Seedling protection

First, an apology for my low profile in the blogging world over the last few days. A combination of factors has prevented me visiting or commenting on other blogs: Jane is away from home for a few days, supporting her mother who has been sick; our daughter Emma is due to deliver her second baby any time now; and I have been commuting to London for work purposes.
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Gardeners are ingenious people, and experience shows that it's usually worth going to a fair bit of trouble if you want to preserve your little plants from damage inflicted both by weather and by animals.

This is a view of one of my raised beds, in which I am growing parsnips and beetroot. I divided the bed into two sections, each of 1.2 metres, which is half the length of the bed, and approximately the length of the "Longrow" cloches I have. I sowed seeds in one half about a month before the other half, with the idea being to stagger the harvest period.

The seeds in the part of the bed furthest from the camera have not yet germinated, but they are being warmed and protected from animal damage by the cloches. NB: It is necessary to remove the cloche and water the soil occasionally, to stop it getting too dry.

Meanwhile, in the part of the bed nearest the camera, the parsnip and beetroot seedlings are now a couple of inches tall and no longer need protection from the weather. On the other hand they are still very vulnerable to damage by animals (in my case foxes and cats), so I have protected them with a piece of chicken wire held in place with some pegs. The relative rigidity of the wire means I have been able to bend it in such a way as to keep it above the tops of the seedlings.

Beetroot

Parsnips

The other day I thinned-out the beetroot. You know, don't you, that each knobbly little beetroot "seed" is actually a cluster of 5 or 6 seeds? When they germinate it is best to remove all but the strongest one from each cluster, to allow room for expansion. [You can of course leave them all in place, but you will just get a clump of much smaller roots.]. I didn't want to waste all the thinnings, so I re-planted some of the best ones between the two rows, so I have now effectively got three rows.



My Broad Beans and peas are still under a net, although they are getting towards the stage when they will be big enough to look after themselves:

I recently put in six tall hardwood stakes, which are currently supporting the net, but in due course will have string attached to them, for supporting the beans.

The Shallots and Garlic are also under a net - again to thwart the foxes, rather than to provide protection against the elements. If you're thinking "there's a lot of spare net", it's because I sometimes use this net over some much higher posts, so I don't want to cut it. I just weigh down the excess with some spare bricks.

Nothing to do with crop-protection, but here's a couple of pics of my "reserves" of shallots and garlic, planted in pots and kept ready in case of the need to replace casualties:

Shallots "Jermor"

Garlic

It's beginning to look as if I won't need the spares, so I shall just grow them on in those pots and see how they do.

Here are the Brassica seedlings, waiting to be planted out in a few days' time - still in pots so that they can be moved under cover to protect them from the worst of the weather:

Brussels Sprouts, Green Cabbage and Red Cabbage

I read a lovely thing in the paper this week: "...I am sitting indoors listening to the drought lashing against our wind-panes".   The start of our water restrictions on 5 April was the cue for the start of one of the wettest periods for a very long time! We have been told that even if rains from now until December, the hosepipe ban will remain in place. What a depressing thought.