Weekend work

Gardening at the weekend was lovely.  It was hard to believe it's still only February, but it was so spring like. It was mild, there was sunshine and we even had our lunch out in the garden.

There were flowers poking their heads through the the soil and green shoots appearing everywhere.
I planted onion and garlic sets in modules to get them started off. These will be planted at the allotment in a few weeks time when we've got the soil prepared.

My husband made new lids for the cold frame, which for the last few years has been used as a growing area for veg.  Now, because I need more space for seedlings, I can use it to keep them protected. He also fixed a protective wire cover on the woodland wooden boardwalk.  This is an area which gets very slippy in damp weather, so hopefully we can walk safely along there now.

 Next week we are having a conifer cut down and the area around where it is will be having a bit of a redesign afterwards. So I dug up some of the plants from that bed and potted them up to keep them safe from falling branches and trampling boots.

We've been thinking about getting rid of this conifer for a while now and finally made the decision a few weeks ago. Now the big day approaches and I'm getting worried about whether we've made the right decision.  We should have more light and better growing conditions, but I'm wondering if I'll miss the tree.

I'll let you know how I get on.

More salad

I've continued with the 52 week salad challenge and I've been quite pleased with the seeds I've grown for salad this month. I've never thought to eat them as microgreens before and what has amazed me is the intensity of flavour of the little seedlings. I loved the earthy flavour of the beetroot and the peppery radish seedlings. We've had them sprinkled over bought salad leaves, or with a tomato and cucumber salad. Last weekend we had egg sandwiches with radish seedlings and they were delicious.

The younger end of the family have not shared my enthusiasm for this new venture. I gave the grandchildren the red cabbage sprouting seedlings sprinkled over cucumber, celery and tomato. But they were viewed with disdain and I had to carefully remove each one before they would eat their tea!

After reading so much about pea shoots I decided I must have a go at growing these and am really pleased with the results. I had a few mange tout seeds left over from last year.  They germinated really quickly, but are not quite ready to cut yet. I tried one out the other day and was bowled over by the taste of peas. It brought back memories of picking peas at the allotment in the summer and eating them raw. I intend to buy a packet of dried peas so I can continue to grow these.

As we  approach the end of February I am now going to start growing lettuce on the windowsill then once they've germinated, move them out into our porch, where it is cooler and I will grow them as proper salad leaves. I will keep on with the micro greens until the lettuce gets growing properly.  I also want to grow watercress this year which I love.

If you want to know more about growing microgreens click here or try this link too.