[pgkevet]

Primroses ou on far field hill and the wild garlic leaves out for my salads. Finally got the tractor out into the filed to disc the veggie patch .. shame I only have manual rotorvator instead of one for the PTO.
Repotted my monkey puzzle forest (to be). All 30 now in 10L pots.
The grapefruit has broken out in massive numbers of buds and the current crop of lemons is maturing so Mrs lemon will bud up in a month or two.
Sown my third tub of leek seeds today and radish and salad leaves germinating in the greenhouse borders with loads of germinated modules sat in the greenhouse coming on very slowly with the cold nights but it stops them getting straggly indoors.
The first 50 sweetcorn are up .. so time to sow another 50 batch.
The only failure so far is with sweet peppers.. the jalopenos all germinated but zero on sweet peppers and the packet was unopened and only a year old. I might crack and buy a set of seedlings from wilkos rather than a fresh packet.
Very oddly i discovered that a row of parsnips I sowd last year have germinated and grown to the size of tiny carrots - after doing nothing last year. I fidn it strange that they must have germinated early feb with lots of cold, wet soil and frosty nights... go figure.

[Fleecewife]

For your peppers, buy one from the greengrocers - the kind you prefer - then sow the seeds from inside, as long as it's not a green one of course.  I did that and they germinated a few days before the seed company seeds.

Did you grow your monkey puzzles from seed?  I had a couple but they succumbed to frost when they were wee.  I know they are fully hardy when they are bigger as there are several around here.

Weird about the parsnips.  We had that with potatoes one year.  A student we had learning about organics decided to plant out the potatoes, but she did them far too deeply (she was very cussed).  A few straggly leaves appeared that year, but the following year we had a massive crop without having to do any work.

[pgkevet]

I've grown melons et al from bought fruit.. and my orange tree and in the past grown date palms too. OH only buys green peppers...

A couple fo the monkey puzzles are from seeds I bought/sowed but the vast bulk from a chappie on ebay who was relocating to france and selling his seedlings cheaper - I did a great discount deal with him more because they will be a forest than because of the numbers I wanted. It was a good deal.

My research indicated that welsh weather was ideal and it's about time they were grown here as a crop - albeit likely after my lifetime. Like my foray into frost hardly pecans - i'll never see them bear.

[Anke]

Aren't most of the commercial peppers F1 varieties? So you would get quite a mix of plants?

I need to get in another batch of leeks, as not germinated too well so far. Also I am way behind on broad beans (my first batch went mouldy during germination, so much for "organic" seeds...)

This week need to transplant most of the peppers and chillies (germination was a bit mixed, but as I am always a bit enthusiastic with my sowing numbers still got more than enough plants - the lightbox worked brilliantly!

Propagator ready for 2nd batch - sweetcorn, squash/pumpkins...

[Lesley Silvester]

Yesterday was a gorgeous day - just the day for getting in the garden but I had something on. Never mind, I thought. I'll do it tomorrow. I got all my seeds sorted, pots and seed trays at the ready and went outside. Apart from the fact it was freezing cold, I couldn't shift the bag of compost and OH was out. I came in, hoping to do it later when OH was back and it's been raining on and off ever since.
 

[cloddopper]

I finally finished my seed sucker this afternoon . I can now pick up individual seeds and sow them one at a time in my tube pots.  Just before teatime i sowed 5 greyhound cabbages, 5 ball cabbages 5 kohl rabi , 5 dwarf PSB & finally six tubes of long trailing lobelia with ab out 30 seeds in total as even these are too small for my seed sucker .

 My seed sucker is an old ex Freecycle aquarium air pump ,  enclosed in an air tight food container with sealed adapters I've made on my lathe  for air in and air out as well as a sealed up cable entry point . The actual seed sucker head is a bar of aluminum center bored  and drilled at 90 degrees to the bore with an air release hole a fine brass tube of 0.5 mm bore set in the bar by the air release hole and the rear is fitted with a turned up connection stud .
 It works well and can also be rejigged to have a bigger seed sucking tube that's made to pick up small peas if my finger tips lose much more sensitivity.

Tomorrow after sterilizing all my other seed tubes and seed trays in a dish drops & bleach hot water mix , after  rinsing every thing off & it drying .  I'll be sowing another 132 seed tubes & putting them in trays of 33 in my LED lit heated bed .  Our leeks will be started off , along with a few other alliums & some salad stuff's .

