who have grown plants from seeds, nurtured them to maturity only to see them crushed by an accident in transit. Blue about covers it, and I swore the whole way along the last stretch of road to the allotment cursing my bad luck.

Damage assessment: two dwarf French beans lost half their height and the rest looked bruised. So it’s a salutary lesson (apart from spending more time looking ahead!) and I will plant out the seedlings when they are a bit more juvenile and not so fragile and top heavy. And let the slugs be the only menace in their short lives.

I planted out the peas from cold frame into the gaps, but not chance of the ones germinating in the black guttering. I thought that by placing them on the very top shelf of the shed they would be safe. But no; the mice are tremendous climbers and adventurous. They have eaten the lot. And besides it was rather hot in the shed so not an ideal environment at all. So much for that experiment. Have to wait until I get a greenhouse or a polytunnel for that one.

I saw my neighbours watering with a hose (a rare sight after last year’s drought and hose pipe restrictions) so I am afraid I rather shamelessly asked if I could borrow their hose and fill my bin as well. They brought it over and I had a happy time filling the bin to the top and watering as much of the closest crops that the hose would reach. If I was going to get my own hose to water, it would have to be immensely long as my closest tap is quite a walk. So I shall have to make do with the wheelbarrow and buckets. But who knows? Maybe it will rain a lot this year.

Once I had done with the watering and splashing about, it was time to plant up the dwarf French beans.
This is to be the new regime so I have to set out the laborious task here in full. Just once. The weed proof membrane has been put down and secured in place (a bit lumpy underneath, but I’m hoping it won’t ruin the chance of happy crops). Next you need to line up the row where the plants will go; cut the fabric with scissors into a cross at the appropriate intervals, scoop out the soil (quite damp, which is lovely) and reach for your plant. Fill with some compost, plant the seedling, cover with more soil and compost, firm down and sit back.

Next comes the first grocery item – the oatmeal. Sprinkle it around the little plant as a ‘slug distractor’ food. Realise that you need to water in the whole thing first, scrape off the oatmeal, water madly, and then add the oatmeal again. At a suitable distance dig another hole in the fabric, place a deep glass jar flush with the surface of the soil, pour in the beer.

There is no way anyone could be tempted by the stuff: it’s warm and cheap and not for the connoisseur. Fill it to the brim. Step back and admire and get on with the rest.

I planted up 12 red cabbage seedlings, the brocoletto 7 plants (some damaged from the car) and set up the net for the cabbage patch. On the package it says it measures five metres wide and I doubted it would stretch over the bamboo can supports. It does. But you have to secure it rather snugly and hope it doesn’t ping back off its supports.

I took the fleece off the potato beds and tried to work out how to earth them up. I stood contemplating for ages and just felt that there was so much to do everywhere and didn’t know where to start. When this usually happens I just launch into the first thing I see. But today that was the shed. I was late and had to change clothes and get home. The potatoes would have to wait another day – it was too hot and I had spent way too much time planting out the cabbages. Hope Rino’s dire predictions don’t come true.

Oh yes, it’s a jungle in here. My little seedlings are burgeoning. It’s going to be planting out time this week. The cabbage, brocoletto and dwarf broad beans are well on the way. I dread subjecting them to the mercies (or merciless actions) of the slugs. But they have to go sometime. And there Have Been Mutterings about the state of our living room. It’s rolling in pots of seedlings in various stages of growth. Too many. Time to set them off in the world.

I received in the post today a little fat bag of seeds from the Australasian Plant Society. Oh my, they do look exciting. Just 20 little white waxy packets of seeds with odd instructions. Most of them I follow, but here’s one that is in secret botanists’ code: Euc paciflora ssp niphophila. Vic Mt Hotham 1600m stratify 4 wks. I know it’s the packet of seeds from the eucalyptus pauciflora.  But must investigate what stratify 4 weeks means.  We only have French / English dictionaries in the house right now; my big horticultural ones are in storage and I know that if I go into the nether regions of the internet I will be in there for hours having a happy browse.

Pause. See no self discipline. I did search out and the seeds are now in the fridge. And will stay there the four weeks as specified on the pack.

