First sowing of the year!

Have sown some seeds today. I've filled a tray of rootrainers with sweet peas. There are two seeds in each module and this time I scarified them (with a nail file) and soaked them overnight. Most of the seeds looked to have plumped up nicely this morning. The varieties are Blue Ripple, Painted Lady, Matucana and Fragrantissimo – 1 row (8 modules) of each. So, if they all germinate I shall have 64 little plants! They are all from T&M, the Fragrantissimo being freebies from the Rootrainer packs. They are now in the heated propagator standing on the kitchen windowsill. The propagator lid doesn't quite fit snugly over the rootrainers but is standing a bit proud. Hopefully the sweet peas won't mind. They've been extremely cossetted in every other respect so far!

The sweetpeas in residence, chicken is keeping a beady eye on them for germination!

On Friday I visited the Notcutts in Booker and bought a new fork to replace the one that was snapped by the 'parsnip of doom'. I also bought a new bag of seed compost, two deep rootrainer packs and a pair of gardening gloves. They had bags of seed potatoes in and lots of summer bulbs. We're planning on going to Charlton Park garden centre in Wantage next weekend to buy our seed potatoes as they have a huge range of single tubers available during their 'potato week' according to the website. We will pick up some bf 15 (as recommended by Raymond Blanc!) for Mr and Mrs O to try.

Lee has had yet another tidy up in the cabin, sawing up the old bed for firewood but reserving the slats and base for allotment projects. He's also fashioned the top cabinet part of the giant unit that used to be in the lounge into a useful set of shelves. Yesterday we went to Blanchfords to find out the price of scaffold boards. £10.40 + VAT for 13ft boards. Mum has found one in her garage that we can have so we only need to buy one. They'll get some in stock by next weekend.

This afternoon we are making some more Beetroot Chutney. We made the last lot on 24th August last year. It was at its peak of yumminess over Christmas. We've scoffed our way through all of the last batch - 2 x 500ml 'le parfait' jars! The recipe is one contributed by 'Rosemary Plantpot' from www.allotment.org. I'm surprised at how well the beetroot has kept. We'd just bunged it in carrier bags and left it down the cabin, next to the spud bags. The tops had got a bit fluffy with mould and there were some dodgy bits in the beets, but not a lot considering! The kitchen and dining room are smelling exceedingly vinegary and we're trying to prevent the pong invading the whole house. You are meant to simmer chutney slowly over an hour or so for the best results. This time, instead of microwaving the beets, I roasted them in foil in the oven. It took 2.5 hours at 190°C fan for them to cook. There were some monsters the size of very large Bramleys! The chutney ended up being simmered for 2 hours. It made slightly more than the last batch. Lee ate the leftovers that wouldn't fit in the jars 'fresh' and vinegary!

The chutney at the beginning of the process