The dreaded sweetcorn ...

Every year we try and grow sweetcorn, and every year we fail! We have tried sowing direct and in modules in the greenhouse. Germination is always patchy or not at all. The other year I sowed 40 fresh seed into modules in the greenhouse and only two germinated! This year we have sown seed "Incredible F1" into 6 x 4  modules to be germinated indoors. It will be interesting to see what happens! The lettuce sown on 13th Feb is now ready to be potted on:

We have:
9 red cos "Intred"
3 "All the Year Round" (most of the seed did not germinate). Two of the plants were quite large so I planted these directly into the raised bed.
12 "Lakeland"
Here is the lettuce potted on:

These will be grown on for another few weeks in the greenhouse before planting out. To keep some succession going I have sown some mixed hearting lettuce and "All the Year Round" in pots on the windowsill.
We are nearing the end of the leeks from the allotment. I will miss them this year:

potting on seedlings

Last weekend we had another snow fall. This was the sage last Sunday:

Thankfully the snow melted on Monday and the last few days have felt  more spring-like.
Today I spent some time potting on some of our seedlings. These included tomatoes sown on 14th March. For the record we have:
"Black Cherry": 6 seeds sown. 5 germinated with 3 large and 2 small plants.
"Garden Pearl": 6 seeds sown. 5 germinated with 3 large and 2 small plants.
"Bejbino": 6 seeds sown. 3 large plants.
There is still no sign of the "Tigerella" tomatoes sown on 14th March (11 days ago).
Other plants potted on include:
Zinnias sown on 21st Feb. 5 out of 12 germinated.
Kale sown on 7th March. I kept the 5 largest plants out of the 8 or so that germinated (12 seeds were sown).
Cabbage "Advantage" sown 10th Feb. All 4 seeds germinated and all 4 plants kept.
Cauliflower "Autumn Giant" sown 10th Feb. All 4 seeds germinated and the 3 best plants kept.
All seedlings will be kept indoors overnight if the temperature dips close to or below freezing (forecast tonight) but will be transferred to the greenhouse during the day.

micro-leaves and Tigarella toms

The tigarella tomato seeds missing from the Funky Veg kit blogged here arrived yesterday and true to their word sent us 2 packets. I sowed 4 seeds in a pot. All the other tomatoes sown on 25th Feb are up and growing away nicely. As a special birthday treat we went to the Brookes restaurant in Oxford today. The food was amazing and each course was adorned with micro-leaves (dill on our salmon starter, beetroot on the chicken main, and lemon verbena/mint on the pud). This has inspired me to grow some on the windowsill at home using up old out-of-date seed:

I have sown beetroot, rocket and cress (micro-leaves in their own right!). Hopefully they will be ready for harvesting in the next couple of weeks.

Psychafunky veg

For my birthday I got some entertaining vegetable / fruit seeds:

They each contain a selection of fruit / veg seeds - quite unusual varieties:

(yes, there are double sprouts & no tomatoes - contacted the company and they replied that evening, over the weekend, that they'd send some Monday - pretty good customer service). The kits came with starter pots / compost discs which are probably not a lot of use for these:

but should be good for getting things started which do not like to have their roots disturbed. We put in a row of rainbow radishes next to the carrots which went in yesterday and 15 of the spring onion seeds into a pot - we usually start those indoors. Will be interesting to see how these work out - watch this space!

Sowing carrots and starting dahlias

Last year my friend grew the most amazing purple carrots in her raised bed. Feeling inspired, I have decided to give them a go in our raised bed. We are trying an F1 variety called "Purple Sun".  The soil in the raised bed is primarily from shop-bought compost so I am hoping there will be minimal forking. The bug-proof cover should also keep out the carrot root fly.
We have also started some dahlia tubers off in pots in the greenhouse:

To my relief the tomatoes are germinating in their pots:

The zinnias are in the tray. The chillis are still struggling to germinate. So far we have 2 "Chilli Shake" (out of 6) and 3 "Cascabella" out of 7).

Bug proofing raised bed

So just under a year ago we put in a raised bed - very useful but also a bit like a salad bar for bugs and mini-beasts. We want to grow some carrots under there this year - last year we made a cover for it which was never fully satisfactory (not quite the right size, not fixed down) so we remade it now for enviromesh, poaching some spare parts from an old fruit cage. This will offer a little protection for the plants in there, and will keep bugs out and - most importantly - it is now the right size and fixed down. Fixed it down with pipe clips - by a happy coincidence the pipe we used is exactly the same size as 15mm copper for plumbing, so we can use these:

Like this:

So overall looks like:

Hopefully this will hold it in place - we have 6 clips down one long edge, which will also act as a hinge so the other side can be lifted to access the bed. Next addition will need to be a support...

planting ranunculus and sowing kale

What a difference a day makes! Yesterday I was complaining about the unseasonably cold weather. Today it is positively spring-like! I moved the lettuce, onion and cabbage seedlings into the greenhouse for a bit of sunshine. I will bring them in overnight and repeat the process for the next few days before leaving them out permanently. I have also been planting ranunculus tubers:

These are called "Asiatic Mixed". I have never grown them before so did a little bit of research. It is recommended that you put the tubers in flowing water overnight! The best I could do was put them in a bowl of water and change the water a few times. After soaking for 24 hours, the tubers were about twice their original size. They are still quite tiny though and remind me of (miniature) octupi:

I planted 6 per 10 inch pot:

I am planning to transplant them into the ground once they are growing strongly. 
This year we are going to try growing some kale at the allotment. Last year we picked up a reduced packet of seeds that contains 4 different varieties that mature at different times from September through to March:

I have sown 12 seeds in pots on the windowsill in the hope of getting at least one of each variety to try.
In other news we have decided to move our beautiful dogwood "Cornus Cardinal" to the front garden. The stems are a lovely burnt orange colour this time of year but the backdrop of a red brick wall does not do them justice, in fact they are almost camouflaged:

Now is a good time to move this type of shrub while it is still dormant. Before moving I have given it a severe haircut, cutting all crossing branches back to the base of the plant and reducing the height by three-quarters:

Not quite coppiced but nearly. I really hope the plant recovers! It will be moved to a border in front of our house. Our house is white rendered so the colourful stems will really stand out. To give the plant the best start possible we have dug in a wheel barrow full of compost from our compost bin. Fingers crossed ......

Getting twitchy over toms and chillis ...

The weather has not been kind over the last week or so. It has been bitterly cold and also snowy. This was our garden last Friday:

Thankfully the snow has gone now and for the the last few nights we have been frost-free. It still remains chilly though, with grey skies, rain, and temperatures in single digits during the day. It has been one of the worst years for getting the chillis to germinate. It has been 29 days since the seeds were sown and so far only 2 of the "Chilli Shake" variety have germinated. At the weekend I moved all the pots (except Chilli Shake) into the airing cupboard to see if this helps. There is also no sign of the tomatoes sown 8 days ago. The Zinnias sown on the same day as the tomatoes seem quite happy on the windowsill and started germinating within 3 days of being sown! The onions, cabbages and caulis are all doing well and will be transferred to the greenhouse soon.