And now on to planting

Only one Kumoi pear on the whole tree, May 2024

As far as seeds go, I'm on the final stretch.  Everything that needs to be sown before summer has at least one tray sown so far, even bottom-of-the-queue corn.  Why was corn last to be prioritized?  Everything else either takes up less room and/or gives a bigger harvest:  corn takes up a lot of space for very little edible return--we love it as a luxury, not a necessity.

And so now I'm on to a transplanting frenzy.  Every day for more than a week I've been taking up trays and pots to the allotment to get things in there: mainly peas (nearly done now) but also beets and I've moved on to the tomatoes too.  There is still a lot of space to plant at the allotment but because of intense slug pressure, I really can't take up a lot of things.  For instance, I tried four extra lettuce seedlings when planting them out at home;  they went into a newly filled container, with a thick layer of eggshells surrounding them and a bit of chicken wire over the top--these lasted one day.  

Because of the ongoing pot shortage, most of my warm weather crops--squash, zuc, climbing beans, corn, pickling cucumbers--got sown later than I would have liked.  Some of these aren't even sprouting yet--to think I actually transplanted most of them out in May last year.  However, they should still succeed with a later June transplant, which I sometimes have to do anyway if mid/late May is still chilly or very rainy (though it's not this year(.

The view from the back door, May 2024

At home I'm about halfway through planting my kitchen garden beds.  I do have a fairly big garden and could convert quite a bit more of it to beds--and perhaps I will do so in the future--but we like having a mixed garden with trees, ornamentals and a bit of lawn.  I have mostly brassicas here at the moment but also this weekend I transplanted some parsley and marigold seedlings, pricked out from a large pot I'd broadcast them into.  I'm also preparing a newly sheet mulched bed (mainly covered with last winter's contents of the chicken house) for salad cucumbers.

The lettuces, cauliflowers and direct sown cabbages seemed to have been badly damaged by those pesky wood pigeons so I erected a piece of insect mesh over them; while it won't completely exclude cabbage butterflies, it should keep out pigeons, ducks and chickens.  It looks like those rotten pigeons completely nipped off all the little cabbage seedlings so I transplanted out some purple sprouting broccoli instead and will later transplant some more cabbage further along that bed.  Luckily I had already broadcast another pinch of cabbage seed into a large pot (now sprouting up) just in case the direct sown ones didn't succeed.

Down to the wire (still more seeds)

Seed trays at the back, seedlings under mesh, and a little cardboard for sheet mulch, May 2024

Holding my row cover/insect mesh is an old head board and foot board from a child-sized bed the neighbor was throwing out.  The mesh itself is less to protect my kohlrabi against cabbage butterflies and more to protect it from my own birds and the local wood pigeons.  That bed is primarily kohlrabi, but I've just transplanted a couple of red kale into gaps in the rows, and am hoping for a few parsnips to emerge still.  But I have a few more kale at the ready in case they don't.

Can you see the little kohlrabi?  I took this photo at the start of the month, and they've tripled in size, May 2024

Some of the kohlrabi was direct-sown, and some I transplanted;  both look similar in size and growth, but the transplants are better spaced out, with fewer gaps.  

I have a couple of Savoy cabbages also emerging from another bed, under some wire (not fully peck-proof, but at least it's scratch-resistant), but I have since broadcast another pinch of seed onto a large pot for later transplant;  it looks like germination has been patchy.  Or maybe it's the wood pigeons--they've nipped the ends from my lettuces under there.

I'm still suffering from a lack of pots, but have been emptying about a dozen a day this past week by transplanting the snap peas at the allotment--I've also obtained about eight or ten white plastic pots previously holding cream (the husband goes through a lot of coffee).  As soon as they're empty, I fill them with fluffed-up wool, seeds, and a bit of soil.

The tomatoes and first sowing of cucumbers have graduated to the patio after a week and a half of acclimatizing during the day (and back indoors at night);  I hope to get these planted at the allotment by the end of the week.  So now I have squash (two kinds), zuc and pickling cucumbers in in my kitchen window:  a few cucs are even poking up.  And on the patio I have started some trays of green beans.  I still have not got any corn started or the purple beans--I need to sow these imminently!  But due to the acute pot shortage I've had to prioritize and those two ended up at the bottom of the list;  I probably won't even get to them until I've done all the green beans.

