lettuce | horticultural 'obbit

Today is the first day of my Easter Holidays, and that means starting to think about what is to do on the allotment. In particular, inside the polytunnel.

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Whilst I have tried plants and potatoes in the poly tunnel, this is the first for seeds. I have scattered an assortment of radishes, beetroot and different types of lettuces. There were all year round butter head lettuces, as red yugoslavian, lollo rosso, little gem and one called rouge D’Hiver. With radishes, we have a mixture. In terms of beetroot we have have the usual boltardy and Chioggia.

It was very cold in there! Less warmer than it was the other day when the shelving was built.

I hid in the poly tunnel, whilst Mum did some digging outside. Whilst it was cold, the plot has started to dry out a little bit more. I think the worse thing that might happen in terms of the weather might be a deluge of April showers. No news yet on the beans sown the other day, I suspect the poly tunnel needs to be a little warmer.

This is the view of the greenhouse, also known as the wendy house, from late this summer. The foreground has been tidied up since, and that rampant dandelion cut down a little.

At the moment, the wendy houses some baby lyon prize winner leeks as well as some aisla craig onion seedlings. To be perfectly frank, I have only looked into the greenhouse once or twice recently. My main concern has been that it remains standing. There has been a lot turbulent weather of late, and it is due to get worse with the coming festivities.

I really must make more use of it over the new growing season. Especially as it had a face lift with a new cover. A more robust cover in comparison to the one that it came with. This is the third one, since the previous two were torn to ribbons due to inclement weather. Such covers should really have reinforced zipped covers. Hopefully, this third one will be last a lot longer. My problem is that I have the best of intentions. Seeds to be sown, in modules and then I don’t follow things up or have a distinct process. In not having any window sills, it is further important that I use the wendyhouse for germination and cultivation. Have never had much luck with brassicas in the wendy house, that was for certain. Especially with the process of potting things on. There is actually limited space in the wendy, four shelves, and it takes some jigglying around to get things positioned properly. As was observed when it housed the Chilli plants over the summer.

What I need to think about, is what can be sown in the wendy house that doesn’t particularly need warmth? Lettuce and brassicas are what comes to mind immediately. Though lettuce doesn’t transplant all that well. I have never actually managed to transplant lettuce easily anyway. I did have a vague thought to modularise parsnip this year. Another vegetable, that I have never had any success with.