And we're off!

Well, with the lovely sunshine we've been getting over the last week or two, I decided it was about time I got organised and started planting!

Last Wednesday (1st April) I gave the mini greenhouse a good scrub out, washed & sorted all the old pots and sorted out the seed packets.

I planted a tray each of the broad beans (Super Aquadulce) and the climbing French beans (Barlotta di Fuoco). I also planted some various flowers & herbs: cornflower, calendula (I love these!), marigolds, lemon balm and Italian parsley.

A good few years ago I was really successul in growing Italian parsley from seed. Apparently they're supposed to be very difficult to germinate, but that year I had loads of huge plants! I hope I'm as successful this year.

I've also ordered some herbs from The Natural Gardener - basil, coriander and Italian parsley! I never seem to be able to grow enough herbs, and it's good to have a back up supply!

I actually found this site by Googling for coir pots. I needed some new pots for planting seeds (where do they all go to?!), but I wasn't keen on buying more plastic. I know the coir pots can only be used once, but they were very reasonably priced. I like this site because they sell them in small pack sizes, plus it seemed a nice friendly site!

This year I switched compost. I used West+ peat-free last year, and while it was ok, it did seem a very bark-like texture and tended to dry out quite a bit. This year I bought some coir compost from Fertile Fibre. It's peat free, and is made from organic coir! It was reasonably priced, delivery was quick and it seems a really nice compost too. The other great plus is that it's very light, so it was easy for me to carry the huge bags from the front door to the garden!! I'll see how we get on with it this year.

So, another sunny-ish day today (though rain forecast for this afternoon and the rest of the week). I planted some lettuce (Marvel of Four Seasons, Belize, Oakleaf, Paris Island Cos and Tonale Ice Queen) and spring onion in the seedling coir pots and put them all in one of the coir trays for the moment to keep them all together. Once the seedlings get bigger I'll stick 2 or 3 into a tray and let them get on with it. Last year I sowed the lettuce direct into the ground, but we had terrible problems with cats and had to bin the lot. This year I'm going to attempt to grow the lettuce in pots and hopefully we can avoid any cat problems.

Still to get the potatoes in, and prepare the pots for the carrots (need to remember to order more sand!). Even though I've cut back this year, I'm fast running out of space. I wish we were further up the list for an allotment - I might give them a phone actually and see if they have any idea how long a wait it is!