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Anyone braving the garden in March ? Hca_button


Anyone braving the garden in March ?

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Post by Chilli-head 1st March 2018, 11:13 am

It's supposed to be the start of Spring.  It's -5 in my garden !  And I need to sow peppers, chillies, tomatoes, leeks and onions very soon.  I hope it warms up little for the weekend.


Last edited by Chilli-head on 2nd April 2018, 12:01 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Post by freebird 1st March 2018, 12:16 pm

The only garden work I am doing is clearing snow.
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Post by FloBear 1st March 2018, 5:23 pm

Don't care what the Met Office says, it's not Spring until the Equinox.
I've been in and out servicing chickens and outdoor birds a number of times today. Warm snacks for chooks and replacing frozen-over water a couple of times. Similar thing for garden birds though they didn't get warm porridge!
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Post by Ploshkin 1st March 2018, 7:11 pm

My garden is a wind tunnel at the moment having an east - west orientation so definitely not venturing out there.  I really do need to get some seeds sown though.  The furthest I've got is to chit some extra earlies in the bedroom.
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Post by freebird 2nd March 2018, 8:26 pm

Hooray - two Mulato chillies have germinated (seed swap)
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Post by Chilli-head 3rd March 2018, 9:17 pm

freebird wrote:Hooray - two Mulato chillies have germinated (seed swap)

Anyone braving the garden in March ? 7558

Good news.  I'm sure you'll enjoy them.

I sowed my tomatoes, peppers, chilies today.  

Tomatoes: Thessaloniki, Bloody Butcher, Red Pear, San Marzano, Sungold, Indigo Blue Apple, Indigo Blue Beauty, and Cerise.
Peppers: Giallo d'Asti, Doche d'Espagna
Chillies: Ancho, Mulato, Pasilla, Onza, Serrano,  Ohnivec, Basket of Fire, Caribbean red.

Also leeks and onions. Last year sowing leeks into a big pot and transplanting  worked for me and produced fatter leeks.  Now, I have always in the past used multi-sown onions in 2" modules - a pinch of seed in each module and transplant as a clump, letting them push themselves apart.  But, I do get rot problems snd I wonder if the congestion of this approach does not make it worse. So, 2 alternatives on trial this year - singly sown seed in 1" modules,  and sown in a deep pot like the leeks, to transplant singly into dibbed holes.  Let's see how it goes.
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Post by FloBear 4th March 2018, 4:44 pm

Hooray! I've finally sown some tomatoes, peppers and chiilies today as well as Cosmos and butternut squash. All from the seed swap so thank you folks Smile It was lovely outside - well, I was more in the GH but it was quite spring-y again
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Post by Dandelion 4th March 2018, 7:31 pm

Yes, it was quite spring-y here too. I braved the snow to clean out the hens, and discovered the year's first egg in their nesting box (which must show that it's nearly spring!)
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Post by Chilli-head 9th March 2018, 1:03 pm

The first of my tomatoes are up ! They are the cerise, a red cherry that were a slightly bizarre free gift from an electronics company. Grew them last year and they were productive and tasty outdoors, until they got blight. Going to try them under glass this year.

Onions and leeks are coming up, and I think I might have a cutting of Greek cress and pak choi (using up old seed) as micro herbs this weekend. First crop, of a sort Very Happy
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Post by Ploshkin 9th March 2018, 6:05 pm

Not braving the garden yet but I finally got some seeds in the propagator yesterday.  Some peppers, chillies, tomatoes and melons.  I'm cutting down on the number of tomato plants this year as I was rather overwhelmed by toms last year.
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Post by Dandelion 9th March 2018, 7:29 pm

Still no word of when I'll have my first knee op. If I don't hear soon, I'm going to buy some tomato plants and get the Easy2grow rigged up in the greenhouse. At least it can water itself, and poor Mr D won't have to look after it much while I'm indisposed. It's so weird not doing any gardening. We fitted an automatic vent to one of the greenhouse windows in the late autumn, and I have only just been able to check that it works (as we haven't had much warm weather!!) So we'll get another for the other window, and hopefully it will pretty much sort itself out.
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Post by FloBear 12th March 2018, 8:33 am

Having to brave the garden at some time each day to escape from parrot noise! Looking after a friend's bird and it's set my parrot, Lulu , into a frenzy of  squawking. They are now in separate rooms but it hasn't helped much.
Anyway, GH has had a good tidy and I'm now refurbishing the small bed by the side of the GH..
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Post by Ploshkin 12th March 2018, 9:11 am

Finally got a dry spell yesterday to replace the 2 roof panes in the greenhouse that broke under the weight of snow.  I've cleaned about half the glass which was green and opaque.
I have melons and sungold tomatoes germinated (seeds only went in 4 days ago.)
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Post by Chilli-head 13th March 2018, 4:35 pm

It's that time of year again. No idea at the start of the day if it will be freezing cold or bright sun. Greenhouse covers on, off, on ... OK when Mrs C-H is home during the day to sort them out. Today I'm half expecting to go home to scorched seedlings. Forecast said cloudy all day ...
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Post by Chilli-head 26th March 2018, 10:18 am

I'm aching this morning.

