Seedlings in the rain

Rain would not deter me I just had to get up to the garden. It is still raining, but I really wanted to put my new little Australian plants into a better place than a window sill. I picked up yet more compost (of the ericaceous and hence more expensive variety) and some eight foot canes for the extra climbing French beans.

My first task once I had raced to the shed to get my rain gear on was to tie extra rows of twine on the bean poles. The ones at the end of the plot in front of the wheelie bins are finally putting on growth. I did manage to mix up the climbing and the dwarf ones (as I suspected) when I hurriedly planted them out. So I do have some interesting heights. But it shouldn’t matter too greatly. I have just one climbing bean amongst the dwarf ones in the main bed. And I placed a taller cane beside it, and tied it in for support.  With luck the climbing beans I planted out on Sunday would romp up the canes as well.

I had plenty of red kale, black Tuscany kale and cabbage seedlings that have been crowding the roof terrace. They aren’t hulking beasts, but I thought it best to plant them out as well now that I had all the time. They are all in their neat rows in the brassica bed – easily the largest part of the garden beside the potatoes. And all under the black plastic and the mulch. You can see patches of black through the bark chip mulch, so you couldn’t fool anyone into thinking it’s a normal allotment plot with carefully hoed beds and neat weed-free rows. But so far it is working. The only real weeding that needs doing is between the pea rows where I didn’t put down this much mulch. Lots of little potato seedlings are coming up from last year’s potato crops there. Not in the right place and very small, and irksome when they appear between your broad beans and your peas.  I don’t have the heart to yank them up just yet – maybe next week. Who knows, I may get a first little crop of very early last year lates for free.