Spring is here... by

by Andrew Pullen

Finally, it looks like Spring has turned up. The birds are singing, there's buds on the trees and thoughts now turn to growing things.
As we missed the growing season last year due to other projects, we decided to start early and buy a couple of heated propogators from Scotsdale in Cambridge.

These units are approx 18 watts each and seem to be nicely made with clear tough plastic lids.
We planted chilli, Tabasco chillis and sweet peppers two weeks ago and all seeds germinated and are now 3 inches tall. What has really staggered me though is on saturday (20th March) I put in cucumber, courgette, baby corn, tomatoes cabbage and climbing french beans in the second propagator. By monday morning a cucumber seedling had just broken through the compost! About an hour ago I had another look and a tomato has appeared and a baby corn seedling. Definately worth the purchase price and the running costs at 18 watts each won't break the bank and can be safely left on 24 hours (kept indoors in safe dry area)
As a quick experiment I placed same type of veg seed in our unheated greenhouse in trays of seed compost. Needless to say there's no sign of activity yet.
On sunday we attacked the garden and cut back and pruned plus converted our small flower bed into a raised veg bed using bits of timber plank I had in stock.
We'll put toms and french beans in this bed as the soil remains nicely moist even in summer months. Last year we had tomato splitting problems due to infrequent watering. Can't believe how much water they need. Hopefully this season the soil will keep them watered with option to add extra if needed.

We have a Twisted Willow tree in the garden which has put on 12 feet growth in the 6 years we've lived here. As much as we like watching the birdlife that congregate in the tree in spring/summer, it does block some light and as a result our lawn under the tree is very patchy. We're in two minds as to have it taken down as it's already been root-pruned twice and as our garden isn't that big I'm bit concerned that it may already be getting too large for the garden. Having said that, our neighbour has a Eucalyptus and a Twisted Willow in their garden which is slightly longer than ours. Our soil is gravelly and drains well and have been told by a tree officer (in Cambridge council) that Willow roots rarely cause problems to buildings... despite this reasurance we still have reservations about it.

See you soon
Andrew