Saturday, 10 March 2007

Dear all,

I may be trundling around the world right now but that doesn’t mean to say I am not thinking about the allotment. Jesse has tasks this weekend which include planting up the early spuds through black poly as previously described, manuring one of the beds in preparation for early peas and to transplant some of my Bowland Beauty broad beans and turning in all the green manure on remaining beds.

March is a very busy time for vegaholics. Now is a good time to start brassicas for the summer and autumn. These include summer staples like minicole and favourites like January King, red cabbage, Brussels sprouts and winter cauliflower. I like to sow a few seeds evenly spaced in deep square 3″ pots. using John Innes seed compost. You can get about 24 to 30 seeds in this way. Cover with a thin layer of compost and put on the bench of an unheated greenhouse to germinate.

The broad beans I sowed in loo rolls are now ready to be hardened off outside. So they are coming out of the greenhouse and into a cold frame for a week before being transplanted in their loo rolls into the allotment in the well manured bed Jesse is preparing today hopefully.

I am off to town to check out some exotic veggies for lunch in the steaming tropics.