Peas, Salad leaves and Tomato Plants

           What a beautiful day and that cold East wind has eased off at last .
It was nice  to have a wander around the garden and feel the warmth of the Sun again .

After breakfast we each took a pair of loppers on our exercise walk around the meadow .

We are doing this three times a day now for our permitted exercise during this very worrying  time .
   We took this opportunity to cut the Willow hard back down to the base .
I,m going to weave wreaths and plant cloches with it while it is nice and supple. Any left over , will be tied into faggots for kindling , once it has dried out .
I also took the tops off the two year old Copper Beech saplings , to encourage them to branch out lower down to make a good native species hedge .

Butternut babies on my bedroom windowsill . I took them up to the potting shed , pricked them out and potted them on and immediately refilled the trays with fresh compost and made a second sowing of Courgette seeds .  The first lot haven't come up yet and I,m not taking any chances . We love our Courgettes !

                                       Here they are all potted on .
They can now stay in the potting shed for a while to get more established .

I have sown several trays of mixed leaves for delicious salads . I took one of these trays and planted them all out in the Veg Trug .
So delicate at this stage and fiddly to handle , but once watered in they look so much happier !

          Covered with mesh to give them some protection from the wind .

                                               Gardener's Delight

The Tomatoes are all germinating at last and I have sorted out some Gardener's Delight Tomatoes for my neighbours if they would like them . I just need them to get a little bit bigger , maybe ready in a week or two .

    All is well in the greenhouse . I am trying to make space for Tomatoes .
Very difficult as I have so many Cacti and succulents in there !
 I took out all the Pelargoniums and put them into the cold frame . A huge Yucca elephantipes , almost too big to lift and the damned spiky , but beautiful Aloe ferox , now in a sheltered spot outside .
 It has been getting quite  hot in there , so now those big plants are gone there is space for me to get in and open the windows for the first time this year .

     Some of the cacti have buds on them , but I will show you another day .

As the Sun began to set I quickly made a shallow trench and sowed a couple of rows of Kelvedon Wonder Peas and pushed in pea-sticks . We are expecting rain tomorrow morning to water them in .
 Hopefully the ground will be soft after the rain , so I can push in the Runner-bean poles easily and get the frame ready .

Finished doing this just in time for the Mullion Village Clap to thank the NHS Heroes and all our wonderful Key-workers at eight o'clock .

Cutting Hazel for Bean-poles

                                    Up early to cut Hazel for bean-poles .

Spuds 2

The second bag of Charlotte potatoes arrived and after chitting them I really needed to crack on and make another bed for them .
I have added a couple of potatoes from my basket in the kitchen that were begining to sprout too ,  just as an experiment .
  I have been growing some extra Tomato plants with a view to sharing out to neighbours if they would like them .
 I am growing Gardener's Delight , Medwyn's Red Dragon , some seeds that I saved from last year labelled "large toms"  and a few seeds taken from a lovely Tomato that I had with my salad a few days ago , which have amazed me , coming up already !
 Anyway ....I pricked out and potted on the pot of Tomato seedlings  you see above , into the green modules see below .

 They will soon grow and need to be potted on again before I give them away .

The only issue that I have with this , is that I am running low on compost .
The garden centres have all closed and I was only able to buy one bag .
  I will need that precious compost to start off my courgettes , butternuts and beans .
  A friend reminded me about the nice compost under my own compost heap , which I will have a look at tomorrow .

 So I made from scratch two new potato beds , and then was too exhausted and back aching to finish the job of planting the potatoes . Groan !
  But pleased I had at least made the bed .
I much prefer no dig gardening or preparing a new bed by doing the lasagne method over Autumn /Winter .
  I just wanted to grow some extra potatoes for the family during these difficult times and was just not prepared for it.....which of course none of us were !
                   So I put everything away , came in and flopped !

This lovely morning I had laundry to do again . Blessed to have more lovely sunshine and a breeze to get everything dry .
 Anne's Pasties Delivery arrived ! Just what I needed to restore my aching muscles to full strength again . Oh ! The smell of them cooking in the oven !  So good !
  So after my Pasty and a nice cuppa tea , I pulled on my wellies and got straight out there ......

                        .....and dug three trenches for three rows of spuds !

                                                        Done !

Tomorrow I will be putting up the Runner-bean frame . I think there is more rain forecast , which will make it easier to push the poles into the earth .

                                      Healing love and peace to you !