Spring is here!

Well Spring is finally here, we've had almost 10 days of solid warm"ish" weather although anything over 5 degrees is a massive bonus; we feared another ice age was on it's way to Yorkshire during 2013!

There is much talk of balmy 16/18 degrees next week and felt we really ought to get the site prepared for the new growing season sharpish before the next set of unseasonable monsoons or hurricanes arrive! ;-)

We planted some hardy dwarf beans a little before the warm weather last week, still concerned about hard frosts overnight so popped plastic bottle cloches over them.  We leave the lids on until healthy green shoots are visible at which point we remove the screw lids during the day replacing them on an evening for about 5 days.  At this stage they have "usually" hardened off sufficiently so that the bottle can be removed completely and replaced by pigeon proof netting.

Rhubarb is being forced under the two black buckets next to the bean area.  This is a very reliable method of forcing early Rhubarb in an open environment and usually works for around 8 weeks, after this time the plant will start to look unwell and needs the light to photosynthesize and recoup energy reserves.  Some varieties are better than others but generally all rhubarb can be forced in this way.

The picture above shows two rows of potatoes were successfully planted. Early/New "Charlotte" (reliable favourite) and Main crop chose "Cara" (another favourite).  We shall be planting more in two weeks time.  Another well know Main crop variety called "Kerrs Pink" and a new to us variety called "Winston", this is a first early exhibitor type, generally means its a small salad potato but we shall see!

Finally, we dared to plant some seeds and sets into the ground too.  How well they've fared this week we won't know until tomorrow.  We planted two lettuce varieties, red beetroot, french and round radishes, white and red onions.