This week has been very mixed weather-wise. We have been dashing between heavy showers one minute and basking in sunshine the next; in many ways ideal growing conditions.

• At the beginning of the week it was too rainy to garden so I recovered some old kitchen chairs to use in the shed. Not trying for the homes and gardens award, it was necessary as the seat covering was splitting and I had visions of something deciding to make a nest inside the seat. I spent the day under the car port making a bench for the shed. This was fixed in place the following day.
• I managed to finish off mulching the strawberry beds. There are lots of young fruits so I am hoping that wet weather later doesn’t turn the resulting berries to mush and that we enjoy a bumper crop. All round it looks to be a promising year for fruit with lots of young fruits on apples, plums, gages, redcurrants and gooseberries. The newly planted jostaberry has just a few fruits – maybe enough to give us an idea of things to come. The whitecurrant plants taken from cuttings last year are doing well but the blackcurrants look to be struggling. I think an aphid attack could be responsible. Aphids are also attacking the plum and gage trees.
• Although the blood veined sorrel has revived I am not really convinced that it will be allowed to remain as it looks as though it is more likely to send up flower spikes than young leaves to add to the salad.
• In the salad bed the radish and spring onions have germinated and I have sown a row of carrots- Early Nantes and a couple of rows of beetroot – Boltardy, Blakoma, Golden& Chioggia. Although, we may eat the roots of the carrots and beetroot these have really been sown to provide leaves for our salads. We are now able to produce and interesting bag of salad leaves using herbs such as mint, chives and fennel to complement the more usual leaves.
• The Sarpo Mira potatoes have now been earthed up and the rest of the potatoes are growing well. Evidence that last year’s spectre of the contaminated manure is not yet fully put behind us is the fact that sprouts from potato tubers accidentally left in the soil are showing signs of herbicide poisoning.
• A mixture of winter brassicas, autumn cabbage- Picador, winter cabbage – Tundra, summer cabbage Primo 2, cauliflower – Snowball and Kaleidoscope and sprouts United & Wellington, have been planted out and covered with some insect proof netting, hopefully this will give protection from both the pigeons and the white butterflies. We have a lack of success when growing cauliflower and so I have tried walking on the soil before planting to make it firmer to see if that improves things.

• Also planted were some turnips – Aramis. These were planted fairly close together as we intend to harvest them when they reach somewhere between golf ball and tennis ball size.
• The broad beans – Bunyards Exhibition & Witkiem Manita that were sown directly into the ground a couple of weeks ago are now coming through as are the peas- Mangetout and Greenshaft sown last week.
• The two new grapevines Boskoop Glory & Madeleine Sylvaner that arrived this week have been potted up. Initially we were rather worried as they showed no sign of a bud or leaf but on reading the accompanying leaflet we learned that they have been kept in cold storage to prevent growth so that the were less likely to suffer damage in the post, so fingers crossed that they will soon show signs of life.
• Tomatoes – Shirley, All blacks, Yellow Perfection, Brandywine, Rainbow Beefsteak, Gardeners’ Delight, Amish Paste, Roma, Japanese Trifle Black & Moneymaker have been planted into large grow bags in the garden greenhouse. We are trying the larger growbags in combination with a grow pot ring culture system. These are green rings that sit on top of the growbag into which the tomatoes are planted. They are supposed to improve drainage, and give the roots a greater depth of soil so we will see if they make a difference.
• Squash – Turk’s Turban were potted on and more nemesias were pricked out.
• We also sowed red cabbage – Ruby Ball, a second variety of sweetcorn – Honey Bantam and climbing French beans -: Barlotta Lingua Di Fuoco Cosse (a Borlotti type), Violette (purple beans) & Corona d’Oro (yellow beans).
• In the plot green house more tomatoes have been planted but this time straight into the borders which have been improved by adding bags of compost. When all the tomatoes have been planted we will have the same varieties in here as in the greenhouse in the garden.
• In the garden the area alongside the greenhouse has now been complete and is ready for the tubs of summer bedding that will brighten up this are in a few weeks.