A bit of sunshine and all us green-fingered folk are itching to get planting aren't we 🌳
But there's an icy edge to the breeze at the moment, and although I got Alan to tip the three bags of compost that we bought last year into the new raised bed ready for some planting next month, I quickly covered it with opened out bags that it came in, weighted down with some leftover bits from building the bed last year so that the soil underneath can warm up ready for planting next month.
I did pinch a bit of the newly opened compost to put into these little pots to start off some seeds though. It was nice sitting in the sun on the patio dibbing away and sowing the seeds. Mostly vegetables but a couple of pots of flower seeds too. And that larger green planter in the background got some flower seeds sprinkled into it too.
Taking that top photo which shows the whole of my growing space for this year made me think back to my previous vegetable growing areas.
This one was when we lived in Oxfordshire on our first farm, this photo shows just the vegetable beds behind the house, we grew all our own onions and potatoes here, the pigs used to love home grown potatoes. We also had a 12ftx 25ft polytunnel next to the small pig enclosure and orchard and another assortment of raised beds behind where I was stood to take this photo filled with more onions, salad crops and lavender ... lots of lovely lavender.
This was the first growing year at our rented small holding, utilising the plastic beds that we had brought with us from the first farm. The wind had kindly ripped down the polytunnel and left them all exposed for us to disassemble. Here we just had about 5.5 acres, mostly given over to field and chicken enclosure.
And look who's photo I found in the same file as the last one ... a very young and pretty Suky.
And of course most of you will remember our small holding in North Wales before we moved back to England. Lots of growing room on the hillside along side the little orchard and Summer chicken run.
With the green Net Tunnel, designed with a wire mesh bottom layer to keep the pesky hillside rabbits off some of our salad crops and with space for the Blueberries, so we could eat them instead of the birds ...
... and the polytunnel, filled with the tender indoor type crops, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, spinach, and delicate leaves etc.
These two tunnels were also 12ft x 25ft as it was a size that really suited us.
My new growing space is just 6ft x 8ft ... and that is the total floor space, the actual raised bed is much smaller. So I can see that I'm going to have to get very inventive this year. My main plan is to use the wooden bed for salad crops... spinach, lettuce, radish, spring onions etc and then have some French beans in the small black planter on the opposite side, with some Bags for Life being lined up along side it for a few potato plants. Oh and a couple of large pots for courgettes.
And of course I can't forget my little tin bath at the front door, which is very handy for snipping herbs from when I'm in the kitchen, so it adds another couple of foot of growing space. I might put a few garlic cloves in here too, all that wasted space makes me want to fill it a little bit more.
My newly sown seeds were basking in the early morning sunshine when I pulled back the curtains this morning.
Sue xx
