Potatoes

 Are not bought, nor chitted. I have learnt from my lessons of last year and decided to leave them in the garden centre where they belong before i go and buy them to chit. This year I have chosen to just do charlottes in tubs as an early potato as we had more success with them and money it tighter with less to waste. This year the garden must be productive. I have set aside today to draw up a list of the items to buy, while bearing in mind that the garden needs to look pretty to be able to sell it. I like to draw out y plans as it makes them easier to visualise and i have my notepad and coloured pencils - so stand by for a wonky effort. Gardening I can do, drawing i cannot!

The 2litre water bottles I have been saving are going to be used to heat the greenhouse and also (as they are breeding overnight it seems) to be used to improve the flow of water to the plants roots by cutting off the borrom and burying them upside down next to a thirsty plant. This is mainly for the benefit of my beloved who can then wander the plot filling up the bottles, there are reasons why I shan't be carrying large volumes of water up and down teh garden but I'll save those for another day.

Stirrings

So more snow. Yup. Its the third (or fourth?) lot of snow since december and although it didn't hang around it has finished off the broad beans, their strange skeletal shapes is a range of brown and yellows add a little backdrop to the veg patch, although i would have preferred to have some damn broad beans early this season!

The shallots have come up but are half hearted and yellow rather than the deep green thick shoots i got with the later planting last season. I will see if they recover and reshoot but it may be that they also need to be resown. However the garlic is just peeking above the ground and so i hope it might end up being successful, having read more about the 'ideal' conditions i should have planted it nearer the fence where it is drier but we shall see.

While poking around the ground to see what else may have died/survived against the climatic odds i discovered a fat healthy almost looking like it was born to grow in the depths of winter - limanthus. Poached Egg Plant. Well I never. HOW???

I have been saving 2 & 5 litre plastic bottles to use as heat storage for my plastic greenhouse. I was going to try it last year but never had the space, this year i am going to just grow 3 tomato plants but train them properly so they produce the same amount 5 did last year. I'm also going to work harder with the tumbling tomatos to grow them in more unusual places - watch this space............

Sloe Alcohol

Wow - its good. Flavoursome with a hint of tartness and both the gin and vodka have the most wonderful colour to them. They are now stored away safely for the next few months to mature and will certainly be used for presents this year.