Resigned to the fact that the weather was possibly only going to get worse this afternoon, I decided to call it a day and go home. The weather in fact didn't get worse, the snow turned to rain and the roads to mush! This didn't prevent me however from clearing the snow from the bamboo and evergreen shrubs in the garden when I got home. If any of the wet stuff froze overnight the weight on any shrubs would increase and potentially could cause some damage. So what to do with a few hours that I didn't have before, I needed no convincing, a spot of gardening. Of the indoor variety of course.
I have now managed to pot on the seedlings of Echinacea, Vebenea, and Antirrhinum. I had sown the seed for these a couple of weeks ago indoors. I have also sown the seed for Courgette 'Defender' and Cucumber 'Emily'. Again these have initially been placed in a heated propagator indoors.
In the greenhouse we now have the first batch of peas 'Kelvdon Wonder' sown. I normally use root trainers, but I have so many peas to sow that I have started to use empty toilet roll tubes! They do the same job and needs must.
A couple of weeks ago I also had sown the seed of Aquilegia, a yellow variety with long spurs, the seed was collected from the garden last year, and some ox eye daisies. These are all growing well and will soon need potting on.
Last week I had sown the seed for Cosmos 'sensation', Rudbeckia 'Prarie Sun' and Rudbeckia 'Sputnik'. Again, these are all growing well.
Last year my attempts at growing parsnips were poor. Last week I had sown the first row of parsnips direct, this are of the bed had been covered by a cloche and was recovered again once the parsnip seeds were sown. However, I am not holding out much hope at present, so I have placed some seed onto damp kitchen towel and once there is any indication of germination I will plant the seed outside. Other than that I will sow a row every couple of weeks for the next month and hopefully will hit lucky with the timing.
