Growing

This slightly mad world we inhabit where the temperatures are all over the place but mainly cold for the time of year is business as usual where I live.  I usually find that I plant seedlings out in the garden during a warm spell, hardening them off first, only for the temperatures to plummet by ten degrees a day or so later.  Despite the huge variance we are having in temperatures the nights are definitely getting warmer which seems to translate into seedlings that are growing.  In the last week I have not actually done a huge amount in the garden except watering and getting daily reports from my youngest as she goes to check on her plants each day.

We have been eating lots of rhubarb this week and tomorrow I plan to stew some up to make smoothies, we have also had some enormous radishes the biggest I have ever grown and lots of salad leaves.

The cucumber and courgette seeds I sowed last week have come up and are now small seedlings, I will be planting these all in the polytunnel this year.  I have found in recent years that courgettes rarely fruit if I plant them outside and cucumbers never do.

The carrot, beetroot and turnip seeds are starting to germinate now and there are a few very small green shoots appearing amongst the weeds.  The onions have all survived being planted out and are slowly growing.

We have one potato plant that has small green shoots, I am not holding out much hope of a good harvest of potatoes this year.  The sets were really slow to chit and were not very big when they were sown, so it may be just a few meals for us this year rather than a few months as we have gotten used to.

The leeks that I planted out in early autumn last year are now almost ready for harvesting they have been really slow to grow to a good size and have sat dormant over a really cold winter, some plants be never cease to amaze me.

So like the pace of ur life, growth is slow but steady and the list of plants ready to eat grows each week too.