06 Apr - Lettuce, Weeding & Update

The weather has been warm during the day for the past week and I've been hardening off some early lettuce. As I've sown some more as part of my plan for successive lettuce sowing this year, I thought I'd get these in the ground. The varieties I'm growing this year are Little Gem and Lollo Rossa.

I neglected to weed and tidy up the fruit bed in the Autumn and it's been a total state for months. Time to do something about it. My fruit bed contains blackberries, raspberries, gooseberries, rhubarb and strawberries. I did cut out the dead canes on my summer fruiting raspberries during the Winter so one of the jobs today was to tie in the new canes and dig out any raspberries that have spread beyond where I want them.

The strawberries grow like weeds after they have fruited, putting out runners everywhere. They had rooted on the path, borders and into the gooseberry patch. I composted most of the unwanted plants but saved a selection to give away. There was a fair bit of grass and annual weeds too so it was all cleared. I've still got a few jobs to do like clearing boundary paths and clearing a 'problem' strip at the edge of the plot.

In the greenhouse and the brassicas I sowed last month are growing well. The sprouts, kale and cabbage have all been thinned to one per cell. Most of the broad beans have appeared in their root trainers and I've added a few more beans to cells that didn't germinate so I have enough. The tomatoes are beginning to put on more leaves; they are definitely growing slower this year than last but I'm sure they'll catch up. The onions I planted out less than two weeks ago are beginning to put out green leaves.

I've sown a few other things too. A small batch of the bush type French bean 'Nautica' have been placed in the propagator; I didn't do too well with these last year because I planted them out way too early so I'm giving them another go. I've also sown another batch of lettuce and some Tundra F1 Winter cabbage. Again, I didn't have too much success with the Tundra last year; I normally sow Winter cabbage in June and plant out in July but it seems that Tundra is slow growing and needs to be planted much earlier. So, to avoid the underdeveloped plants I had this Winter I've sown them much earlier so they establish properly before the cold weather.

That's about it for this update. The sun is shining so it's time to do some more tidying up at the plot. Bye for now.