digging the dirt

After a covering of snow on Wednesday, the last two days have been almost wall-to-wall winter sunshine so lots to be getting on with. First job was to uncover the main compost heap. This is about eight feet by four by four and was covered with thick cardboard weighted down with more waste last autumn. All the loose stuff was scraped off the top to reveal all this gorgeous crumbly goodness. This, to me, is what compost should look like, not the sticky, smelly mess than some people manage to produce. The secret is getting the mix right and you'll notice the stringy bits which are the remains of clippings from our privet hedge. These do a great job of aerating the heap as they keep it open and they can be easily raked out before use and put back in to rot down.

As well as an ingredient in potting mix I spread this compost across the beds and rake it in to give a really nice sowing and planting surface.

Because I practice no-dig the soil is like this for a good way down. Considering it started as heavy clay that's quite an improvement.

With daytime temperatures in the greenhouse up to 17 degrees by mid afternoon it was time to risk some early sowings. One tub of broad beans (Sutton) and one of peas (Meteor) for the first crops of the new season. I also put four spuds in a big fish box, a bit risky but, nothing ventured. The containers are kept covered until shoots are well up in order to conserve a little heat and keep out the mice. More sowings will follow on a regular basis until the greenhouse is full, by which time I'll be ready to fill it with tomatoes!!

a busy weekend

Reasonable weather over the weekend has enabled me to get quite a lot done. Much potting compost has been mixed and containers filled but these will just sit in the greenhouse to warm up for a week or two before anything goes into them. Germinated leeks, onions and cabbage have been moved from the propagator to a window sill and another lot will follow them, along with some Winter Gem lettuce. It's still too early for a lot of sowing but I've risked a tub of radishes which I'll keep under glass once germinated.

My main seed potato order arrived from JBA last week and thankfully it included the Lady Christl, my favourite earlies, but no Markies due to last year's weather. Not a great loss as they were just one of the new varieties I fancied trying. Lady Cs are now sitting in egg boxes in the spare bedroom but I've run out of space so the maincrops will have to stay in their bags for the time being.

I know it's not much but my first true harvest of the new season went into a lunchtime sandwich. Mustard and cress grown indoors and some fresh green shoots from the chives. Don't you just love watching things grow, even in the depths of winter!

Every year the entire population of barnacle geese from Svalbard in the Arctic fly south to spend the winter on the Solway marshes. There are tens of thousands of these birds and the noise they make when large flocks take to the air is unbelievable. Here's a pic of a few of them in a field just outside our village.

I did get a break from gardening activities and we had a drive round 'the island'. This is  a bit of land sticking out into the Solway surrounded by sea on three sides. Much of it is taken up with peat bog and salt marsh but there are settlements round the edges of it. This is a view from near Port Carlisle looking to the remains of the old pier with Annan on the Scottish side in the distance.

I sometimes think I should have been a geography teacher!!

thumb twiddling....

After some quite mild weather early in the month it all went downhill with frost and snow to be followed by rain and gale force winds, so I'm doing a lot of thumb twiddling and gazing at leaden skies. My main potato order is yet to arrive but I have about 60 assorted tubers chitting in the utility room. These I've picked up from Wilko's, Poundland and elsewhere and will be the earliest of my earlies grown in the greenhouse.

The new shoots that were poking up a few weeks ago are now just sulking and, even though I covered the rhubarb with upturned pots it doesn't seem any bigger. Ah, well.

I have been sowing some cress just to get a crop of something, even if it is just a sandwich garnish! Onions and leeks are germinating in one of the propagators and I've also potted up some shallots in MPC to give them an early start. After potatoes I'd say that alliums were our most used veg. so I like to aim for an almost year-round supply if I can. The stored onions are now sprouting long shoots so they won't last much longer but I still have leeks on the plot and overwintered spring onions in the greenhouse.

Today's picture is just to remind me and everyone else that it really won't be long before the potting bench is awash with seedlings and young plants.

New shoots

It doesn't take much to get us gardeners excited and the one thing that really does it for me is seeing new shoots emerging in the still cold and dark days of January. I know winter is far from over yet but the sight of that fresh green growth means that nature is getting ready for a new start.

The recent mild weather has had a lot to do with it. Chives have up to two inches of new shoots, as have some welsh onions in sowed in a pot last year.

chives

I also noticed that one of the rhubarb crowns has sprouted so I covered it with an inverted pot to give it a bit of protection and encourage more growth. 

