7/3/25 - Peas and Paths

Good evening.  Happy Friday.  Just dipping in with this one as a pre-weekend update.  Finally there is enough evening daylight after I finish work to be able to spend an hour or so on the plot.  That means more work to be done and more work getting done.  Probably too regularly to be able to update the diary after every visit now.  This is what we've been up to during this week.

Peas in pipes

For several years now, we have been growing peas by starting them under cover of some sort, in lengths of piping that has been cut in half along it's length.  It's proved to be very effecting, especially against mice and early year slugs where if direct sown, the first pea shoots are fair game by anything and everything.  With the bones of having the polytunnel this year though, the first sowings have been made and are up on the suspended staging.

These are the first sowings, and will stay undercover until fairly well established.  In the coming week or two, though the weather trend in warming, we still have some frosts but the peas will be quite happy here.  Actually, during the day, things are drying out at a fair rate in the tunnel, so watering every other day is becoming quite important.  There should be enough peas here for one row.  Once transplanted, the second row will be direct sown to give us a slightly extended harvest period.  I don't mind harvesting all the peas in a relatively short period of time though as a vast majority of them will be frozen for use through the following months.

Polytunnel temps

The weather over the last week has been really pleasant.  Most days it has been sunny all day, little to no wind and day time temperatures of 12 to 14 degrees.  Inside the tunnel, temperatures have rockets, but overnight have also plummeted.  This weekend, the forecast is for the temperatures to get into the mid to high teens.  It's giving us a taste of what's to come, but further into the forecast, there are still nightly frosts in the forecast.

Bonus day

I was able to take a day off at short notice this week, thanks to some accrued lieu time.  I knew I would end up doing something on the plot, but it wasn't until the following morning that I decided what I wanted to do.  Since the woodchip delivery, it was my intention to finish off the paths running between the beds to somehow prevent the woodchip from getting onto the growing beds, and prevent the compost from getting mixed up with the woodchip.  I headed off to the local timber yard with the roof bars on the car and bought all the edging and wooden pegs that I needed to finish the job.

Before getting stuck in with that though, I also headed off to a local family run garden centre.  They close down over the winter, but they opened their doors again on March 1st this year.  At the end of last season, they were selling off unbranded compost (although they told be that it was Melcourt potting compost they buy in as trade and use for their own planting and sowings in their nursery).  They were selling it off because it was going to go out of day over the winter.  Though it might technically be out of date, I can still make use of it, so I asked if they still had any left, which they did.  I picked up 8 bags of it, with the intention of mixing it with some rotted manure, and then using the mix in the spud buckets.

Only after I picked that up, I headed home, picked up the tools and returned to the plot to work on the path ways between the beds.  It looks so much better, and it's much better now I can actually walk on the paths instead of avoiding them.

We have germination!

A month ago, I made the very first direct sowing of the season, when I made the first sowing of carrots into the bath.  Since then, I've watered twice, and kept it covered with some sheets of acrylic.  This week, I was having a check on progress and saw the first signs of germination.  It was really pleasing to see and another sign that we're getting close to spring.

End of week sowings...

As we get into March, the sowing schedule steps up a little bit more.  Earlier in the year, I sowed our first Aubergine Black Beauty seeds.  They germinated and I potted 3 of the strongest seedlings on into pots.  Since then, they have been watered, kept on heat pads and kept under lights.  While they seem to initially OK, they do seem to have stalled a bit, to the point where I'm a bit worried about them.  For that reason, though pushing it a bit late, I've made another sowing into a 1/4 seed tray, and put them on the Super 7.  Hopefully these will come on well, and will give me some choices when it comes to transplanting into the polytunnel.

Leaving the Aubergines, the Dhalia Pompones seeds I sowed a month or so ago have taken off really well.  They grew on well and produced some good sets of leaves, so I have pricked out and potted on about 24 of the strongest seedlings.  I've taken them off the Super 7 and now put them back on heat, but under the lights.  I'm hoping that they only need to be in there for the next couple of weeks until we're safe from frosts.  I'll then move them into the polytunnel until they are ready to be planted out.

Onto the brassicas.  My first sowings of Cauliflower All Year Round are doing well and are nearly ready to be moved up to the polytunnel for a short period before I hope to get them into the ground.  With those doing so well, I've done my next succession sowing and again have put them on the Super 7 in a 1/4 sized seed tray.  I'll only be looking at bringing on 4 plants in total from this sowing, so a 1/4 size tray will give me ample to chose from.

After giving the Brussels Sprouts a rest last year following the previous years cockup of growing twice as many as I needed, they are back on the list for this year.  This time, I am trying the Brilliant F1 variety.  I've prepared another 1/4 seed tray of those.  My sowing plan says that from this sowing, I only need 2 plants to come on.  However, later in the plan, I have a job to direct sow another two plants.  If I can get 4 good seedlings out of the first sowing though, I might as well take 4 plants from this first sowing and get them in the ground.  They freeze well, so again, I'm not worried about getting a glut of them.

First mowing

This week has also been the first outing for the mower around the plot.  Last week, I took the strimmer out to tidy up the path edges, so to finish the job off, I got the mower out and tidied up around the rest of the plot.  It's actually look pretty good if I do say so myself.

There's a bit more to do this weekend, so I expect by Sunday, I will be back with another bunch of updates, but so far, this is what I've accomplished this week.