Saturday 20 August 2016

Coldframe Looks Like It's Spring

Friday was dull and wet as we finally got some of that rain I'd sort of hoped for. I wouldn't describe it as the heavy rain that was forecast and after it seemed to rain all day we finished up with 8.2mm (0.32in).
I'm not sure it will have done much more than moisten up the top surface of the soil but it must have done a little bit of good. One thing is for sure it will have given the slugs and snails a new lease of life.
I caught this one at teatime on the patio looking for an early meal as it slimed across the damp paving stones.

A month or so ago we didn't think out autumn and winter brassicas were doing very well on the allotment. I though it was a bit late to try to fill any gaps by growing replacements from seed so I ordered a collection of autumn and winter brassicas from DT Brown. They arrived on Friday.
All the plants had been grown as plug plants but for delivery they had been removed from their plugs and carefully wrapped in paper for postage. The plants looked healthy enough if a little bent from their journey in the post. As usual with plug plants I intend to grow them on a little bit before they are planted out on the plot. At the moment there's not much space in the greenhouse for potting up plants and we'd normally set up a spot on the lawn or patio to do this however I didn't fancy getting wet as it was still raining.
I set up a temporary potting up bench on top of our wheelie bins under one end of the carport. Once potted up all the plants were moved to the coldframe.
The coldframe looked like I'd expect it to in Spring once all the brassicas were moved. Now all I need to do is keep those marauding slugs and snails away. The full list of brassicas supplied in this collection and notes on each variety is listed below. There's five plants of each variety except for Tundra and Amsterdam which have ten plants.
Funnily enough after I'd ordered this collection of brassicas a few of our plants on the allotments took to growing much better.


1 comment:

  1. I bet the plants have overheard your discussion and grow better! ;)

    ReplyDelete

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