I’ve grown grafted plants before and there are some obvious advantages; an earlier crop, a heavier crop, better drought and disease resistance to name a few.
Thank goodness they didn’t arrive while I was away.

There are some new varieties in there, as well as some old faithfuls.
I’m also expecting some heritage tomato plants from Delfland Organics.
They’ve teamed up with the Heritage seed library of Garden Organic to grow a range of 6 varieties in peat free compost. Hoorah. The line-up consists of: Darby pink-yellow striped, Jubilee, Noir, Pink Cherry, Wladeck’s and Small Pear-Shaped.
I don’t think I’ve grown any of these before so it’s very exciting, but that means the greenhouse will be home to thirty tomato plants as well as the other crops I’ve got growing.

Hmmmm. Not sure it’s going to leave much working space in there. Maybe I need another greenhouse!

Tomatoes are the summer fruit of choice in this house, closely followed by salads, herbs and anything with a kick of a flavour. Makes my mouth water thin king about it.
But before I get too carried away each and every one of those precious plants needs potting up and nurturing especially if it’s going to be cool.

That’s this weekend’s tasks sorted then!

Then there are the bulbs and the alpines and perennials that come back year after year. Once well fed and settled they perform reliably and bulk up and fill my garden with flowers.

One plant I love to grow are cosmos, they flower for such a long period and are great for the bees, but most of my seed growing activities involve things I can eat, preferably without cooking them so that you get the full benefit of the vitamins and nutrients and things that are packed with flavour.

Herbs are one group, many such as lovage, marjoram, rosemary, thyme and sage are perennials, but it’s the spicy ones like basil and coriander that always steal the greenhouse space.
Then there’s rocket. I love the leafy annual rocket but it’s the wild perennial rocket that really has the punch. Marry it with freshly picked spinach and the crunchy stems of chard add some salad dressing and a sprinkling of herbs and that’s half a meal already that’s cost very little.

Even if you don’t have a greenhouse there’s just no excuse for relying on bags of tasteless, sweaty salad leaves as your source of the green stuff.
That’s what coldframes and windowsills are for.

This cooler start to the season should hold back some of the plants that run to seed too easily such as spinach, lettuce and chard, but don’t forget to sow some seed every two to three weeks to keep a steady supply, once it warms up impromptu visitors will love your living larder of fresh salad and your supplies should stretch to some extra harvests for neighbours and friends.

Thank goodness I didn’t start my seeds too early and thank goodness I’ve got my greenhouse. The seeds I have started are mostly pretty hardy and the cool temperature will toughen them up before they go outside.
I don’t grow anything that needs mollycoddling or plenty of early warmth as I refuse to heat my greenhouse. Instead I grow a variety of mail order plants from specialists such as Suttons, Dobies and Delfland.

They have the cost of growing the plants during the coldest part of the year, the heating bills to match and any crop failures germination issues to counter, whereas all I have to do in ensure I am ready with fresh clean potting compost, clean pots and plenty of greenhouse bench space to house the young plants on arrival!

Most were greenhouse plants or at least plants that required a generous modicum of warmth to keep them nurtured until the summer.

One of the plants I brought home was a pot of Japanese Wasabi.

It’s been likened to horseradish and certainly the way its spicy heat hits your nasal passages is similar.

The Wasabi isn’t looking too happy though and on further investigation I learn that it is a streamside plant that likes moist well-drained soil and warmth.
It has certainly had some extreme heat in the greenhouse over the mini heat wave and while it was pretty moist, I think it has dried out too much.

It’s the root that is mostly used, though you can also eat the leaves. I haven’t dared harvest a morsel yet; I’ve got plenty of other spicy salads growing in the greenhouse to keep my taste buds buzzing without depriving my Wasabi plant of some vital leaves.
According to Mr Wong, it’s a lucrative plant to grow if you can get the conditions right, many discerning restaurants pay top dollar for fresh Wasabi.
Not round here they don’t and if I get my plant to grow and thrive it will be fed to appreciative visitors and probably unsuspecting children that need a lesson in where their food comes from.

It flowered early with fewer flowers and is now supporting a few clusters of baby peaches.
My hope is that the smaller harvest will be in quantities rather than in weight and that the few fruit that do develop will be larger than the marble sized efforts of last year.
If not, it is defiantly for the chop and in the meantime I am looking out for an apricot tree that will take up the same space.

There’s also a perennial physalis, Cape gooseberry, another plant obtained from Suttons at the Edible Garden Show.
This one is in flower now and I am hoping for an early but constant harvest of sweet succulent fruit. Then there are some white alpine strawberries that I am growing from seed.
The flavour is divine and I am hopeful for a crop in very late summer or early autumn.

