First crop in!

The London garden 0 Comments

Planting sweet peas? Stroll out to the potting shed and doing the deed neatly and cleanly? More like, planting messes all over the house. First it is fiddling with the plastic root trainers which don’t snap back after one use, dropping bits of multi purpose compost on the carpet while filling them inside a plastic garbage bag on the white sofa in my office, spills on the sofa during this process. Dripping water onto the soil, and then spilling a bit more just on the spot where the soil fell out. Planting the little peas, dropping a bit more of the compost while I walk upstairs to the propagator. Furious session with the vacuum cleaner. Finally I can sit down and write down just what I did plant.

And now I can happily report that my first crop is in. Last week of February, not bad at all. I went out to the allotment at ten and was working happily until a hail storm halted me around 1pm. Before then it was windy, sunny and about 4 Celsius. Perfect weather for planting up the onions. I forked the soil, then made a small trench. In went the sand and the multi-purpose compost first. Then I added the 14 onion sets. They just fit into one horizontal row. More compost over the top; and then the soil. They are neatly packaged away, and the first four (planted early) have sprouted already. I had to erect some little sticks and a straight row of string over the onions to deter the birds. (That will teach me for encouraging them with worms.) And they do look a bit forlorn and swamped in such a large ocean of dirt. But tomorrow I will put the garlic down nearby and it won’t look so bad. I did the sand and multi-purpose trench for them but was lured away by weeding before I could do any more. The soon to be extra potato bed was attacked with verve. I managed a foot or more of heavy duty weeding and hope to get more done tomorrow (hail permitting). Came back and called David to proudly announce the planting of our first crop.

Vegetable: Sweet Pea Matucana
How many?: 4
How planted?: Root Trainer
Notes: In a cool room upstairs

Vegetable: Sweet Pea Cream of Southbourne
How many?: 4
How planted?: Root Trainer
Notes: In a cool room upstairs

Vegetable: Sweet Pea Dark Colour Mix
How many?: 4
How planted?: Root Trainer
Notes: In a cool room upstairs

Vegetable: Mizuna lettuce
How many?: 4
How planted?: Jiffy 7s
Notes: In a warm heated room