The Saturday Garden Shed

Another type of shed a green polyhouse

Started Saturday 6th March 2011

Sweet Pea and Petunia Salad ......... booked for later in Summer


Time for a little progress check on the potatoes that I have had sitting in my airing cupboard for the last few weeks.  The chitting process is going well they have shoots that are 2 to 3 cm long.  The last of the frosts should hopefully be gone by the third week of March.  The potato bags will then be used for the potato crops rather than planting and ridging up.  The surplus seed potatoes I have already offered to a few people including one new neighbour who has just moved to the area who I met through a chat in our local pub.  Long may the pub remain a feature of British society.

First lot of Sweet Peas have germinated and are now finding their way to the production of the first leaves.  The next sowing of Sweet peas a dwarf mixture and a tall mixture for this weekend.  A set of Petunias using recycled plug plant trays will also be a task.  The excess again passed to other people or  I am possibly thinking of an honesty box system to raise a little money.  Now that would really be micro-entrepreneurship.

I have this little disagreement with my mother each year over plug plants.  She is definite about buying plug plants each year, but is never quite up to potting them all and taking them to the next level.  The consequence is that a lot of the 250 or more plants are lost.  Being a sustainably minded gardener I find this to be an awful waste.  I may have finally persuaded her this year with following argument. The growers of the plug plants are happy as they are able to free up the space to produce more than one product in that growing area a year. They also do not have the risk or expense of taking the plants to a larger size.  Plug plants are fine if you have the space and time and want 250 of the same plant..

The coming weeks will see a lot of different plants that will be needing to be sown as the vegetable growing calendar opens up.  I will update my planting schedule at another time since I find myself a little time poor for blogging. Tomorrow is the foodie bit. I attended the Taste of Anglia event at Chilford Hall so will include comments on some of my purchases from this worthwhile excursion.