On 30/03/2010 12:36, Wally wrote:

Your thoughts would be appreciated.


My peas, potatoes and onion sets are already in the garden.

Too early to plant runner bean seeds. I do them directly in the ground
nowadays rather than individually in pots - it seems to make very little
difference to how quick the first harvest is - maybe a week or two at
most. Just not worth the hassle and space they take up - especially if
they get leggy and the garden is too wet to plant them.

Brasicas, leeks, lettuce, beetroot etc are up already in the cold-frame,
too small to plant out yet - I just need some dry weather in a few
weeks time to get onto the garden to plant them.

I've taken a chance and planted some parsnips, carrots, sweetcorn and
tomato seeds under the coldframe too. If they fail I will just plant
some more later on.

Parsnips are a sod to germinate. I've given up trying to grow them
directly in the ground because they are completely overrun by weed
seedlings before they show through. Same with carrots. I've found I can
grow them from seed in deep troughs and transplant them out with a lot
of care - if the roots hit the bottom of the tub it means I get L shaped
carrots :-) or they split. Actually the split carrots haven't been a bad
thing. I harvested the last of them a couple of weeks ago - they had
overwintered nicely in the garden, which was a pleasant surprise. The
tops had completely died off of course but the carrots themselves were
fresh and sweet - perhaps the frosts had made them sweeter? There was
also the BENEFIT of them forking. Where there should have been one
carrot there was four or five nicely formed large carrots - all joined
at the top. A whole row of large forked carrots. The only downside is
the problem of cleaning out the soil between the forks.

--
David in Normandy.
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