Easter snows

It's been a quiet week. The shelves and windowsills are full of seed trays with seedlings growing on. The greenhouse on our allotment has its shelves full of seed trays too. Even the cold frame at home has some beans in it. I've added another shelf into the greenhouse and there's room for two more. They can be removed later so we can grow some bigger plants that do better in the greenhouse all year. Jean got some free seeds with Gardeners' World, including some peppers, which we should grow well in that warm space.

Easter is early this year - almost as early as it could possibly be. Unlike previous recent years, this year we have had a taste of winter with some frosts and a few storms. This Easter the cold north winds have blown in snow squalls. So far the snow has not really settled but the ground is quite cold, so really we're waiting for things to settle down and warm up.

Parsnips

The first leaves of parsnips have appeared. These are thought difficult to grow, so we spread the seed on wet newspaper in a seed tray with a clear lid. Nearly half of the seeds rooted and have been transferred to fibre pots. Now the first couple of leaves have sprouted above the compost so it looks as though the method works. It is a bit fiddly and time-consuming, but home grown parsnips next winter will be well and truly worth it.

Now we will sow the next batch in just the same way.

Out they go

The first of our broad beans have been planted out. We have lots of spare seeds - more are already growing - so we decided o see how they do. Other plots have broad beans out on them, but they have mostly over-wintered.

We took some more leeks up to the greenhouse and also our first batch of savoy cabbage too. The greenhouse is working well, so I want to make the most of it.

Our major success is the first showing of parsnips. They are notoriously poor at germinating so we have put some on a wet newspaper to force them to germinate. so far about a third have sprouted roots. We potted them into fibre pots with sandy compost so I'll be very pleased when their leaves break through, but things look good so far.

Bin there, done that

The council have delivered a new bin to us. It is a large wheelie bin for our garden rubbish, the sort of stuff that can composted. This stuff all goes to our allotment compost heap so this large bin is not much use to us. But then again ...

We have a large pile of pernicious weed roots at the allotment, left over from clearing the site last year. They are rotting down, but we're worried about putting them on the compost heap in case they don't rot completely - the heap might not get hot enough to kill them. They are mostly bindweed and nettle roots so we don't want to spread them. So in an ingenious exchange deal we take our garden cuttings to the allotment compost heap and take the weed roots home to the new bin, so the council can take them away. The council will compost them in a big facility that will get hot enough to kill them. We have filled the bin but the first collection is about a month away so we have to wait get rid of more. We could probably fill the bin many times over, so it could take a while to get rid of the nasty stuff.

Seeds are growing fast, well not the parsnips yet. Plants in the greenhouse are growing nicely and don't seem to have suffered in the frost at all. We seem to be off to a good start.

Legumes brassicas and alliums

A fine afternoon tempted me up to the allotment. I wanted to build a simple frame to support sweet peas. I bashed a couple of short posts into the ground and screwed a long post to each. This way the long posts are not in the ground so they won't rot away. At the end of the season I can take them down and store them for next year. The short posts are old and can be discarded. I strung a wire across between the posts, anchored to the ground at each end. When the sweet peas are ready to plant I'll add some string supports from the top wire for each plant.

Earlier we planted savoy cabbage seeds and some more broad beans, both in individual pots, at home. The last broad beans have grown too fast and become leggy, so these new ones will go outside almost as soon as they show. The first broad beans, sweet peas and some leeks have gone up to the allotment, into the new greenhouse. The weekend is forecast to have very strong winds, so once they have passed the broad beans will go into the ground. The sweet peas will be a couple of weeks yet and the leeks even longer.

Jean planted a lot of flower seeds for our garden so space on window sills is tight. We tried to grow parsnips last year but not one came up, so we are trying something different. We have sown some seeds onto damp newspaper, covered with a propagator lid. If it works we will transplant each seedling into a fibre pot. When they are ready to plant out we will cut the bottom out and plant the whole pot. If you disturb the roots they split and don't grow well.

Take a leek

The leeks have sprouted. They push through the compost in a big loop and eventually they stand up. The tiny green spikes have the seed case stuck on top, like crinkled helmets. If you look very closely they are already perfect tiny leeks with white bases and a dark green stems. Jean potted them into small pots, fifty plants in all.

The spare room had trays of broad beans in the window. They have burst upward and and are in need of holding back to stop them growing too lanky, so they have gone outside. We can bring them in if they need some protection from frost, but otherwise they are hardening off before planting out. They could probably stand a frost, especially close to the house, but I don't want to lose them all.

Moving the beans outside has made space for the leeks. They too are quite tough and will go outside before long, making space for the seeds that will be sown in March

Wandering garlic

The garlic has moved. Not by itself you understand, it has been moved. It was happily growing scattered across many of the beds, planted without a plan. But now there is a plan and the garlic is in the way, so it has moved. I hope it's happy in its new home.

The shelves are in the greenhouse. They are removable wooden frames, to keep the space flexible, covered with wire mesh left from the fencing to stand the trays and pots on. The mesh will let light through and keeps the shelves lightweight.

The broad beans planted at home are romping away. Each pot had two beans in it just in case, and every bean has germinated. They were in pots that now seem too small - roots were bursting out of the bottom - so the strongest bean in each pot got potted on into bigger pots.

The leeks are sprouting, so the growing season really is under way. Bring it on!

The next few nights are forecast to have hard frosts, maybe -8˚C, so I have moved a pot with holly seeds in it into a very exposed spot. I want to frost them to help them to germinate, a process known as stratifying. A couple of holly bushes in the hedge would be very welcome, even if they will take many years to grow.