Outside in the garden all of the fruit trees planted around the chicken run are sprouting, well all except one which was debarked completely by a rodent of some sort and has failed to spring into life, but all the others are looking great and some, like the pears are already covered in clusters of flower buds, promising a bountiful harvest this autumn.

How exciting.

We followed all the rules and even if Rocky is firing blanks, there were four other eggs from another source under her, so some of them should have hatched.
I never saw her off the nest for more than a few minutes and she is so toasty and warm underneath I can’t see that they didn’t stay warm enough.

Maybe the hot weather didn’t help and they got too hot?
Who knows?

I suppose it is for the best, after all they would probably be mostly cockerels and then that would cause lots of problems, but I was so looking forward to seeing the fluffy chicks emerge on Easter Sunday to brighten up the flock.
I’m not sure I’m going to go through all of that again and the poor hen has no idea what has been going on.

After 25 days sitting I decided to take the unhatched eggs away from her but I just couldn’t b ring myself to break them open.

They should hatch after 21 days.

With the looming drought, a possible cold snap and a barbecue summer all threatened I don’t want the greenhouse to become a huge burden, especially when I am away.
That’s why I am plotting and planning to install a micro drip system that will take the strain out of greenhouse watering, ensure that my plants get the right t amount of water when and where needed and give my lovely neighbour a break when I head off to work at the shows.

Thank goodness that the water companies finally understand that gardeners don’t waste water and are best placed to understand the importance of this precious resource.
Many are now allowing micro drip irrigation to be used, which is great news for any greenhouse gardener with a greenhouse tap.
You can set it all up inside the greenhouse with a timer and leave it to water automatically whether you are around or not.

In spring the Queen bee is busy laying eggs, hundreds each day, which hatch out into new bees that mostly become workers to support the colony.
But every bee that is developing and every bee that hatches needs feeding.
A colony can quickly overpopulate itself and have too many mouths to feed to sustain it, especially if there is poor weather and they don’t have enough stores.

The warm weather saw the bees pinging out the bee holes skyward in search of food as soon as the sun warmed the hive lid.

Midday is a good time to take a look in the hive as many of the bees are out foraging, so there are fewer to contend with when you open the hive.
I chose the last really hot day forecast to suit up and have a look.
It was a scary prospect, although I knew the bees were alive I didn’t know what state the contents of the hive would be in or what I might find.
I looked at both hives in turn and was absolutely thrilled to find that not only did they still have some stores (honey) to sustain them through any bad weather, but that there were plenty of tiny bee larvae and capped brood (baby bees pupating) inside the hive.
This means that the Queen is safe and well and doing her job and that the workers are looking after all the babies as they develop too.
Both hives were fine and apart from getting a bit grumpy when I knocked some comb off one of the bars, they were actually really docile and accommodating.
I didn’t even smoke them and simply sprayed them lightly with water when they got a bit excitable – it makes them think it’s raining and they tend to go inside.

So the bees are well and I’m in high hopes for great results this summer.

Never count your chickens until they hatch – how true!
With just a few days to go to hatch day, it’s an exciting time, but I’m trying not to get too broody or excited at the prospect.

Rocky the cockerel has no idea he’s about to become a dad and the rest of the flock are going about their daily business as normal.
They’ve been a great vine weevil grub destroyer this last week or so as I uncover the dreaded fat, c shaped, white grubs in the garden and in pots of compost.
I haven’t found any in the greenhouse as yet, but I haven’t emptied out the big planters in there either.
Every grub I find is thrown into the chicken run for their inspection and if they like the look of it, it gets eaten.
If they don’t then it has a chance to wriggle its way back into the soil and escape.

Well that’s the theory anyway.

But don’t be too hasty.
Many plants have incredible mechanisms for withstanding the cold and may yet sprout from the base or from apparently dead stems and spring back to life almost miraculously.
My lemon verbena has done just that. It’s not particularly frost hardy and will quickly drop its leaves in cold weather but the woody stems are hardy to -10C.

Since I don’t heat my greenhouse and it got very very cold in there this winter, I was very surprised to see it sprouting on the greenhouse bench this week.
I had cut it back to about half of its size just in case it was still alive, but I didn’t hold out much hope for it and had pretty much decided it was for the compost heap.
What a delight then to find it growing in the warmer weather we’ve had recently.

If you’ve never grown it you should.
Apart from its wonderful culinary uses it also very easy to grow with pretty strappy limy green leaves and tiny lilac flowers in spikes.
The smell is divine and it makes great herbal tea and peps up many dishes including fish and chicken.
Use it as a garnish to add drama to your dishes, or chop it up finely in salads for the wow factor.