And they're off

The weather has suddenly turned much warmer so seed sowing has started. We have planted some broad beans in pots. Learning from last year, we are planting far fewer plants this year since we were overrun with beans last year. We are also only planting one in each pot and starting in bigger pots. The aim is to transplant the young plants into the row where they will grow at just the right time. Last year we planted the first batch out when the plants were lanky and soft. We planted the last batch out much too late and they didn't really do much. We have many, many times more seeds than we need, so I'll see if my sister and here children want some when they visit later this week. The beans are saved seeds adapted to our northern climate, but they should do well in Kent too.

We have also started our first batch of leeks. Spreading the planting to extend the season does no good what so ever with long growing plants like leeks, but we spread the planting a bit to lessen the load of plant trays and to not keep all of our eggs in one basket. We want more leeks than last year if we can, we had finished all of ours before the end of the season and could easily have used many more. We also took a few when they were small - very late planted - and they were very good raw too.

I need to get the shelves in the greenhouse finished so we have space for the young plants. Our method last year was to plant almost everything in trays or pots and then to plant out as strong plants that don't need to be thinned. The plants were mostly sown at home and as soon as they sprouted they were moved to the greenhouse. It worked well, even though it goes against many people's ideas and against the instructions on the seed packets. We'll do it again this year.

Seeds and frost

Today we went to the allotment society in Kenilworth Avenue to see what seeds they had. We had a list with the plants and variety we would like. We got most stuff but no dwarf french beans. I'm wondering if we should leave them for another year, plenty of time to decide yet. As usual the seeds come with a 25% discount to members, so my 50p membership fee saved me £4. We also saw a mini greenhouse, which has four shelves covered by a plastic skin and a zip-up door at the front. We have one at home already, but the plastic skin is cracking and one of the shelf supports has broken. It really is a great thing to have against the house wall. It lets us harden off plants in a small space. The new one will probably get used alongside the old repaired one, which we have had foor many years and overflowed last year.

There is a heavy frost forecast for tonight. It could get down to -10°C, which is unusual here. It has been unusually cold for the last week or so, so the winter rain has fallen as snow. We have not seen too much snow, though there may be more to come. The forecast for a very sharp frost has prompted me to drain the water pipes on the allotment tanks so the pipes don't burst, I hope it works. The water in the tanks should be OK, they can push the lid off if needed and they have old plastic bottles in them so the ice can crush them as it expands and not burst the sides of the tank, hopefully.

The very cold spell, which is forecast to continue for a couple of weeks yet, means we have delayed planting any seeds. We would have planted our broad beans by now, but they will just catch up later.

Allotment society

Last year we joined the allotment society in Kenilworth Avenue where there is a large allotment site. We went along yesterday to join again and to buy seeds for this years crops. Last year their seeds all flourished and the varieties were a good choice, so we wanted to do the same again, but this year they were not ready. We will have to wait for a couple more weeks to get going. We want some onion sets this year - these will be ready even later and the society don't stock red onion sets so we'll need to look elsewhere.

Plan for the year

We've been looking again at what did well last year and what we want to plant this year. Last year we had rectangular beds, but this year we are going to try the annual veg in rows like most people do. The fruit bushes, strawberries and asparagus remain in place and the greenhouse is a bit bigger. We already have the garlic and winter onions in the ground and they're growing on, though only some of the garlic has come up.

We had sent off for a free set of seeds from Gardens' World which include some vegetable seeds but we will also buy some that we were happy with last year. This is the list of seeds or plants we have and ones we want to buy with their variety that we have or would like.

What we have
Garlic
Beetroot, Cylindra
Carrots, Tendersnax
Cabbage, Tundra
Lettuce, Lotto Rossa
Broad beans, Saved seeds
Winter Onions (sets), Gift from Rob

What we want
Beetroot, Boltardy
Runner beans, Scarlet Emperor
Spring Onions, White Lisbon
Carrots, Nantes
Mange Tout, Delikata
Parsnips, Patriot
Leeks, Musselburgh
White Onions (sets), Sturon
Red Onions (sets), Red Baron
French beans, Kenyan
Sweet Peas, Old Fashioned mix
Spinach, Perpetual

Seeds

Today we laid out a plan of what we want to grow and where to put it. It didn't take very long and the plan just fell into place. I think it's mostly because we had discussed it on and off over the last few weeks. I drew a plan to check it out, which is below. We then went to the Kenilworth road allotment society to renew our membership and see if they had any seeds.

Renewing our membership for the year was the sting. I had to pay the full adult price of 50p. We then looked at the seeds they had. We got every kind of vegetable we wanted, except the asparagus which I expect to buy as one-year-old plants. The seeds all had prices marked as usual, but they knocked off 25% for members, so my 50p membership saved me over £4 on the seeds.

Now we need to work out the schedule to plant them and the excitement of seeing them sprout can begin.