We've had several days without rain now and a good drying wind today so I was able to get a few things done around the garden. The two  top beds are almost ready for planting but will get a top dressing of BFB prior to putting anything in. Because we have trees at the bottom of the garden the lower beds don't get much sun in midwinter so I normally get the top beds ready first. Block planting, rather than rows means that I can get the earliest plantings done into ground that is starting to warm up. I know it's too early yet but I like to get things ready if I can then I'm not rushing around like a mad thing trying to do everything at once. With a bit of luck I'll be able to get some cloche protection in place by early February and then the first sowings of broad beans will be going in if it's not too cold. Can't wait to get going!

Happy compost, everyone

Don't forget that Christmas is a great time for us compost makers with loads of stuff that can go in the bin/heap.

From the pre-Christmas house clean I got the contents of several vacuum cleaner bags, then the dog had a good grooming (lots of hair), there's all the veg peelings, cardboard packaging, wrapping paper, etc. If you're a nut lover all the shells can go in although they do take a long time to rot down so I put them in a bag first and bash them up small with a hammer.

Even the left-over dinner can be used if you have a sealed bin so that vermin can't get in. Use your imagination, basically anything that is organic in origin can be composted.

Once the celebrations are out of the way you can start to think about using some of that lovely crumbly compost you've been creating through the year. Before you know it you'll have a potting bench overflowing with seedlings just waiting for some decent weather so they can go out on to the plot. If only we could pre-order the weather so we didn't get nasty surprises. Dream on....

potting bench last April.....hope springs eternal

parsnip experiment

Anyone who has followed my blog will know that I grow my parsnips in containers rather than on the plot. There are several reasons for this, the main one being that my soil is derived from boulder clay and once you get a few inches down it's rather heavy and stony - not good for parsnips.

So, as an experiment, this year I tried the 'borehole' method as well to see if it would give me a crop. This method involves boring a hole with a pointed iron bar and, by wiggling the bar you get a nice conical shape which you fill with finely sieved compost and sow the seeds on top. My holes were 15-18 inches deep which I figured is long enough for most parsnips and I lifted a couple today just to see.

the variety is Duchess F1

Decent sized roots, I think you'll agree, and they weighed in at 637g and 465g respectively.

There is a problem with this method, though. You have to dig a crater to get the blooming things out and I did find that germination rates for the outdoor sown ones was very poor. I start off my containers in the greenhouse so the compost is relatively warm and this gives excellent germination.

So, will I do it again? probably not as I can get a decent crop without any digging but if you are fed up of forked parsnips it's a technique certainly worth giving a go.

Away from the parsnip theme we've had two days without rain so I've managed to get some tidying up done outside. After what seems like an entire year of downpours it's a blessed relief to see the sun, even if there is very little heat in it!

November sowings

Just because it's got round to November doesn't mean you can let up on your seed sowing, especially if you can offer some protection such as a greenhouse or cold frame. This year's difficult conditions have convinced me that it's important to have a back-up plan to compensate for the lack of stored produce. Obviously, you can't be sowing tender summer plants and expect them to survive but there are plenty of things that will make it through the winter under cover. And don't expect the sort of quantities you can get from the main growing season either.

Mustard and cress on a warm windowsill are the two winter crops that first spring to mind and some people limit their 'out of season' sowing to nothing more than this.  The more adventurous will add micro-greens to the list but there are quite a few 'full-size' plants that will happily overwinter in a greenhouse or frame. I have two varieties of lettuce, carrots, chard, radishes and spring onions coming along nicely in the greenhouse.

Micro-greens are not just a handy and easy thing to grow in winter but they are a good way to use up old seed that you might not want to risk for the main sowings next year. They are simply immature plants harvested to be used as an addition to such things as salads, stir-fries, soups, casseroles, etc. Almost anything that has edible leaves can be used, including beetroot, broccoli, cabbage, celery, chard, kale, lettuce, rocket and more.

for mustard and cress I use these pot trays with a little MPC in the bottom

Today I've sown beetroot, CCA lettuce and kale in supermarket mushroom trays with a few drainage holes poked in the bottom. They'll be germinated indoors and put out into the greenhouse before they get too drawn in their search for light.

The beetroot are used for their leaves rather than letting them develop a root which would take too long anyway. As I go through my seed packet box and sort out what I no longer need I'll be sowing more over the next few weeks. All you have to lose is a little time. If seed doesn't germinate just use the compost for something else. How about peas sown close together and harvested for the shoots when they are a few inches high. When you think that micro-greens have become rather trendy in top restaurants and realize how easy they are to grow you need never associate home-grown and winter with boring.