April's jobs

I was watching Alan Titchmarsh last night and while I winced when he suggested using weedkiller on tough-to-shift perennial weeds, I could identify with his childlike excitement at seeing a plot of land turn from being a weedy patch of nothing much into something coherent and beautiful (yes, gardeners do tend towards control freakery). 

Perhaps the most daunting task, sowing-wise, is April.  But although I look at the list below and wonder whether I've taken on too much, I also feel a jolt of excitement about the thought of seeing the first bean sprout poking its crinkled leaves out of the damp earth, and the distinctive smell of the tomato seedlings when I open the propagator.

Here's April's list of tasks. If you want to check back on previous months they're here and here.

Sow: purple-podded pea (Heritage Seed Library), pepper trifetti (HSL), lettuce Bunyard's matchless (HSL), tomato san marzano (OGC), french bean tendergreen (beans saved from last year), climbing french bean caseknife (HSL), Beetroot detroit 2 (Suttons), beetroot golden (OGC), sweetcorn ashworth (VV).

Sorry for the lack of pix of late. I keep forgetting to take my camera down to the allotment with me. I am tackling a fairly big, unrewarding and messy job this weekend: moving the compost bin in my garden down to my allotment. And yes, before you ask it is full of half-rotted compost. How am I going to do it?

Carefully.  With a peg on my nose.

More specifically, I have a huge builder's rubble bag that the compost - and with any luck the bin - will go into, which will then be put in the back of my car and driven as fast as possible (within the speed limit of course) to the allotments to be unloaded.

The plus side of this  thankless task is that I'll be able to commence the more enjoyable job of renovating one of the flowerbeds in the garden where the compost bin has been squatting unattreactively for nearly three years. I feel a Titchmarsh moment coming on.

Comments

[andrew stenning]

No don't do an Alan !the compost has been very good this year!