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Sunday, March 04, 2007

Progress report







I was hoping to get my parsnips sown this weekend but it has rained non-stop and meant I've had to postpone it for another week. In fact I've never seen so much water in my garden and my garage floor is flooded. However, it won't hurt to wait another week as I've got everything ready......the soil and compost mixes are sieved and ready to go, and the various fertilizers have been weighed and stored. There's little point in working rigidly to calendar sowing dates if conditions are not right.

I've made a special contraption to make compost sieving easier on my back.....and quicker. I did my compost sieving in about 30 minutes when it used to take me a whole afternoon. I'm actually now looking forward to sieving compost for the carrot mixes in a month or so. It consists of a wooden box with a (6mm dia. hole) mesh bottom, mounted on wheels that run on a wooden frame on a metal table. A polythene 'chute' funnels the sieved compost/soil into a bin (See pics above). This will save me hours and hours in the coming weeks.

Today I also sowed my red cabbage, brussel sprouts, some peppers and some seeds of shallot 'Matador'. These are in my conservatory as it's a little cold to be putting them in my greenhouse yet. The only things in my greenhouse are the shallots, onion sets and onion and leek plants that I 'bought in'. However, now March is here things will really start to gather pace and the main sowing season will soon be upon us.

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