Valentines Day

Happy (slightly belated) Valentines Day to you all! I hope you had a nice day? I did! Want to see what I got...



A sure sign of a man who knows me well!

Richard and I have (well mainly me) have been trying to get in the garden for the past 3 weeks or so, but a combination of art jobs, our part time jobs and snow have meant things have had to be left. So as Saturday was dry, the snow having finally melted off and it was actually trying to sunshine I managed to start planting some of Victoriana Nursery seeds I was sent before Christmas.



Technical I think I should have had my Giant Exhibition Onions on the go by now but I had a lot of work to get though...and it was cold...snow...not sitting in front of tv or anything.......guilt.

Anyway down to planting my lovely seeds, I got the Giant Onions started first, I've never actually seen onions seeds before having always used sets from the garden center, they look like tiny little stone chips!



Don't they look all neat with their little labels in. This year I'm trying out fiber seed pots (thanks Rich!), last year I used pots made from newspaper, which worked brilliantly, however this year we have our wonderful log burner so any newspapers in house are used for lighting the fire, meaning their was none left for pots!

I planted a few of the tomatoes seeds, again possible a bit early but a chat with our veg growing neighbor reassured me I'm not the only one starting early, also our greenhouse has been at a steady 20c for the past week (we're lucky it is south facing on an open slope) we tend to get an early spring down here in the south west and if these 4 fail I've got quite a few left (and several people willing to re-home if I germinate too many for us!)



The tomatoes we'll be growing are Giant Delicious, apparently brilliant for sauces and soups with some individual fruit getting up to 8lbs in weight! I hope our little greenhouse can cope with these big buggers! We'll also be growing Sungold's again, we had one of these last year and it was brilliant, I've never tasted such sweet little toms, perfect in sandwiches and salads...I'm getting hungry just thinking about this.

My very generous parents brought us a few bits when we were home the other week, including some more seed potatoes, I've now got Sharpes Express early and Desiree main crops, so the Sharpe's have been started off chitting in the greenhouse.





My Mum also brought Richard a present, a mushroom growing kit!



I haven't seen these before but Richard does like his mushrooms, so we'll give it a go. It all looks pretty easy, although it does rely on me remembering to spray the compost with water regularly so that may be the down fall right there, although my New Year resolution is to be more organized in the garden (and leave notes around the cottage to remind me to do these things!)
Here's the mushroom compost that is in it:



You just empty it in, then put the lid back on and spray with water every few days, then 10 days later you add mushroom seeds (I think, I'm trying to remember the instructions, which of course I've left in the greenhouse, I'm off to a great start already!)

So a busy day, here is the finished results, I keep nipping back out to proudly look at them.



And while I was trying not to kill his mushroom kit off, Richard was being a sweet heart and finishing off my half constructed fruit cage for the Blueberry's.



He even weeded it for me, what a good Valentines Day!