Back from a trip to France: on the way back I was fretting mildly about whether anything survived a week away. It’s the usual scenario for gardeners during the seedling season: drop bags, race upstairs and look at what I hoped wasn’t a field of carnage. No. Things are a bit dry but extant. Hurrah.

I gave all the little pots glugs of water and had a good inspect.
What has sprouted? Plenty of capsicums, the nicotiana, the cabbage, the climbing beans.
What has thrived? The brocoletto and the extra broad beans.
What is still lurking in the dormant stage? The parsnips, some of the trickier flowers like the Cleome spider flower, but I was warned it might take ages to appear and the purple sprouting broccoli. If I wasn’t such an optimist I would say that not a single parsnip seed has germinated.
What is dead? One of the dwarf beans was crushed somewhat by the curtain and didn’t make it. Such a waste. But as I have to grow so many extra plants to take account of slug attack, it shouldn’t ruin my plans to lose one or two at this early stage.

Now that the little seedlings are pushing out of their jiffy pots it was time to get some of them into bigger pots. It’s always a fiddly time and you just hope that you don’t mess up. It makes you appreciate just how patient you have to be at this early stage. I set to work on the larger of the dwarf French beans which were positively seeking newer pastures by growing out of the base of the root trainers and found snug homes in large yoghurt pots.  The brocoletto were moved into larger pots and even some of the flower seedlings were ready to move up. So in all you could say that the first successful potting on operation completed: three cornflowers have made it from the jiffy stage to the small pot size. And all three seem to be growing nicely. Boy is that a relief.

This afternoon I shall go up to the allotment and inspect. It’s about 20C here so the trip there should be very revealing. Bet there are weeds everywhere.

So what’s up? The weeds are up, the onions are up (that’s a relief), 30% or so of the them anyway. The garlic is growing tall and the broad beans are about eight inches tall. (Unlike Rino’s verdant bushes – but then he did plant them in November.)

Only about 15% of the peas seem to have survived the mouse feast. But perhaps they are just slow. The rhubarb is green and growing, and about a foot tall. There are plenty of daffodils and grape hyacinths under the apple trees; the largest tree has plenty of green shoots, and the little one has just a few on the very tips.

It’s odd re-reading my entries from a year ago – I was all gung ho for chopping the trees down. What was I thinking? I guess I was in a frenzy of control and slash and burn. And the poor tree did lean at a very mordant angle. But I’m learning; things survive. Let’s see if it blooms this year.

There are no potato plants poking any heads up: but that’s fine. I still have fleeces all over the crop and you couldn’t see under them anyway.  The sweet peas are still alive at the bean frame. But looking rather anaemic and sorry for themselves. But then, when you have the slug colony that I support, you are just thrilled they are still alive.

In the cold frame I seem to have some brocoletto and cabbage that survived the freeze. They are looking very desiccated, but a quick slosh of water and they seem to have revived. Wonky growth mind you. I seem to recall that happened last year with the cabbage as well. Must try to be a bit neater with their first stages of growth. Only a few of the broad beans are up which is odd. And two of the dwarf French beans are up, but not as chipper as the ones I grew at home.

I decided to plant out the few of the broad beans that were grown in root trainers in the cold frame. They don’t seem to get that much advantage under Perspex, so they may as well have a try in the coldish ground. I planted the little beans (about two inches tall) into the gaps left by the unsuccessful early growth.  I will need to plant about eight or so seeds in the further gaps, but the crop is looking quite considerable now. More than last year.

Parallel to the growing plants I had a rush of blood and decided to try and sow a row of broad bean seeds. I had a few left in a packet in the shed. And besides I just don’t have the root trainers (or loo rolls) to spare for more sowing. Besides that, the living room at home resembles a garden nursery; there are pots of seedlings everywhere.

I planted 15 Sutton broad bean variety; and left little sticks next to the seeds. Either to show me where they were planted; or to give the mice a perfect flight path guiding beacon to where they are buried.  One must be optimistic with these things.

