Saturday, March 4

And we're off ...

It's March which for us means it's time to start sowing seeds. The growing season has begun.
We made a start on Thursday. I planted some of our shallot and onion sets into cells leaving the rest to be planted out on the plot a little later.

Martyn was on seed sowing duty and continued the allium theme by sowing leek seeds. He also sowed some broad beans. All were planted in cells and for now will live in the greenhouse.

Our final planting of the day was to pop three Casablanca seed potatoes into a bag in an attempt to grow some early new potatoes.

Martyn has put together a video showing all this activity and he has written a bit more about our preferred techniques on his blog post here.


As well as all the sowing and planting, I did a bit of tidying in the greenhouse and cut back some of the plants, such as pelargoniums, osteospernums and lavender that were overwintering inside. Hopefully the presence of green means they have come this far through winter with some life in them.
It isn't just us that have decided that it is time to kick start the growing season. The peach, apricot and nectarine trees that live in the greenhouse have flower buds on the point of bursting. This year it looks as though all three trees will flower at the same time. Last year flowering was staggered with the apricot coming into flower by 23 February. It had just about finished flowering when the other two woke up. It looks like my paintbrush and I are going to have to play the part of a very busy bee this year.

19 comments:

  1. For a minute I was thinking - it's late to be sowing leeks, but then I realized that you would be harvesting them long after our garden here is put to bed for the winter, so that really does make sense.

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    1. We are still hatbesting leeks, Margaret - we lifted some today. For us it is a winter crop

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  2. Most of my onion sets have sprouted now, and leeks & onion seeds are about 3 inches tall. I'll be following your Allium progress to see how it compares with mine - though I should have waited to let you go first so that I could copy!

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    1. It will be an interesting comparison, Mark

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  3. My outside peach will be in flower soon. I haven't sown a single seed yet this year, I am holding off a bit to see if it makes a difference. I think I shall get the tomatoes in soon though.

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    1. Let's hope that we both have a peach crop this year.

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  4. There's no stopping now is there Sue? I bought my shallots yesterday and will plant them on Monday. Have sown some sweet peas and onions seeds but that's it up to now. Enjoy all that fabulous blossom when it opens.

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    1. It will just get more frantic as the month progresses, Anna.

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  5. I haven't started with my onions yet. I plant them directly to the garden and the soil is still way too cold to be planting anything. Here onions go in the ground around beginning of April and are harvested in August.

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    1. It will be a while before we pop any outdoors, Leanan, our soil is wet and squelchy.

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  6. It's good to be in March, but it's very soggy here in Berkshire. Greenhouse work sounds like a good plan for today..

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    1. We managed some plot work yesterday, Belinda but no planting yet.Mainly tidying.

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  7. I thought spring was here reading your blog and then the hailstones started to fall!

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    1. Just wet and miserable here today, Brian

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  8. It's good to see you sowing and sorting your greenhouse plants. I haven't done a thing here, it's been far too cold. Hopefully it will warm up a little soon...can't wait to get some seeds going.xxx

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  9. Hopefully we can keep going now, Dina

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