Dry as a bone

We continue to have very dry weather here in West Kent, and our tap is still shut off, and I've used up all my reserves in the water butt. With no more rain forecast in the next week or so, I'm wondering how to keep the whole plot going without losing all sown seed. I've ordered a 10ltr water butt to take water there from home and will fill up bottles and tubs then drive VERY carefully down to the village!

As a result of the very dry weather here, I've held off doing too much at the plot and concentrated on raising strong plants in the greenhouse to give them a better chance or establishing themselves once the rain arrives. I had a flush of planting the other night, sowing french beans, swede, lettuce, dill, basil, tomatoes and a variety of cut flowers.

I popped to the plot this morning with the children and saw the asparagus tips that emerged a few days ago are still there thankfully, but are coming up really slowly, not sure if they need a good water to get them going, but they are certainly taking their time! Still hoeing off lots of thistles every day or two. I have broad beans, peas, lettuce, radish, parsnip, endive and chard seedlings up now. I sowed another row of carrots (autumn king) in trench of compost (kindly suggested here for parsnips by Green Lane Allotments) so we shall see how that goes.

Aside from that I'm continuing to pot up and harden off. I potted up some Blue Kuri Squash, Pacino Sunflower, Sweetcorn and asters (which mainly died and didn't like being moved at all!) My cucumbers (spacemaster) are growing fast in the propergator so I'm off to pot them up now.

Off to do a raindance too!

April muddle

It's at this time of year I tend to get terribly confused at what needs to be done by when, and usually get in a bit of a tizzy and miss out some essential jobs. This year I'm determined to do little and often with regards to hoeing, watering and sowing seed, which sounds like such a basic list of things to do, but they can so often go neglected by a few days and suddenly you have a glut of jobs to catch up on. Today I was feeling a bit low (pregnancy wise) so decided not to work hard at anything. Instead I enlisted my kind husband to fill up my water butt for me, with a water sack I bought ages ago which is slightly leaking, but needs must. This meant I was at least able to water a few seedlings and not worry to much about things withering. To cheer myself up a bit, I brought my seed sowing kit indoors tonight and crossed off a long list of plants that needed to be sown. They are as follows:

Cucumber spacemaster
Dill
Basil
Tom Thumb lettuce
San Marzano Tomato
French Bean Neckar Queen
French Bean Cobra
Swede Marian
Beetroot Boltardy
Beetroot Burpees Golden
Queen anne's lace
Calendula Indian Queen
Larkspur

The last three are cutting flowers, I am experimenting with a few this year as well as the usual wildflower mix which seems to love my poor soil!

I am growing so much from seed as so little seems to germinate well on my plot. Even the lettuce sown 12 days ago has failed to come up yet, and that's usually a failsafe. I know some of the things hate being transplanted, but if I don't plant relatively big plants, they just don't make it. For example, in a row about 2.5 metres long of parsnips, only 3 have germinated. Either they don't like the soil, or the slugs have polished them off, hard to tell! On a plus note, my asparagus has not given up, there were three new spears appearing this evening, so if they have gone tomorrow, I will know something is definitely chomping it. I can't wait till May when everything gets more established!