​Another catch up session

Friday 14th April
After yesterday's fiasco I returned to the plot this morning with broad bean plants and seed potatoes!



Before I started I noticed the blossom on my crab apple tree and took a photo to sow the wife. Only the night before at home we had decided it was the right sort of tree for a spot in my garden. This specimen has already been moved twice so I may have to buy a fresh one from McPenny's.






​After cultivating the strip for the broad beans I started making holes for the plants in their paper pots. Using the bulb planter - again - I made a hole at each end of the row then another in the middle. I then made holes in the middle of each space until I had 17 holes along the row. (Do the maths - you get 3,5,9,17!)
The holes are just the right size for the paper pots and, apart from one or two that were so rooted together that the pot tore, they just dropped in.
Then I cut a second row 8 inches away from the first, positioning each new hole in line with the gap in the first row, getting 16 holes. That gave me exactly the right number of holes for the 33 plants I had. (Two trays of 18 with 3 pots not germinating.) A shallow groove scraped between the rows of plants so water would stay close, a few slug pellets and a good soaking and they should grow away nicely.
I then finished off digging the potato patch and planted a row of King Edward and a row of Sarpo Mira, spacing them 45 cm apart and 75 cm between the rows as they are both maincrop potatoes. I had hoped to enclose the King Edwards between 2 rows of Sarpo Mira but there wasn't room so the little space left should be good for an intercrop of lettuce or something similar. However I really need to get the net tunnel moved over to the brassica patch.

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​Before harvesting and going home I decided to sow a row of spinach next to the parsnips. Thinking it over, they could have been sown between the potatoes.