A busy weekend.

  I return to the blog a satisfied man!! I have just managed to get a whole weekend in the garden (give or take the odd little detour :) and as a result, a lot of jobs have progressed a bit further, one or two have even been finished  ( I did forget all about the tiling in the bathroom that I told Sarah I would finish though :(.... oooops.

 The weekend saw a bit more sowing in the greenhouse. I'm lucky enough to have a large Vitopod propagator, and a large fluorescent growlight over the top of it.  It's a good setup for the more delicate stuff, and also for generally getting a bit of growth early on, before the days lengthen enough to support good growth.  I am having a go at "Lemon grass" this year, so I managed to sow a few of those seeds and get them in the propagator, it says it can take up to forty days to germinate..... patience is not one of my best virtues, so I can see me impatiently checking them every day now to see if they have come through :)
 Some leek "Jaune de poitou" seeds went into modules, aswell as some cabbage  "Greyhound" in another module tray.  I put my first chilli seeds "Alberto's locoto" into a pot (excited to see if these grow as they are my own saved seed :)  Also put some spinach "Medania" and some red iceberg lettuce in too :)
I got some peas and broad beans into pots, "Meteor", "Aquadulce" and "Masterpiece green longpod". 

 Also on the list for the weekend was planting up some of my old terracotta pots, so a few of those got a good scrub up (after thawing the damn hose out) and then got filled with some compost. Firstly I wanted some nice early carrots, and decided to do a couple of pots of orange "Early nantes 2", and then a couple of pots of yellows "Jaune obtuse de doubs".... some nice early carrots are eagerly anticipated again this year!! :)
Another pot had some spring onions in it, a mixture of "White lisbon" and "Lilia", then the last pots for the weekend had parsnips in, as Sarah mentioned something about baby parsnips in the shop the other day, so those two pots have "White gem" in them, and i'm interested to see how long it takes to get a baby parsnip big enough to eat, from this early sowing in pots.

 At the top of my list for the weekend was clearing the plot for my polytunnel, it was however not a two minute job. Firstly some rotten old livestock fencing and the attached gate and post had to come down.... most of which is destined for the burner in the kitchen soon ;) then I must have had a good two tonnes of hardcore to move that had been dumped there some time ago, followed by digging, levelling, raking etc.  I did adjust the position of the tunnel slightly from my first plan while working (so I can squeeze another in next to it soon ;) but not so far as to effect any of my crop rotation plans. I still have a bit of digging to do to finish levelling the site, but other than that I am just about ready to drop the foundation tubes and anchor plates in, which will hopefully be this weekend coming if the weather is kind.

 I cruised the gardens with my camera and a mug of tea for a while on saturday morning.... that resulted in my other post "January photo's" which is hopefully the first of twelve this year, just showing a bit of what's happening in the lost gardens of Broadwelligan :)

 Now don't tell Sarah about this one, but while I was out and about on sunday, I had a quick look round the old horse/livestock trailer that is rotting away in the back field, and I have got a bit of an urge to drag it out and restore it (it's got to come out anyway and be repaired or scrapped), after all I do fancy some sheep to keep in the field this year (will save mowing so much grass, and provide free fertiliser :), and the trailer would be handy to take them to market later in the year (I have to try and justify it somehow ;) I just have to get it into the workshop without Sarah noticing now....... any ideas? :)

 To my surprise my Passion fruit seeds have come up already... I was expecting to have to wait a few weeks for them, but they have only been about ten days :) Exciting!!!!! :)  My cress and mustard pots are in full swing now, with pots of each being sown at seven day intervals... just enough to give me a pot of each to go in our salads each week.

 Lastly was some more of the mundane stuff.... weeding, digging, general tidying up here and there.  It takes time, doesn't really excite the senses, but when it's done, it does give me an immensely satisfied feeling! :)
 All in all this last weekend has been a great success!!! My wellies are covered in mud, my tools are dirty again and i'm thouroughly happy with progress!!  See you again soon :)