More bulbs showing signs of life, and lots of flowers on the hellebores: thank you, Celia! Most of the roses are pruned (I bear the scars), and there’s another bag of prunings and weeds ready for our next exciting expedition to the tip. There’s so much weeding to do: my joints are telling me about yesterday’s bending and stretching, but little and often should be beneficial on both fronts. The penstemon cuttings we’ve been bringing on under cover are looking pretty healthy, despite the green mossy layer that had grown on the surface of the compost. I got rid of that today and refreshed the compost, so they’ll be ready for their new homes in a month or two.
Today brings the first seedlings of onions (Ailsa Craig) and leeks (Chinook) through the surface in the heated propagator. The next seed to be sown is nicotiana: quite a few years since we grew them, and it’s time for a change. I expect we’ll do more tagetes and rudbeckias, tradition oblige, but they can wait a bit longer. I found a source of Sweet Olive tomato seed on line recently, so we’ll hope for better results this time. But we’ll go back to pots. It’s probably unfair to blame the growbags for last year’s blight, but they were no easier to manage than the pots of previous years, and altogether less decorative.
We had lunch (home-made broth) in the sitooterie today: first time this year, as it was also for a line of washing outside. And the longer hours of daylight are just so welcome! The notoriously treacherous February may yet bring snow, but it might also bring some of those warm, sunny days for alfresco lunches: hope springs infernal.
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