Getting ready for planting!

So whilst it’s been too wet to go and work on the allotment we’ve been busy at home getting things sorted ready for spring planting. We popped into Wilko’s the other day and bought some first early seed potatoes.

They were doing bags of five seed potatoes for a £1 so being wild we bought a bag! After leaving them in a warm, dry dark place for a week to chit they were soon ready to go into the ground.

I had prepped the bed with some compost and feed the week before and since it wasn’t pouring with rain this morning into the ground they went!

The thing that was needed next was to find some suitable seed trays to sow leek seeds in. These need to be quite small but still able to hold 2/3 plants to the approximate size of a pencil. At that point they are ready to transplant into the main growing bed. After a bit of searching on the internet I had what we needed at a very reasonable price.

I also purchased some slightly larger seed trays as well to grow tomato/tomatillo/chilli/pepper seeds on as plug plants. Hopefully having a greenhouse (which we need to get sorted/moved) this year will be a major plus.

A few years ago we bought a cold frame that had served us very well. However, after a few seasons of footballs landing on it and cats using it as a jumping pad the plastic panes in the top had become pretty knackered. So I decided it was time to carry out some repairs. I figured if we got some heavy duty plastic and some roofing nails we could soon

have a functioning cold frame again. One quick visit to B&Q later and we were in business. The good thing is, not only do we have a cold frame again we have enough plastic sheeting left over to carry out repairs for a good few years!

Happy Gardening!