After that it was time to stalk the entire plot and spot chores and disasters. To my surprise the lilies have come back from wherever they lurk over winter. The desiccated pots have surprisingly yielded stalks of new growth. Over to the water trough with my buckets and give the lilies a good solid soaking. They would be better in the ground, but safer in the pots. Vermin and slimy feeders don’t seem to have found their way to the back of the shed; too busy gorging on the greenery at the front.

I checked over the lemon verbena which is also in a pot – it looks like sticks, but not dead I think. We shall see. I made a note to myself that I need yet more black weed proof membrane for crops and have to mulch the broad beans like mad if I’m to keep down the weeds.

Just to finish I thought I would build up my pea supply. I had purchased these clever lengths of plastic guttering that are supposedly clever tools for growing peas. You put in the compost, sow the peas as you would in the ground, water, let germinate and when they are a few inches high, you dig a trench the same size and just slide the whole gutter of compost and seedlings in. Ingenious. Well it’s worth a try. I found that the peas were divine last year, and you can’t get enough of them. Especially when half the crop is scoffed when you ‘inspect’ the plants.
 
Back home the garden theme didn’t cease. I received my seedlist from the Australasian Plant Society. I get 20 packets of free seeds. I printed off the list and started to drool. I want to try lots of propagating this year.

Hot and dry: is this a portent of the summer to come? I went up to the allotment in a t-shirt. And the day just got hotter. I was cleaning the shed (well, it’s actually rather clean right now. I was really looking to see if I had remembered to bring the parsnip seeds and left them in one of my hanging plastic bags; I didn’t) and found a small bag of seed potatoes. Rats. It meant that I had to dig two more trenches for the potatoes. Does this crop ever end? I sweated my way down near the end of the bed and put in two rows of Cara main crops. So now, surely it’s all over and they can just get on with growing.

I have about six feet left at the very end of the plot in front of the apple trees now. And that will be the perfect place to grow the cucumbers. I’m going to grow plenty this year, just to beat the slugs. And am looking forward to putting up some nifty structures for them. Anything to keep them off the ground and away from the beasts. And if all goes well I want to underplant the cucumbers with lots of trailing nasturtiums as a sacrifice crop.

I decided that the suffering sweet peas in the cold frame need to get planted, even though it’s too early. They are disintegrating in their soggy loo rolls and not looking pert. I was watching an old re-run of Sarah Raven on Gardener’s World and she mentioned that they are tough as old boots and can cope with a bit of snow. So I have put them in at the end of the bean poles. They look a bit sorry, so we shall see. The entire bean plot is a sorry site / sight. All compacted clay and heavy soil. I have been diligently putting rotting compost into the crossroads of the plot where the beans went last year in preparation for a good soft bed. But I decided to put the beans somewhere else this year. Sigh, you just can’t plan for everything.

The cold frame (now well secured with lots of bricks) is full of just sprouting peas and broad beans, plus a few of the tomato plants that survived their ice bath when the lid blew off last week.

I inspected the pea rows: can’t see anything sprouting and suspect they have all been eaten by mice. So this is my salient lesson. Everything has to be grown in pots, root trainers or jiffys and only transplanted out when they are of a size to cope.

I tried to prepare the parsnip bed. The soil is rock solid at the top and rather soft and damp underneath. We just need a good shower of rain to get things softened up so I can plant. Something seems to have eaten half of my Nerines as well. Grrr. But finally the onion sets are showing a bit of life. I think they were well checked by last week’s cold weather.

Back home – perspiring mightily, but clutching some lovely purple sprouting broccoli. No one told me they were such a long lived crop. Must grow more this year.  And I continued the gardening theme by having a mass potting. So much fun: we are going to be away climbing for a week, so I need plenty of things to germinate while we are away.

Sitting proudly on the kitchen window are 12 celeriacs, 12 parsnips, 24 land cress, 4 nasturtiums, 2 sweet peas, 1 climbing bean (ran out of loo rolls) 15 capsicum, 5 marmande tomatoes, 5 mizuna lettuce and 5 salad mix. It has exhausted my entire crop of peat pots, and labels, but I feel that the numbers are about right. I only had four capsicum plants growing last year, and could easily have grown fifteen. The same about my parsnips and celeriacs. Forget the neat rows that Mick always manages, I think I only germinated about three parsnips last year. And I nurtured just a single celeriac plant. It tasted gorgeous and I really wish I had planted more.

