Rain and leeks

Sunday 28 February 2010

I am so sick of the cold, wet and miserable weather, bring on spring immediately if not sooner. Don’t get me wrong I have had a lovely weekend, we had a wonderful brunch at The House in Islington on Saturday relaxing and eating scrumptious food with friends, and I made a yummy marmalade cake today but what I really want is a full day in the garden not just a few moments between the passing showers.

Despite the rain we have managed to get a bit of gardening done. Today the leeks were sown in cell trays, which again have been put in the warm study for germination. Speaking of which I am very happy to report that my sweet peas have popped through (see picture) and the garden peas under the budget cloche in the raised bed have now germinated – a true sign of great things to come. We will be sowing the next batch of both the sweet peas and garden peas in just a couple of weeks.

All of our seedlings have done so well inside; germination is at 100%, wee plants are sprouting up all over the place and we have some really sturdy tomato seedlings. The worry is what will happen when they go outside. We seem to have a regular visitor to the Hackney Veg Garden restaurant – the squirrel. Everyday he comes to feed on the nuts we put out for the birds and just this weekend he devoured a very healthy portion of chard I had re-planted in an old tyre filled with compost and soil. His days are numbered, believe me.

There is more snow forecast for the week ahead, fingers crossed it will be gone by the weekend - just like that squirrel.