Potting shed crops in spring

I’m going to take you on a tour today. Up to my potting shed to visit the crops.

This is the routine. Out soon after breakfast, I usually collect a four footed friend who is camped out on the door mat. Or he has already been round to the front of the house to beg entry.

We walk across the courtyard, under the open barn (the calabert) and on the gravel path through the shade garden borders.

Things are looking promising there and I’ll do a proper photographic tour soon.

Artur leads the way up the path, and trots into the shed ahead of me.

The two wooden steps to the potting shed are a bit rickety at the mo, so you have to watch your step. And try not to crush the self seeded honesty plants that grow between the steps.

Inside you are immediately confronted with an obstacle. The brassica bench. It’s a trestle table that takes all the overflow plants which won’t fit onto the potting benches.

I have barked my hip on the edges almost daily since I put the trestle table up.  But needs must. This is the explosion stage of vegetable growing.

On the right hand side of the building you will see most of the other vegetable and flower seedlings. Apart from a few zinnias that didn’t germinate (I think I overwatered them) everything is up and happy.

Well, a few dahlias have failed to emerge. But most are up so that’s a relief. They are the most expensive plants in the whole space.  All the rest of the plants were grown from seed.

I am going to try and devote a day to working in the potting shed tomorrow.

This is that ridiculous time of the year where you have projects everywhere you turn.  At least with the lawns mown and the vases full of flowers all over the house I feel I can turn my mind to my veg.

But for now I think it’s time to go out and water the asparagus bed. They are slow to get going; owing to a very dry spring I think.  But every time I go past the brassica bench, I do feel tempted to snap off a lettuce leaf and munch as I go.  The benefits of growing your own.