03 Apr - Start Of April Round Up

It's Good Friday at the start of April so it's a good opportunity to see where I am in terms of the allotment. However, most of the developments are occurring in the greenhouse where my sowings so far are currently growing.

First up are the brassicas. All of them are doing well through the Brussels Sprouts initially looked a bit spindly - still, they seem to be growing better now. The kohl rabi, summer cabbage and cauliflower have sprouted well - the cauliflower so well in fact that they have already developed true leaves and I've potted them on into separate pots. (Pic - brassicas in the foreground).

The Marketmore cucumbers have also done very well - I placed three seeds into two pots and I have now thinned down to one plant per pot. I find two cucumbers are plenty for us throughout the summer - I end up giving them away. (Pic - Marketmore cucumber before being thinned to one per pot).

Despite the germination rate of the Shirley F1 tomatoes being poor (only 4 decent plants from 12 seeds) the plants have come on well. Added to these I had to sow some Alicante to make up for the deficiency, these have almost caught up with the first batch. I've now potted these on. (Pic - Shirley F1 tomato plants before re-potting).

I didn't place the Bunyard's Exhibition broad beans in the heated propagator, I just left them in the greenhouse to get on with it - and get on with it they have. They were sown in deep root trainers which I used for the first time last year and proved to be particularly useful for broad, runner and French beans. Out of 20 broad beans, 19 have germinated well.

The leeks are growing strongly in their seed tray too, I will need to separate 40 or so out in the next week or two and plant them in a larger deeper tray I keep especially for growing on leeks. They will stay in this tray until June when they will be planted out on the plot. Talking of the plot, my garlic have sprouted well since the cloves were planted out at the start of March. There only seems to be a single gap where a clove hasn't put forth a leaf. (Pic - garlic sprouting on the plot).

That's it for now, until next time, bye.