Preparing for a new growing season

It’s that time of year when I need to start preparing things for the new growing season. It was going to be a few hours down on the allotment planting raspberry canes but the skies looked ominous and there was rain starting to fall. So I decided instead to stay home and get the greenhouse tidied and cleared ready to receive seedlings.

It is not a proper greenhouse, just one of those walk-in plastic efforts, commonly known as a “blowaway” due to their propensity to take off in strong winds. I have the walk-in one and a smaller 3 tier one and am happy to say that neither have yet lived up to their reputation.

I am sure the more organised gardener would do this job at the end of a growing year rather than at the beginning of one but oh well, who said I was organised? Over the winter the walk-in has become a storage area for all sorts on stuff such as worktops for my allotment shed which needed moving out to a new home.

First thing to do was to sort through the remainder of last year’s onions, shallots and garlic, salvaging what was usable and bagging up for compost anything that was looking iffy of felt a bit soft. I also came across a couple of bags containing leftovers from last year’s potato crop. These had been busy chitting away and sending out roots all over the place which had matted and joined them all together. I also stumbled across the amusingly shaped potato that I posted a picture of last year and it had chitted nicely so I thing I will pop that in the ground again this year and see what becomes of it.

Lots of planning to do now, getting seedlings started and deciding what is to go where on the allotment. I have a lot of seeds left over from last year as well as some new varieties that I want to try. I was really pleased with the few squash I grew last year so this year will definitely involve some experimentation with different varieties. Also tomatoes did really well so have bought a few more varieties to try.