Arrival

Great news! The seeds have now arrived and the packets have been "filed" in my biscuit tin under the various months that they need to be started off. I have sown a tray of tomato "Tamina", but as my greenhouse is unheated and the weather has been very cold just recently (the temperature doesn't get much above 50F), I am wondering if they will germinate or whether I shall have to sow another tray.

The onions arrived (all 450 of them) the day after the seeds and I have planted, at weekly intervals, 6 trays with 48 "Sturon" onions in each. This is a tip I have picked up from one chap at the allotment and the onions will root in the trays in 4-5 days or so and then will start to grow little green shoots from the top. Once they have reached 1-2" of green growth I will plant them out into their bed (no. 3).

I have given 40 onion sets to the children's school, 8 to my mum, and the children will grow 5 each. The remaining onion sets will be planted at further weekly intervals so that they can be harvested (hopefully) a week or so apart from each other and I don't get a massive glut that I can't keep on top of.

The potatoes arrived a few days after the onions and within one hour of receiving them they had all been set out in individual egg carton boxes to "chit", which will probably take about 2-3 weeks. My plan is to plant them at the beginning of April, starting with "Ulstre Sceptre" which is a first early.

The red onions "Red Baron" which I grew so successfully last year arrived on Thursday last week and I have planted 1 tray with 45 in it, and I will do the same with these onions as I have done with the white ones, and stagger the planting so that they can be harvested at intervals. The children will grow 5 each of these onions as well.

Because I ordered so many onions I received a free pack of 500g of shallots "Springfield" so I will plant them directly into the soil as they don't need to root first.

The 13 garlic "Thermidrome" bulbs are also ready to be planted direct into the soil once it has warmed up and it will go in a bed that I have prepared just under the herb bed. I read in Carol Klein's excellent book "Grow your own Veg" that garlic likes sand mixed with its earth, so I will try this and have dug in some sand to help them on their way.

The digging is going well and now most of the earth has now been dug, apart from the patch that I have earmarked as a salad bed. I have covered this with black plastic sheeting to suppress the weeds, and will dig it over later in the year.