Finally got the poor peas from the greenhouse out onto the allotment on Sunday. The 2nd lot were quite happy looking, having only been growing for a month or so (in a gutter). The first ones, which Nick put in in the middle of winter were a bit ... floopy looking! I think maybe they should have gone out about 2 months ago!
No sign of anything coming up from the broad beans so far, but did accidentally uproot a couple whilst weeding and they had definitely started sprouting (downwards only so far, so a little while longer until they pop through the surface).
Tomatoes are 2/3 repotted! From 200 tomato slots (slightly fewer actual seeds planted, cos they were done in sets of 10 but some packets only had 8 or 6! Rather expensive per seed, it has to be said!), we now have 60 potted up into the greenhouse (of varying heights) and 46 left to move on to a better place.
Definite advert for the root trainers, though. The tomato plants which have grown in the root trainers are, on average, 200% taller than those in shallow seed modules! Although one type (the teton de venus jaune, which were actually an expensive 'paid for' set of seeds) in the root trainers have utterly failed to germinate. I think there is now a solitary straggley looking seedlet (too small even to be called a seedling), but I'm not convinced it's not washed in from another row.
Allotment lay-out so far:
------------------- ---------- ----------
| | | ####| | |
| | | p | | b b |
| | | e | | r e |
| last | | a | | o a |
| year | | s | | a n |
| onions | | | | d s |
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
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Cleared the asparagus bed of weeds and established there is only one surviving asparagus plant. (Which hardly matters, as last year's crop was totally munched by asparagus beetle anyhow!);
Sowed the packet of sprouted brown onion sets that I found in the shed;
Dug, cleared and unpotatoified the end of the last year's potato patch, then resowed it with 2 lots of broad beans (crimson flowered and imperial longpod, white).
Took about 5 hours total, and I'm still knackered.
Oh, also moved the calabrese (looking unwell), leeks (looking like grass) and sweet pea (looking like they want to be flowering already!!) to Gwen's greenhouse.
And discovered that my tulips in Gwen's greenhouse have started to flower! Perhaps time to move them to the front of the house.
Finally got a chance to dig up the 2 beds of potatoes that we stupidly failed to dig up last year this weekend gone. First 3 plants I dug up were all turned totally to mush! I almost cried. They were the HUGE potatoes, too. We had about 3 plants worth in the autumn before the ground froze.
Fortunately the second bed was a lot less traumatic. Got a half-trug fll of a mixture of varieties, although a fair bit of slug damage.
Had a pan of mashed potato this evening, nothing wrong with the taste, at least! (Plus some of last year's sweet potatoes, which are still hanging around in the kitchen - very good keepers, it seems)