Yoo hoo! Yes, I’m speaking to you… yes, and you too…
After a bit of a lull in the old blogosphere, I’ve finally found the time and the inclination to put fingers to keyboard and ‘ahem’ bash one out.
I’ve had a rest from The Hinckley Times articles over Christmas, as even I can’t bobble on continually about ‘it’s a bit nippy out’. But you know what? After the bleak dreary nights, where all you want to do is light a fire and get your PJs on, I do believe that spring may really be around that corner.
Only the other morning, I looked out to see blackbirds blatantly flirting…nay.. near on cavorting… in the garden, and a blue tit was definitely having a good old nosey in the bird box.
And so, on to the vegetable plot. The garlic and onions I planted at the back end of last year have survived the snow, and healthy new shoots are pushing up through the ground. The broad beans were doing marvellously, right up until the point I let the chickens out for a run around the garden. In amongst all that green stuff they could have found to eat, they happily chomped through the entire crop of beans and left me with nowt but spindly stalks.
No matter, I’ve planted up two varieties of replacements in the greenhouse. Bunyard’s Exhibition as they did well last year, and a heritage variety I’m trying for the first time: Dreadnought. It’ll be interesting to see which are the top croppers. They are all planted in empty toilet rolls, as apparently when it’s time to plant them out, the whole thing goes in. The tube will rot away in the soil, and the roots won’t get any unnecessary disruption. Happy times.
I’ve also planted aubergines, chillis, broccoli, leeks and onions. There was a slight seed-related mishap, whereby a good few of them got wet due to a leak in the shed roof. So I don’t actually know if any will pop up, but for the moment they have the benefit of the doubt. I pop down to the greenhouse every day, peer encouragingly into all the pots, and give them all a ‘come on old chaps’ kind of pep talk.
If nothing startling happens, I may resort to buying seedlings from the garden center. That’s not cheating is it? Please tell me it’s not…
This one’s for you Edgar
