This is the journal of my endeavours to grow a range of fruit, veg and flowers from seed, grow organically, and my attempts to create a personal paradise with 1/2 acre of maintained gardens and 1/2 acre wild meadows. Northern Ireland's average daily high temperatures are 18 °C (64 °F) in July and 6 °C (43 °F) in January. Soil type: Clay

Monday 28 March 2016

Getting Back into the Garden


I generally wait until April to start sowing seed and this year will be the same. My little plastic green house is great and comes in handy. This little 'tent' system is cheap; it cost about £10 and keeps plants warm and protected. I'll then harden them off and get them into the ground by late May / early June.

Other seed of course will be sown direct into the prepared beds in May / June. 

This year I'm upping my sowing of potatoes, onions and salad plants. Other plants I always sow:
- courgette
- kale 
-chard
mainly because they're easy to grow and generally give me little trouble.

I'm focusing quite  a bit on salad plants this year and will grow a variety of lettuces for colour, shape/texture and taste. Another busy year for sure!

Potatoes will go into the ground in early April and Onion sets will be started in the greenhouse.

It's great to see the bees buzzing around the garden; here pictured feeding on Heather.

A little reminder to myself this time of year!

Copyright: All words and photos are property of Kelli's Northern Ireland Garden.

6 comments:

  1. Seed sowing :) That's when it well and truly feels like gardening season again doesn't it :)

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  2. My hubby built these lovely raised beds for our vegetables, and they have been filled full of good soil and compost so they were ready to plant for the cool spring crops. Saturday, he planted green onions, radishes, carrots, spinach, lettuce, sugar snap peas, and kohlrabi. The warm weather crops won't go in till early May.

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  3. Potatoes, onions, and peas are in. Snow on the way. The seeds will go in soon. I don't think we are going to start anything this year. Our plants just grow so ugly. But I do like your little tent. One might help us. You are off to a good start.

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  4. This sounds very much like the timing we had when I lived in NH. I am in Georgia now and things are just starting to heat up but we are past the danger of frost now.

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  5. I wish I could get plastic greenhouses at £10 each. Round here they are mostly nearer £20.

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    Replies
    1. Wow, £20 is expensive. I've seen them for £9.99 and £12 in the Home Bargain-type stores. The more expensive ones at Homebase/B&Q are generally marked down at the end of every season. I usually wait to get a bargain!

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