Warming up at last?

It seems like the snow and incredibly low temperatures have relented for now. The Gardeners World site is predicting temperatures of up to 10°C during the weeks. I've got quite a few things on the go since I last wrote. Last weekend I sowed snapdragons and diascia. They're in small pots and I had placed them in the heated propagator. The diascia have produced 3 tiny seedlings but nothing's happening with the snapdragon as yet. I've taken them out of the propagator this evening as I think it's keeping them at too high a temperature. The packets recommend 20°C, which is room temperature when the central heating is on. I had no luck with snapdragons last year. They succumbed to damping off when they eventually germinated. I initially watered the compost with Cheshunt Compound this time though, so here's hoping!

The sweet peas in the sweaty cube have been getting pretty leggy so I gave them the chop today. They were joined by some lettuce and other salad leaves that I had sown last weekend. Most of the lettuce had germinated. They are in a 40 plug seed tray. Today I resowed the empty modules. The Wilkos seed had the best germination rate – 100%. Better than T&M and Franchi! I also sowed some summer purple spouting brocolli last weekend and placed them straight into the snow bedecked sweaty cube. No germination as yet. We visited Wilkos in Aylesbury yesterday. All the Christmas tatt has gone and the full range of garden stuff is in again. We bought a couple of cat litter trays for starting off leeks – as recommended by DD on allotment.org.uk! 

Yesterday I started the great parsnip experiment. Stage one is chitting the seed. I put some kitchen paper in a tupperware and moistened it with a water spray. Then sprinkled some seed on top before topping it with more dampened kitchen paper. The sealed box is now residing on top of the radiator cover in the lounge. The plan is to pop 3 chitted seeds to each module in a rootrainer when the time is right.

The potatoes are chitting at last! The shed was so cold that their dormancy wasn't breaking so we moved them to the spare room. Plus, it's been invaded by mice in there. They nibbled at 3 of the Charlotte seed potatoes! There were loads of poos under the potato sacks, which are themselves showing signs of mouse abuse. We've set a 'Big Cheese' trap and baited it with peanut butter but no success as yet, one week on. I had a little bit of a tidy up in the shed this afternoon mainly so I could assess the pot situation. We have tonnes of the things! We've decided we'll sow some carrots in one of the huge pots in the greenhouse next weekend.

In the garden, some things are looking a bit sad after the snowy onslaught of the last fortnight. The Mathiasella has been truly battered. Its newest shoots have snapped under the weight of snow. I can only hope it recovers in the spring. I wonder if the two dahlia I left in the ground have survived. We did mulch them, in the Autumn, with quite a thick layer of horse manure but somebody's been digging around that area quite frequently. Hmmmm. The hellebore have come into bloom for the first time. Only one flower open at the moment but there are lots of buds. The snowdrops are flowering, I'm sure this is much later than last year.