Not done yet (with seeds)

 So happy we've had a full week of 14C and above temps;  my seedlings have finally been able to grow a bit.  I've planted out the first tray of snap peas at the allotment, and the first tray of beet seedlings too.  I have many more peas coming up (though still a little small to transplant), and the next tray of beets just emerging (and to keep up the succession, another tray has been sown).  I will try to keep the beets going this way:  as soon as I plant out a tray, immediately resow with more seed.

Snap peas sprouting, May 2024

A few older packets of seed I just broadcast into larger pots, hoping a few would sprout;  it seems that the purple sprouting broccoli wasn't as old as I thought, as pretty much all of it looks to be growing.  Not so much for a packet of cabbage, however, though I a do have kale, parsley (I think) and French marigolds too.

An old packet of seed: "maybe a couple will sprout!" May 2024

Under my insect mesh at home, the kohlrabi is getting on, and I interplanted the cauliflower with lettuce.  The cauliflower seems to have stalled in the cold spring, but the lettuces look better, though I've seen the wood pigeons skulking around them (they are under wire, but not completely peck-proof).  

I've also got a few directly-sown Savoy cabbages coming up nearby, but I plan on growing a couple transplants of these too as the other (older) packet of cabbages didn't sprout.  One of my garden goals is to grow my own kimchi this year, which means I need some cabbage (yes, technically not Savoy, but I couldn't find any Napa cabbage seed).

And in my situation with the pots (i.e. 100+ pots is not enough), I've been getting creative.  I got another 18 out of a pot exchange bin at a garden center--we only stopped on the way past as the daughter was desperate for the toilet:  a lucky find.  And I've told the family not to throw out any small plastic pots from the refrigerator when they're empty (the husband goes through a lot of cream with his coffee);  at least five have been repurposed so far.  I went on a seed spree over the weekend, and any I had emptied got filled again.  And I'm not done yet.

The wind changes

A slight silver lining to this cold spring:  the flowers have lasted a lot longer than usual.  One apple tree (Laxton Fortune variety) has had a profusion of beautiful pink/white blossoms for two weeks now.  The other tree (Sparta variety) is less fulsome, but I'm hoping that means it might break its biennial tendencies;  ever since these two trees started fruiting, they've produced only every other year.  I've even tried thinning fruits, forcing them to bear less so they would flower/fruit every year, but no luck.  However, if Sparta only has a few fruits this year, maybe it will fruit next year too--and then if it goes biennial again, it will be in the alternate year from Laxton Fortune instead of both going fruitless at the same time.

This week however does seem to have a change in the wind, going from north easterly to south westerly;  it's gone a bit warmer.  Hopefully it won't change back until the growing season is done.  My allotment in particular is looking very bare;  I feel like I should have several rows of beets and peas at least, but have not a single one yet--the seedlings are still too small to transplant, despite sowing about a month ago.  I sow my trays outdoors for these cool weather plants as I don't really have the room for them indoors--maybe I should have made the room this year to get some growth on them.  But too late now;  just need to get on with sowing more.

At least my transplanted broad beans at the allotment are looking healthy and strong;  only one or two have been lost to pests and the rest are great.  The garlic too, planted out last September, looks very vigorous and healthy.  In fact, it almost looks like it's ready to pull now, but probably not actually ready for another month.  In past years I've harvested in July, but over the most recent years it's been ready in June.  I'm down to the last couple of heads from last summer's harvest--and using them very sparingly!--so I might pull up one or two during May.

Something else growing in this cold spring are fresh herbs;  I've recently cut back on my caffeine intake and have replaced my daily black tea with herbal tea, harvested from my garden.  This has included nettle leaves most days, adding one or two other herbs such as mint, lemon balm, fennel, rosemary, dandelion petals, sage, lavender, alfalfa, comfrey.  There have been a couple I did not like at all--blackberry leaves were too bitter for instance (though raspberry leaves weren't).  I quite like the nettle tea on its own;  hard to describe the taste, but it reminds me of the smell of new hay. 

Thinking big this year

After my hopes of 150 broad bean plants, I ended up with about half actually sprouting;  of the 40 or so that went into the paper tubes, only one emerged.  And I finally gave up on the remaining 30ish small pots too, resowing them with snap peas over the weekend.  The broad beans I transplanted at the allotment look good and are growing well.  The woolly sowing method (a wad of fluffed up sheep's wool in the bottom of each pot, a seed on top, a bit of potting soil to cover), ensured little to no transplant shock.

