Getting fruity!

An even nicer day today – real Spring sunshine – & my first job before going to the Hill was to mend the cold frame.

The weight of the snow last weekend had collapsed the bubble wrap, pulling it away from its duck-taped mooring. On closer inspection, where the bubble wrap is stuck to itself on the corners, it has stayed in place – the problem is the duck tape has pulled away from the wood along two of the sides

I made a quick trip to Wilko’s for some garden wire which I drilled and pulled through side-to-side to form supports for the bubble wrap, so that if it does sag again it will rest on the wires which would form gutters which would channel the water away – especially with the cold frame resting on a brick at the one end to give it an angle. That’s the theory, anyway.

Although there is still no sign of ANY of my seeds sprouting at the Hill, I’m delighted that the peas have started to sprout in the kitchen this morning (that’s 5 days!) and the little trough is full of little 2-leaf seedlings. Not that I know which is which as I mixed up all the seeds when I sowed them, but no matter.

Along with the mended cold frame, I took the fruit bushes to plant. I’d followed the instructions (‘soak the root ball in a bucket of water overnight’) the upshot being a bucket full of mud and bare rooted plants, which doesn’t sound right to me.

We’d had advice from Barry yesterday about planting the fruit bushes with a handful of bone meal in each planting hole – it is organic, looking at the box bought from Wilko – so I did that & firmed them in with my feet (again – does that sound right, or have I just squashed all the roots?). To finish off, I gave all the fruit bushes a whiz round with some manure from the skip (just because that’s what the next plot across the boundary has done).

Despite all my uncertainties, at least the bushes have buds on at the moment, so they stand a chance.

Actually, the other way of looking at that, is that if they die, it’s definitely my fault!

I’ve given the row orientation thing a bit more thought – actually, not everyone at the Hill sows east-west – next door's fab sprout plants (about 5’ tall and have obviously been rammed full of sprouts – that’ll be US next year!) are planted north-south, so it won't be too radical to do the same – the potatoes in plot D can be a start, but it might be a bit complicated with the other beds where I’ve already got some seeds in…