Giving the seedlings their sun kicks

I’m going to have a good clean out of the shed today. And I was all set to take up my little jiffy pots of flowers that I’m germinating. But I just heard the weather forecast for next week – it’s to be a return to winter. So I don’t think taking them up to the cold frame is a good idea after all. I unpacked the bags and put them back behind the large glass ceiling to floor window beside my desk. Rats. This always happens in March; one is so impatient to get going. But I will take up a few root trainers of French climbing beans and mange tout peas I potted up last night.

And my special treasure are also going up to the plot today – ground pegs. I have been hunting for them for ages now ever since Homebase ran out of them back in January. With all the swirly wind one gets in spring I need to be able to secure my coverings on the plot. And now I have two whole packets of long shiny spikes that I found at Dominic’s hardware store in Primrose Hill yesterday. That and a huge ball of green twine. I do so love independent hardware stores. So many treasures inside – but you never know where to look.

I’m looking forward to seeing the little grape hyacinths that were sprouting merrily below the apple trees. They are rather hidden in the long grass, but they are still little gems. I may even get down and have a good sniff too.  I just finished reading Led by the Nose: A Garden of Smells by the poet Jenny Joseph and it does make you readjust your olfactory senses. I never know half the things the woman writes about were aromatic.

I parked and saw Mick bending over a large trench and perspiring mightily. He was putting his early potatoes in. Oh dear, I thought, I wasn’t going to do mine until the end of the month. But Mick is an oracle of sorts at our allotment, and I tend to follow his sage advice. I looked at his perfectly straight trench, at his perfectly crumbly soil (looked like rich chocolate cake crumb) and spotted all sorts of things going into the bottom – chicken pellets, slug pellets, but no potatoes yet. He looked pleased to pause for a rest and a chat. He wasn’t too concerned about the return to winter next week, thinking the depth of the soil will protect the little tubers. So, my thoughts of domestic shed cleaning were quietly put aside. I think it’s time to get my spuds in.

And gad it was exhausting. Unlike Mick’s beautifully tended plot, mine is rather a football field of clay. And I heaved and sweated and dug and dug, – and managed just two rows of potatoes after over an hour of work. And I felt terribly for the tubers that went in. They weren’t going to like what I did. I managed a deep trench (going deeper and wider this year after last year’s sorry effort), but I just don’t have buckets and buckets of compost to put back over the top. I managed big handfuls of multi purpose compost over each potato, and tried to spread a lot back into the trench. Then I found myself placing clods of clay about the size of my fist over the top. If it was grave digging, I wouldn’t get good marks. The poor cadavers would probably poke back out.  I will have to buy in more multi-purpose and get a better amount down the trench if I’m to plant the rest.

And how on earth am I going to do it? It will take about two solid days of digging to get in all the Duke of Yorks, Charlottes and Maris Pipers. Not to say anything of Caras and that extra Duke of York variety over-sprouting behind the curtain here in the living room. (They are getting plenty of growth on the chits, but turning a bit wrinkly too. Way ready to get them in the ground.)   I guess I will have to hope the weather turns at the end of next week when David is in Norway and I get some serious uninterrupted digging in.

I took the Perspex lid off the cold frame and gave the seedlings inside their sun kicks. Lovely warm weather and everything is sprouting beautifully – shame they may get frozen next week. And I gave the roses in their pots a good water and poured a good bucketful of water into the westringias in their pots. I really must take cuttings of them for future life in France – they really are good plants. Plenty of small white flowers in early spring, and verdant and cheerful.

Naturally I had to have a break after all this soul destroying digging; so I went and did have a good clean out of the shed. I even had a ceremonial pulling down of the jet fighter poster that was on the ceiling – and found a lovely crop of greeblies underneath. Honestly you would think I was making a Nature radio programme about wild creatures in that little shed. Plenty of spiders and other odd things in corners. Now I’m afraid they have been rather disturbed and may not come back. They had been having a good feed on some of my weed proof membrane rolls. I had to peg one out and hope for the best. They are more than welcome to gnaw at the stuff out on the plot – it may take their minds off the peas that I planted last week. There are definite signs that something has been deftly been digging them up. I will have to plant yet more in the gaps. I have done some in root trainers as well, just to have a fresh store of juicy plants to replenish.

Had to head back home in the late afternoon – people coming over for dinner – and what a pleasure to be able to bring back an armful of daffodils plus the large handful of hellebores.