Now instead of a stack of eight trays of little pots of broad beans, I have eight trays of snap peas;  the first tray has begun to come up (sown 31 March) and I'll start transplanting them out when I can see a little root at the bottom of the pots.  It's still been cold, not really getting past 10C during the day.  I thought broad beans and snap peas would grow regardless, but the broad beans were incredibly slow to sprout, and the snap peas aren't much better.  Hopefully I get more than 50% sprout rate (though 50% is much preferable to the 30% I sometimes get).

I do want the snap peas to hurry up so I can start on the climbing beans next.  Same woolly sowing method as the other two.  Up until this year I thought I had more than enough trays and pots, but actually I don't!  100+ small pots is insufficient to my needs this year:  this year I'm thinking big.  On my garden plan (the first time I've ever really written one), I've got the ideal number of each type of plant I want to grow.  For instance, 150 broad bean and 350 snap pea plants (which is how many seeds I bought).  20 tomato plants--I sowed more seed than this to be sure I'd get 20 good ones--100 climbing bean plants, 50 corn plants, 40 squash plants (none of these sown yet).  I didn't take into account my stock of pots and trays.

Lovely flowers, cold weather

Now spring is really going, there are new flowers out daily it seems.  Suddenly all of my fruit trees and shrubs are in bloom or, in the case of the almond, already finished.  And my eclectic collection of ornamentals are also having a good show too, including the flowering currant, flowering quince and gorse, pictured.  I've got bulbs flowering, herbaceous perennials, shrubs, trees, even a vine.  What a lovely time of year.

Pinks and yellows and greens, March 2024

But it's still not consistently warm--yesterday for instance we didn't make it to 10C, which in my book is pretty cold for spring.  Not a bad temp for winter mind you, but not the kind of weather for encouraging my little vegetable seedlings to grow.

We call it the burning bush, March 2024

Over the weekend we had one cold day and one warm day, so I did what I could while I could;  I transplanted some kohl rabi seedlings from pots to ground in the kitchen garden and extended the insect mesh to protect them from pigeons and ducks (the first several rows have the other end of the mesh, put in place last week).  I also planted out a few more late-emerging broad beans at the allotment, and used the newly emptied trays and pots to start some more snap pea seeds;  the first tray of these from about two weeks ago are now just sprouting up.  I also sowed a few more packets of older seed into large pots en masse, hoping at least some will sprout;  these I will prick out individually.  As I did with a pot of lettuce seedlings at the weekend.  

And as a fun aside, we are down to five squashes from 2023's harvest of 21.  Plus about a 2 pound wedge from the sixth squash still in the fridge, hoping to finish within the next day.  Those squashes take a lot of eating, but to have them hanging out in the living room for six months and still be just as good as when we picked them really is something.

The Big Push (of seeds)

Wool underneath, crushed eggshells on top, March 2024

I've had two weeks of mostly uninterrupted garden and allotment access, due to our Easter break from work and school.  The weather has not been nice, up until the last few days!  But that didn't really stop me from doing the Big Push for seeds.  In fact, I pushed so hard I ran out of trays and pots before I ran out of seeds.  

Luckily I can sow direct with most seeds in my kitchen garden at home (not possible at the allotment because of intense pest pressure).  I've got a specific list of which vegetables I will grow at home (mainly parsnips, kohl rabi, cabbages, zuc, with a few intermediate/late season things like lettuce and radish), and at the allotment (beets, beans/peas, squash, corn, cucumbers, tomatoes).  So far I have direct seeded all the parsnips (though there were fewer seeds than I thought), some kohl rabi, and some cabbage. 

Cauliflower fortress against marauding pigeons, March 2024

I'm also gradually transplanting the still-emerging broad beans, sown back in February in individual pots and paper tubes.  Only one paper tube has sprouted, and I'm beginning to lose hope for those other 35 or so.  But I'm still holding out for the 50ish little pots that may still pop up, as I've been finding one or two from each tray every other day or so.  The first ones to transplant at the allotment have continued growing with no evidence of transplant shock: they look green and healthy and a little taller every day.  As I mentioned previously, I put a little fluffy wad of sheep wool in the bottom third of each pot, put a bean on top, then covered it over with a layer of soil.  As they grow, the roots go into the wool so when I plant out they have a good firm grip on it;  they can keep growing in the wool as they find their way into the new soil--thus preventing transplant shock.

We're back at school and work now, but the sowing of seeds is not done--as mentioned I'm out of pots (until stuff grows big enough to transplant), and also it's still just a little early for the warm season things like squash and zucchini.  I'll get to them nearer the end of the month.  However, the clocks have gone forward so there's more light in the evening, and it's a little warmer (though maybe not drier);  I will hopefully be able to get them all sown in good time.