Starting Seeds

Nice sunny day today. So I nagged the wife into coming down to the allotment. She's not normally involved so much. Especially if it involves heavy digging and hard work. But starting seeds off is nice and simple and she quite enjoys it. So it was with great enthusiasm (on my part) and much reluctance (on her part) that we started the day down the allotment. For there is much to do.

Couch grass must be dug out.

I have a lot of work to do in the actual layout of the plot. The growing last year pointed out some of the deficiencies in how the plot is structured and the floods earlier in the year has showed where the ground needs to be built up. And there is the dreaded couch grass everywhere. So This years plan is to build a new courgette mound made up of the couch grass which I am digging out of the beds. Or where the beds are going to be placed in the future.

New courgette mound start to take shape.

The ground is very soft. Though it is easy to dig, the clods that are dug are extremely heavy with water. In fact as I dig through, in some areas, there is a very bad smell of rotten material. Something anaerobic has been going on down there and the ground needs to get some air into it. But no sooner do I dig out an area than it gets in filled with water. It's still way to wet to consider planting anything. But if I can get the beds laid out and raised then things should be better for later in the year.

Dig a hole, it just fills with water.

The new seeds have arrived and the wife is busy in the green house putting some of them into seed trays and getting everything labelled.

Other half filling seed trays.

She went through the 2014 Suttons catalogue and pointed out what varieties of veg she really wanted this year. So we will be trying Aubergines, Okra and White Strawberries this year. She wants, so who am I to argue? We will also be doing the usual veg, Tomatoes, herbs (Basil, Coriander, Thyme etc.), Courgettes etc. So all-in-all we're off to a good start. Tomorrow I'll be down here on my own as it will involve shifting large amounts of rotten manure and that is not something the delicate flower is really interested in.

The first of this years seeds off to a good start.