After fixing the garden fence on Friday evening, I weeded half the allotment on Saturday. Sunday I dug out the garden compost heap - my least favourite garden job of the year. I used some of the not so well rotted bits from the top in a potato trench for the earlies. I think it was Compostwoman long ago on here who talked about the idea of "dirty" compost that is OK for burying under, but too rough and loaded with weed seeds to spread on top. I've sieved probably 200L of the deeper, better compost for the tomatoes and chillies, and had enough left over to mulch half the veg plot and around some of the shrubs that looked needy.

The scrounged Christmas trees I shredded earlier in the year are rotting down surprisingly nicely, could make a suitable compost for acid lovers like blueberries perhaps ?

I hope I am rewarded with some good crops for all that effort !
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Post by Dandelion 26th March 2018, 4:32 pm

Chilli-head wrote:

I hope I am rewarded with some good crops for all that effort !

You certainly should be!
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Post by Ploshkin 28th March 2018, 7:53 pm

You make me feel tired just reading that CH.  The only thing I've done in the garden is weed a very small bed and buy a 6 pack of dwarf wallflower and put them in a pot for a bit of colour.  I have put some broad bean seeds and extra early potatoes in the polytunnel.
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Post by FloBear 29th March 2018, 5:22 pm

I have been potting up seedlings and fitting my new louvre so the GH has air available on all 4 sides. It has been getting up past 35*C in there when the sun comes out so I have rigged up a net curtain to stop the tiny plants frying. Suppose I ought to get round to buying some of that stuff that whites out the GH windows.
My potatoes and shallots arrived today so will get those in the next reasonable day we have.
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Post by Ploshkin 29th March 2018, 7:44 pm

I potted up all my tomato seedlings today.  They've been in a heated propagator under lights and had got a bit tall but were very strong.  They're now sitting on a heated mat and I put fleece over them for the night.
I nearly lost my newly germinated peppers the other day when it was sunny, they got too hot and wilted but  perked up again when I put them in a cool place.
I was pleased today to see a little fig forming on my plant in the tunnel, it's about the size of a petit pois.  I daresay it will drop off.  I'm hoping for some more as the plant is just coming into  life.  This winter I made a fleece tent inside the tunnel for the fig and a rosemary which now has some flowers.
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Post by FloBear 30th March 2018, 6:06 pm

Braved it today as going stir-crazy indoors in the rain. Mostly in GH setting up autopots and having a bit more of a tidy. Some garden untidiness was taken round the front to my trailer but the rain started coming down very hard again and I had to give up.
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Post by Ploshkin 30th March 2018, 6:54 pm

We've had a dry day today but not very warm.  I walked around and looked at weeds.
The next job I must do is plant out my strawberry plants (from runners) into the hanging baskets for the polytunnel.  They're starting to flower.
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Post by FloBear 31st March 2018, 11:04 am

Strawberries starting to flower! Do I take it they're in the polytunnel too?
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Post by Ploshkin 31st March 2018, 11:57 am

The strawberries are destined for the tunnel.  I rooted runners last autumn and they've been sitting in the greenhouse all winter in individual pots.  I have just, this morning, planted them up in 4 self watering baskets for the polytunnel.
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Post by Dandelion 31st March 2018, 4:16 pm

The rain has been pretty unremitting recently, but today it has topped for a while, so I've cleared compost out of the wooden bin which is my 'finishing off' bin when making compost. I've dug up the remaining four leeks from one of my raised beds and raked the compost over the top of the bed. I wanted to start to move compost from one of my daleks into the wooden bin, but my back is starting to hurt, so I'm playing safe and coming in. Hopefully we'll have some more dry weather at some point, but according to the BBC it won't be for a good few days
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Post by Chilli-head 1st April 2018, 10:21 pm

This long weekend is not panning out so well for gardening here. I did sneak out this PM to spike some sunken areas of the lawn; one poorly drained and high traffic area I've raked in some sand to improve drainage, and spent compost into an area where I dug out the stump of our cedar which was beginning to sink a bit.

My tomatoes an chillies seem to be in stasis. Stuck at two cotyledons. I think I'll prick them out into individual pots of homemade compost tomorrow in case it is the compost they don't like. They should be warm enough, but it could be the light.
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