Monday 19 January 2009

The Year Ahead

Encouraged by our success during the day, in the evening we sat down with a stack of gardening books and a bottle of wine. The aim was to plan what we'd like to grow during the year, how much of everything we'd need, and when to plant it.

The procedure was quite straightforward. We flicked through one book calling out anything that we'd like to eat, and that doesn't look like it needs much poncing about with to get growing. We then cross-referenced another book that recommends quantities of each plant to grow. One lesson from last year is that some plants, e.g., beans, can produce much more than we can eat, so this is quite important.

Amanda has discovered that one of the books recommends buying plug plants. These are plants that a professional nursery has grown from seed, and will deliver mail order to your door, ready for planting on the allotment. This sounds like a great way to avoid messing about with hundreds of seed trays in our little lean-to outside, so in the interests of simplicity, and in recognition of our incompetence, we'll give this a go this year. If all goes well we might try growing from seed and transplanting to the allotment a little further down the line.

Given that the wine level had dropped significantly by the time we made it online to order our plug plants, we ended up getting slightly more stuff than originally intended. Oh well.

A major plus of this system is that we know when it's time to plant these items - you plant them when they're delivered. No awkward trying to remember when to plant the seeds, and then when to transplant them.

In the meantime we're going to get some seed potatoes and other bits and pieces over the next few weeks.

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