Potted up more climbing beans in root trainers and loo rolls. Sorted seeds into the months that they need planting, and generally had an indoor day (apart from long walk to library to take out yet more gardening books). It’s easy to sow seeds on this big dining table; and I have plenty of space to germinate the plants. I can start them in the kitchen and then once they sprout, move them to the sunny side of the building.  They all grow in their jiffy pots or in the loo rolls. Mind you they start out so lovingly prepared – and then have to get ravaged by slugs and mice and wind and rain and sleet and frost once they get outside. I do feel a bit guilty sometimes.

Well, I’m one day ahead of schedule: all the potatoes are in. It looks at lot when you see the list, but with my narrow plot I only get eight or nine tubers per row.


- Maris Piper
- Maris Piper
- Charlotte
- Charlotte
- Charlotte
- Charlotte
- Charlotte
- Duke of York (Red)
- Duke of York (Red)
- Cara
- Cara
- Duke of York (Red)
- Pink Fir
- Pink Fir
- Pink Fir
- Pink Fir

I covered the lot with fleece and with it being cold enough to see my breath, I set to with sorting paths (adding the new bark chips down to all paths) and hefty digging out of the old ant nests. Or are they termites? Anyway there are two large mounds that make walking along the side path between myself and Charlotte’s (yet again) derelict site very difficult. So with sharp spade and great verve, I managed to break them up. I don’t quite know what to do with all the soil (still with a few termites clinging to it) but I must confess that I just dropped it over to Charlotte’s side. Bad girl, bad allotmenteer, but she hasn’t been back since that weekend in April and all she is growing is a slug colony over there.

I put up my bean poles. Not in the middle of the plot this year (although I may still do it) but in front of my wheelie bins to try and hide the messy corner of the plot. It feels very optimistic while it is still cold to put up the bean frame, but the forecast is for spring to appear. Any day now.

I am creaking my way back home again: aching back from a few more rows of potatoes. It’s a good thing they are such low maintenance produce after the hard planting. I wouldn’t want to spend much more time on them than I really have to. Crouching low over a trench and crumbling clay soil into acceptable chunks row after row after row is more than enough thank you very much.

Actually I spent the first two hours today avoiding potato planting; and it was most diverting. I was prettying up the shed. And getting things out of pots and salving my conscience about the months of neglect these pot plants have endured. I just know that the when it warms up those poor plants that used to be on our roof terrace will suffer from lack of water. Right now they are out of sight at the back of my little shed. So I rarely go there to inspect. And the poor westringias, which have been absolute workhorses of foliage and white flower, deserve better.

So I dug the soil in the bed beside the shed, planted one of the Madame Alfred Carrière climbing roses, two westringias, and even put the two thyme balls that had been lurking in pots around the front of the shed too. Add to that one of the rosemary bushes plus ivy and things are starting to look a bit better.

Not designed mind you – and a bit scruffy. But thank goodness no-one hands out pretty awards at allotments. Everyone has messy sections, and I’m no different. I can’t wait to put up the bean poles to hide the hideous wheelie bins and rubbish at the other end. The other rose is at the end of the plot underneath the apple tree. And it has to stay there because it is propping the tree up. It leans rakishly unless it has the hefty weight of the rose pot just so. Let’s see if I can water it well over the summer. I love reading about people who have climbing roses growing up through their old apple trees. My poor ones will probably get fly blown or whatever it is that worms its way into my apple crop. They are an inherited ‘joy’, so must take second place to all the other tasks that need to be done.
I finally sawed up the bit of pine tree that was left from the gale. It took ages as I had to cut off all the little branches and then do the trunk in two bits. The smell of the pine resin was gorgeous, but I’m glad it’s now more out of the way.

