Saturday 4 April 2015

A windy week - and sowing some more seeds

This past week we had some very windy weather. It started on Sunday and didn't abate until Thursday morning. One of the bad points about having my garden right outside the Living-Room window is that I can see all my precious plants being thrashed about by the wind. On Sunday afternoon the young Broad Beans seemed to be taking a real battering, so I moved a couple of my long cloches to try to divert some of the wind away from them:


I think it probably helped. One way or another, the beans have survived without snapping off. Before long I will need to tie them in to their supporting canes.  Such sustained strong wind is unusual for us - it normally lasts the inside of a day - and it has had a very drying effect. The surface of the soil in my raised beds was like powder. What a relief it was to get some gentle rain early on Thursday morning, although the total amount of rainfall must have been quite small because it didn't last very long.

Since I was not working on Thursday, I took the opportunity to sow some more seeds. This time it was three short (1.2m) rows of Radishes. The varieties were Sparkler, Saxa and Cherry Belle. Sparkler is a red and white bi-colour, and the other two are plain red.


Sowing Radish seeds is easy, because they are very big, and you can place them in position exactly where you want them. I just made 1-inch deep grooves in the soil about six inches apart, with a stick, plonked the seeds in, covered them up, firmed them down and watered them in.

They are now covered with a long cloche in order to protect them from wind and from cats. I also put some sticks at the ends of the cloche to signify that animals are not welcome inside! With this protection they will probably mature quite quickly, maybe in about 6 weeks, as long as I remember to water them occasionally.


As well as the Radishes, I sowed another pot of Leek seeds. They are "Winter Giant". The seeds were given to me by someone I know via Twitter. (Thanks, Chris).


These ones have been sown about a month later than my first batch, so hopefully this will help to give me a longer cropping-season. Winter Giant is supposedly big and very cold-tolerant, so maybe they will keep going through next Winter. I will keep the pot indoors until soon after germination, and then it will go out into one of the mini-greenhouses to join the others:



8 comments:

  1. We tend to get a lot of wind here. I'm not sure why, but we do. If I put those cloches in my garden they would be the first to blow away taking down all the stakes as they went. I'm glad you had no damage in your storm. And I love your little woven stick end to the cloche. Hopefully the animals will stay out.

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  2. I am making a new garden in a Welsh valley, just a bit different from Lincolnshire. I have lots of seeds in but completely forgot broad beans, I may just put a few in and hope for the best.

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    1. Definitely not too late for BBs, Pam, especially if you germinate them in pots indoors.

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  3. I consider wind to be the worst of the weather phenomenon, usually wreaking the most damage. One day of high winds is bad enough, but several - ugh - I feel for you. Hopefully you don't have to go through that again any time soon.

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  4. It's been very windy here too this past week, luckily we didn't suffer any damage. I've done the same thing with my leeks sowing another couple of pots a few weeks after the first ones were sown. I just hope I get round to planting them out this year, I didn't last year and regretted it all winter.

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  5. Great blog, I've spent part of today moving veg seedlings from the heated greenhouse to the cold one to harden off and a large part of the day digging over a new tattie bed, these will be planted in a few days once the soil has settled, it's such a busy exciting time of year :)

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  6. I'm always pleased when the wind stops blowing ...... and it does eventually.

    All the best Jan

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  7. Phew, glad your broad beans were ok. Mine were fine too fortunately.
    He he, I like your stick barricade, I do something similar but much messier!

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