The last few days have been really superb lulling us into a false sense that spring has arrived. We've had plenty of sunshine and very little breeze so although the temperature hasn't managed double figures it’s felt mild especially in the sun. Apparently all is going to change from Wednesday onwards as we get cold dull weather back again.
This robin certainly thinks spring in here as it’s been singing its heart out from the top of our crab apple tree for the last couple of days. Even when we've been out in the garden he hasn't been deterred keeping up his song to attract a mate.
Making the most of the weather I managed to clear some space in the greenhouse whilst Sue planted some onion and shallot sets into modules to get them started. It may be several weeks before conditions improve enough on the plot to get the ground prepared and left to their own devices in net bags the sets will start to shoot in any case. It goes to reason then that they might as well gets some roots down into a little bit of compost and be planted out when conditions are more favourable.
At the moment Sue has planted up one tray each of onions Sturon, Red Karmen, Rumba and Stuttgart together with 2 trays each of shallots Golden Gourmet and Red Sun. Once some more space is cleared in the greenhouse some more onions may given an early start.
It was around this date last year when we sowed our celery Victoria F1 and celeriac Giant Prague seeds. All seemed to go pretty well until the seedling eventually got transplanted into the plot. Once there they seemed to grow very slowly and neither produced any worthwhile crop. To be honest they didn't produce any crop at all. We've had a good few attempts to grow these two crops and never had any success. Not to be deterred we’re having yet another go this year. We will try to grow them a little differently to last year but at the moment our technique for this year has yet to be decided.
At the same time our free onion seeds Bedfordshire Champion have been sown to see how these compare with those grown from sets. Celery, celeriac and onion seeds have all been placed under our indoor growlight to give them the best possible start to life. Just a small stick of celery and a celeriac bigger than a walnut would be something of an improvement for us. We can but try.
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What a fantastic photo. He's such a cutie singing his heart out like that. It's certainly much duller here today, and it's much colder too.
ReplyDeleteIt's back to winter again for a little while. Cold and dull here too.
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