I had my first go at propagating too. A few of the westringia branches came off as I was transplanting them (careless activity really and so glad no-one saw me yanking them about as I tried to get them into the holes) so I found some grit that was left over from an old pathway, added that plus multi purpose compost to two good-sized pots. I trimmed off the shoots of a few plants and stuck them in. I’ve been watching this procedure for so many years on the tele that I hope I got it right. I know I’m supposed to put a plastic bag over them and keep them in a good warm sunny place for a bit. But I am fresh out of plastic bags (I’ll take some up tomorrow) and warm isn’t a feature of London right now. Today was barely 9C and quite drizzly all day.

Once all the pretties had been planted, and the contents of the cold (freeze) frame inspected, I headed off to the potato bed. You get great exercise at the plot because you are forever forgetting one thing (the scissors, the fork, the labels) in the shed and need to plod all the way back. But there was no putting it off. Well I did do some heavy lifting of multi purpose compost bags (dead weight – 70 litres) because naturally they are in the way. I use them to hold down the fleece protecting the beds, and need to get them off the beds when it’s time to dig. Goodness knows how I’m going to get those monster tomato grow bags into their final spot. I guess I have to do it first thing in the morning when I’m fresh.

Today’s haul of rows were one Charlotte, two Duke of Yorks and two Pink Kir Apple varieties. And I think I only have three Pink Fir Apples to go. Yippee. I covered up the rows with the fleece that wasn’t eaten by the mice in the shed; made a mental note to buy more, and then stood back at a bent crouch and surveyed the handiwork.

Rino came by to survey as well. He is in twists of anxiety about his tomato seedlings in his greenhouse. The poor man grows so many seedlings for all of us, he takes his responsibilities seriously. And this cold snap has slowed down and even killed off some of the growth. He is a worried gardener. And unlike me – who has noticed that I managed to snap freeze about a dozen little seedlings – I don’t have to share the fruit of my labours with other allotmenteers. The lid came off the cold frame and the poor little teensy plants ‘enjoyed’ a night in the elements.

I am putting a lot of the new bark chips to use by adding them to my long straight paths. That’s another first thing in the morning job; leaning into shovel loads of recalcitrant bark chips that have been dumped on long grass on refuse to budge is good for one’s soul. But not the back. But they aren’t doing much good just lurking at the edge of the plot. And I can see some little weeds already poking through the old path. Time to get mulching and try and slow the blighters down.

I’ll go up first thing tomorrow (I did manage to leave my wallet and mobile phone and mp3 player there yet again) and do those potatoes.

The makeshift cold frame at the allotment was very cold indeed. The lid blew off. I drove up in a gentle snowstorm this morning and was disappointed by the weather. This was to be my first morning of a three day session of potato planting I had planned. But I wasn’t deterred. I stopped at the garden centre and bought six huge bags of multi-purpose compost. They bashed merrily into all sorts of displays on their way to the cash desk. Serious trolley malfunction occurring just as I rounded the paint displays. Not sure I will be welcome back for a while.

And once I had heaved them from the car to the plot I decided to put off the heavy potato work with a spot of planting peas and bark chips first. I may not have perfect crops, but my paths are a sight to behold. Scooping up the freshly chipped tree branches that were left behind by the tree surgeons last month, I merrily decorated the paths with this pale fresh crop of mulch.

And then did another row of peas. Such symmetry, it’s bliss. And then after a slug of water and a few scoffed biscuits, I got down to the potato work. It isn’t pretty but at least I lots done. In total today I had put down six rows of potatoes, three peas and a few extra broad beans in the gaps. The robin has come back to supervise my digging which is lovely. And I even had time to mulch around the rhubarb. It isn’t romping – but it’s still early spring.

It’s snowing ever so lightly here in South Kensington. Not madly or dramatically, but enough to make my poor plants suffer up at the allotment. But the ones here in the house are growing on merrily. The Kale and cornflowers are up; and the others are showing some tiny signs of life. Must make sure they don’t dry out in this under glass warmth.

Instead of gardening I am looking at Australian plants to buy on the internet. And the good news is there are three garden suppliers in the south of France who look like keen breeders. It may save me a packet in postage and handling to get them there. But they aren’t cheaper than the ones at the Old Walled Garden. It seems I have to pay around £8 per healthy plant.