Sunday was a nice sunny day and fairly mild reaching 8.7°C. We had a bit of rain in the early hours of the morning just to keep my rain gauge ticking over.
As it was such a nice afternoon I decided to plant some of our onion and shallot sets up into modules to grow on in the greenhouse. The sets had arrived with our other seeds from Kings whilst we were in the middle of decorating. Kept in the house the sets will start to grow in any case producing long leggy shoots so at least planted in modules they have a bit of soil to root into.
What I’d forgotten was that the greenhouse goes into a sort of hibernation once the summer crops are finished. We only pop in occasionally to water a few over wintering plants or collect some onions stored there for winter. In other words it needs a good tidy out.
Our grape vine was first for the tidy up. All last year’s dead leaves needed removing and the old stems cutting back to the main vine.
It always looks a bit drastic after an early spring prune but it’s worked in the past so I have no reason to suspect this year will be any different. It was a case of chopping and bagging all the prunings so that they can go onto the compost heap down on the plot.
The wildlife in the greenhouse weren't too happy with my intrusion into their world. This spider was taken aback when I moved a few pots but soon scampered away and out of harms way.
Once I’d managed to clear away a few pots and make some space on the greenhouse floor I managed to get some onions and shallots planted.
There’s still lots more tidying up to do in the greenhouse. As it’s done I’ll get some more onion sets planted into modules. I've left the spare onion sets in the greenhouse hoping that the cooler conditions will delay any growth until I have I have time to sort them out. If any serious frosts are threatened they will be covered with a couple of layers of fleece.
A month by month list of this year’s plantings and sowings will be kept here.
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I've got some onions to plant as well, they somehow ended up in my basket at Tesco's the other day, along with some potatoes. I've just finished last year's allotment onions, so I need to grow a few more this year, although they'll need to store well to last much longer.
ReplyDeleteWe've still got some onions and shallots stored from last summer. If we don't use them soon I suppose they'll start to shoot - they wont be able to resist that urge to grow.
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