Hope springs in the February garden

Snowdrops and hellebores abound.  I've had a lot of newly planted crocuses just starting to show some colour but we've had a run of very cold nights (though only a couple of real frosts) so I hope that they haven't got too far ahead.

I'm thinking that perhaps I was a bit optimistic in my early seed sowing though you never know what the weather is going to do.  No sign of the fleece wrapped carrots germinating in the polytunnel but it has only been 2 weeks and I think they take that long anyway.  If they are a no show I will just put in some more seed when things have warmed up.  It has been up to 25c in there a couple of days but getting down to just below freezing some nights.

No sign of my pepper seeds in the propagator yet but probably too cold for them as well as I haven't got a thermostatically controlled propagator.  It's a very old one & I think it just keeps 8 or 10 degrees above ambient temperature.  I have just ordered a thermostatically controlled one as I will want to be sowing early to take advantage of having the pt.  Previously I have never sowed anything before the middle of March.

Oh dear. That we've reached the middle of February and I'd forgotten to make a gardening thread shows how much is going on in my garden ! We too have snowdrops; some of the fancier varieties Mrs C-H planted last year are still with us too.

I haven't sown anything (aside from the overwintered stuff - onions, garlic and broad beans) yet. End of Feb is when I normally sow tomatoes, peppers and chillies.

I usually sow carrots direct in the ground in April, and keep telling myself that I'll leave it later next year. For the last couple of years I've had a very successful carrot crop, but only from about the third sowing, after the earlier ones have failed to emerge, or emerged and promptly vanished !

Hellebores and snowdrops here too - I'm not particularly keen on snowdrops (I may have mentioned that before...) as find them cold looking. But with an increasing number of hellebores in the garden, I've been forced to grudgingly admit that the snowdrops look quite pretty growing around them!
I did decide to try planting a couple of seed potatoes in a bucket in the greenhouse at the weekend - we'll see how they go. When I went out to the garden before lunch, the thermometer was showing 3 degrees outside, but 37 degrees in the greenhouse in the winter sunshine! I think I know where I'll be spending the rest of the afternoon!

I set up some Charlotte potatoes to chit today. I traditionally plant them on my birthday in mid March. At the moment I have a problem, the area they need to go is under a spoil pile from digging out for the foundation of the pizza oven. I will be needing some topsoil to backfill, and elsewhere in the garden, but not for a few months. Where to stow it in the meantime

Put some seed potatoes to chit today - Rocket, Arran Pilot and Kestrel. I put a few Rocket in the polytunnel in a couple more drainage bits. My carrots have germinated in there, hooray. My first pepper seeds have also germinated in my new propagator and have spent the day under a light. It's a bit of a juggling act at the moment to keep things from getting cold as nights are down to minus 5 but it's quite warm in the Sun during the day and warmer still in the pt. I've brought my pepper seedlings into the kitchen for the night, having got this far I don't want to find them frosted in the morning.

My pepper seeds are doing well under the lights. They're looking nice and strong and green. I moved 4 hanging baskets of strawberries (from runners) into the polytunnel as they've had a good frosting now.

Well, hope sprang in my garden at the weekend, if nothing else ! The better weather prompted me to get on with some of the jobs that need doing before things start to grow. I went to the allotment Saturday morning and cleared out an old strawberry bed, to make space to move some new blackcurrants from hardwood cuttings taken last winter into. I found the remains of my manure pile uner the weeds ( ) and gave them a mulch. Cut back and mulched the raspberries too. A bit of weeding and dug some leeks. Finally split enough of the pile of pear wood to fill my barrow to bring back to join the firewood pile.

After lunch I cleaned out the greenhouse ready for sowing. Cleaned the glass, washed out gravel trays and propagators, drained, cleaned and refilled the internal water butt. Splashed some Citrox about on the sand bed that the tomatoes will sit on.

I'm still feeling drained from that flu, so that was all I had energy for. Actual sowing will have to wait for another day.

I did my first seed sowing this weekend; tomatoes, chillies, peppers, lettuce, beetroot and spinach for baby salad leaves, and sweet peas. A few things from the seed swap, thank you !

I wonder whether tomato Isis Candy will be getting re-named ?

We need a March garden thread now.
I also sowed tomato seeds at the weekend, also some mange tout, cauliflowers and lettuce for the pt. I'm fed up with bitter tasting bought lettuce at this time of year.
It will be interesting to see how Isis Candy do with you CH. I only got a small crop off them but it was a particularly poor year. I was disappointed to see that Heirloom Tomatoes seems to have gone - I always liked them for some unusual varieties to try.

Ploshkin wrote:We need a March garden thread now.

done.