01 March 2010

Cheating

The heavy snow of last Thursday is still on the ground, but it is melting fast and turning our back garden into a highly unattractive pond. I don't have any well-formed plans for the future of this area, in terms of planting, but I think whatever ends up here will need to be fairly amphibious.


Still wintry-looking outside, then, but inside the greenhouse there are some promising signs of life. The soil in the raised beds has unfrozen and the purple sprouting broccoli and kale plants that I left in there to over-winter as an experiment are looking much better than they did at the end of January.



There are some blood-veined sorrel seedlings pushing their way out of the ground, too:


This afternoon I did my first bit of seed-sowing in the greenhouse for the year: some rows of peas and spring onions. I'll probably follow those up with some lettuce, carrots and spinach in the next few days for some early crops. This time last year, the beds were still a month away from being filled with soil. It's wonderful to be able to get ahead of the weather like this, even if it does make me feel that I'm cheating, somehow...

2 comments:

Callie Brady said...

Amazing how well things grow in the greenhouse when the weather is so rotten outside.

Linda said...

I doubted if your broccoli and kale would perk up, Amanda, but it's good to see they have. What bliss to have a polytunnel.