Late winter jobs.

I have sown some more celery and celeriac.  The celeriac did not germinate very well  and I have only a few from the first sowing.  I hope that these ones come because I do not have any more.

I have transplanted all the tomatoes, leeks, onions, cauliflowers, cabbages and celery into pots of their own now.  This will enable them to grow on in the pots and I will not have to plant them out until the weather becomes more clement.  I have sown some first early peas in sectioned trays using a pinch of mychorrhizal fungi in each of the planting holes.  These peas will start the succession of peas throughout the spring and summer.  I usually plant four rows of peas more or less at the same time because they all come at the same time no matter when I plant them.  I have never planted peas this early though so I may well get a difference in cropping time especially as I am using four different varieties this year.  I transplanted another tray of lettuce and used mychorrhizal fungi in the planting holes again.

I have finished the Hugelkultur trench for the climbing French beans.  This time I layered weed turfs, holly branches and brushwood, leaves and turfs, putting sieved soil and manure mix on top.  It made very friable soil.  I used the rake to level off the ground as much as I could but their will be a mound there for the rest of the season. It will slowly go down as the organic matter decomposes.  The ground around the winter cauliflowers was tidied a little because there were a lot of dead leaves on the ground.  The old red Brussel sprouts were harvested and taken out.  I put them into a plastic bag so that I could bring them home and put them into the green bin.  There was no disease on them at all but it is best to be safe especially as they could be harboring club root.

I thought that I had club root in the ground again last year but, looking at the roots, I think that  they were probably damaged by cabbage root fly.  I don't usually have any trouble with cabbage root fly Delia radicum brassicae.

I am still cropping the allotment and took some purple sprouting broccoli home today.  I still have some parsnips, carrots, leeks and celeriac to crop.  Later on in April I will have the winter cauliflowers developing.

Six of the sweet pea support posts were put up today.  I have put cross pieces at the top of the poles to enable me to keep the canes horizontal.  I may have to change their position because they may be too close together and I can use the trackway to get to the plants so I don't really need to leave a path on the allotment as well.

Once all the posts for the sweet peas are in, I will need to get on with putting the roofing felt onto the sheds.  The store shed is the worst; letting in a lot of rain.