I won't be starting the capsicums or toms for another week or so and I'll also give the seed trays a good dose of Nemaslug killer  for last year some microscopic black slugs ate every capsicum as soon as they had germinated in both the led lit bed and the heated misting bed out in the glasshouse . I think they must have come in with a 20 kg bag of  seed sowing compost I purchased for the garden centre .

[pgkevet]

MadGM. This is the first year I;ve had to use the wheelbarrow to shift th big B&Q compost bags from storage to the greenhouse. I'm trying to tell myself that it's 'cos they were out in the rain all winter butit's a bit like the time I gave up on growing strelitzia in dustbins.. age is defeating shifting some things. Next year i'll probably have to use the front loader..

[Lesley Silvester]

This was actually half a bag left from last year. I used to be able to manage them no bother, but becoming disabled has... well, disabled me somewhat.

[pgkevet]

As a charter member of the 'stuffed back club' I sympathise. OH can no longer manage the 25kg size bags of anything. At the moment i can still lump those about and just suffer afterwards....

[Fleecewife]

MGM - I sympathise.  It's so frustrating isn't it.

I bought a collapsible, foldable light weight sack trolley for humphing anything around the garden, even my trug of tools.  It's not good on lumpy ground, but where there are paths it's great.

http://www.sacktrucksdirect.co.uk/60kg-mini-compact-folding-sack-truck.html  It's special offer 1/3rd off so £30 at the mo.

[devonlady]

Only a couple of years ago I could transfer bags of feed from the Landy into the bins and throw a bale of hay/straw onto my shoulder and carry it. Now I have to do it all piecemeal which takes ages. A large bag of compost I have to transfer bucketful by bucketful. I try to study the beauty of the day and make it a pleasant task.

[pgkevet]

It's earleir than I would normally go for it.. but stuck a row of carrots and a row of parsnip seeds in. mostly 'cos it looks like a row of last years parsnip seeds than didnt coem up then has come up recently.. unfortunately in the patch I plan to heavily mulch and plough in a couple of times to prepare for next year and it'd be impractical to try and avoid the  row there.

[Lesley Silvester]

I've put a few carrots in a trough just to see how they do.

[pgkevet]

A couple of rays of mixed brassicas had been hardened off nd got spacd out in the filed at the w/e.. along with a row if peas under a chicken wire tunnel.
The shar frost night before last crinkled up some leaves on runner and climbing beans I'd put out to harden.. theyre back in the greenhouse. It's a risk one takes for an early crop and may get resown.
Sweetcorn coping with the frosts and hardening off. nice sturdy seedlings and about 130 of them so losses there would be a shame.
Greenhouse borders now planted up with toms, courgette, peppers, aubergies and catch crops of radish, sp onion and lettuce and some chard and beets for leaf. tubs and baskets planted up in the grenhouse too.

Typically I now have x/s spares.. geranium, lobelia, sweet peppers, toms and some cues - anyone near llanfyllin is welcome to them or they stay in the greenhouse until potbound and take their chances in the field.
The onionsets in the field veggie patch are sprouting. Seeds and spuds are sensibly keeing their heads down still.

we dug out the last of the good stored onions yesterday.. about 8/9kg are now too soft to use but stil good spuds stored. Whch really is amazing- 8mths of our own onions and it'll be near 10mths of our own spuds. Lst years parsnips in the field have stopped being nice now.. edible if one was hungry - and one could say the same for the carrots. PSB is fine but the rest of the brassicas are bolting - can still eat some leaves but again not so nice.

[waterbuffalofarmer]

For your peppers, buy one from the greengrocers - the kind you prefer - then sow the seeds from inside, as long as it's not a green one of course.  I did that and they germinated a few days before the seed company seeds.

Did you grow your monkey puzzles from seed?  I had a couple but they succumbed to frost when they were wee.  I know they are fully hardy when they are bigger as there are several around here.

Weird about the parsnips.  We had that with potatoes one year.  A student we had learning about organics decided to plant out the potatoes, but she did them far too deeply (she was very cussed).  A few straggly leaves appeared that year, but the following year we had a massive crop without having to do any work.

I bought some ''gourmet'' peppers form t&m