Chitting Part 2

Monday saw a continuation of our milder weather. It was a bright sunny morning but it clouded over in the afternoon with some dark clouds threatening rain which didn't materialise.

I thought it was time I moved my seed potatoes out of the garage and into the light of the greenhouse for some more chitting now the severe frosts have finished.

The potatoes appeared to have survived a couple of very cold weeks in the garage with no ill effects. They're now back in the greenhouse to continue chitting. Hopefully we haven’t any more -6°C to come otherwise they will end up in the garage again.

It also gave me chance to set our 3 new varieties out into a seed tray to chit. These were much smaller seed potatoes but hopefully in this case size wont matter too much. 

I decided whilst I was in the greenhouse to inspect some of our plants placed inside for a little winter protection. Our kiwi looks like it has managed to make it through the cold spell and already has the tiniest green shoots showing. 

It’s a reminder that we need to sort out improved growing conditions for it this year. I think it needs to be in a bigger pot and I might try some JI compost mixed with extra topsoil as compost. It needs some careful pruning too to form a basic network of branches. It was rather left to do its own thing last summer probably not the best of ideas.

I also did a little bit more tidying up in the greenhouse. I’ve now plenty of bags of spent growing bag compost to take down to the plot to help improve the soil down there. Once the old growing bags were removed and the debris swept up the greenhouse looked much tidier.

I’m not going to be able to hold out much longer, it’s that urge to start sowing seeds trying to convince me that spring is just around the corner.