Bank holiday gardening

Well it has been the bank holiday weekend, 4 days off work, and the weather hasn't been as atrocious as the BBC weather forecast would have had me believe, so I got some gardening done. It was even quite warm and sunny at times. Firstly, I tidied out the shed, which was in a terrible state with stuff quite literally just chucked in. It's a small shed, with a lot of things in, but I can actually walk in, turn around, do some seed planting in pots if I want (was going to but then it stopped raining so did outside), and even find things!

Next job was planting potatoes. Last year I had one 'potato bag' which was a big success. The bags are strong, sturdy plasic bags, with a flat bottom, tall and will stand on their own. I bought two official 'potato bags' and used 3 other bags I had lying around. Fill the bag a quarter full of compost, then plant three potatoes in, ready chitted and with the tubers as far as possible pointing upwards. Half bury the potatoes, but then cover with more soil. The bags are still now only a third full of compost. Oh, should have said that there are four drainage holes in the bottom. Anyway, water well and leave in a spot that gets a good amount of sun. Once the potato plants start to grow, I will keep earthing them up until the bag is filled with compost. This should give strong plants and maximise number of potatoes. This year I planted one bag with Charlotte salad potatoes, and the rest with Arran Pilot maincrop potatoes. I am hoping this will save the need to buy potatoes for many months after harvesting.

Also planted some cherry tomato seeds, habenero chilli peppers, sunflowers, sweetcorn minipop (those little ones you eat whole and put in stir fries etc) and beans. The beans I planted actually looked like magic beans. They are open pollinated which means that the next generation of seeds will be usable, and in fact if I keep the seeds from the plants that do best in my garden it should produce better plants/produce the following year, and so on. I don't know much about seed-saving, but it is supposed to help preserve old varieties that are becoming extinct these days, as commercial seed sellers use homogenous, close-pollinated seeds which don't produce good plants from the second generation (I guess they want you to keep buying from them!). I bought these seeds in Plimoth Plantation in Massachusetts, so they have come a long way! They are similar to the beans grown by the first settlers in New England, nearly 400 years ago, so it will be especially interesting to see how they do. I may have to invest in some copper slug rings to keep the infernal beasts at bay.

I also planted some flowers, and have bought some herb plants - oregano, marjoram and coriander. They are all foods I want to use in cooking later in the year. The marjoram will go in the back garden in a bed with rosemary and mint already growing, the coriander and sage will probably go in the herb patch of the front garden.

Weather during the last week (27th March to 4th April) has been mixed. The first weekend was nice and mostly sunny, then during the week mostly rainy with odd bits of sunshine. Easter weekend has been very mixed, half day of rain or overcast, half day of sun. No frost for ages however.

Must go, back to work tomorrow, starting a new job for a new boss (though same firm). More soon.