Ceratonia

Quick update for Sunday - Alexander & I sowed Broad beans (masterpiece green longpod) - think there were 25 seeds left in the packer, so we did them all. Then did 18 peas (meteor) - will do a few more of those in a few weeks and hopefully not have them all cropping at the same time. These were in pots in the greenhouse.  Also a tray of cress (indoors) :-)

Didn't get too much done this weekend - we had a visit from a 1 year old, which was more fun than chopping stuff.

Managed to give the Euphorbia a good trim - not sure which species it is, but it's approaching 5 foot high and was shading the greenhouse a fair bit. Cut out all the stems which had flowered last year and generally reduced the ize.

Tidied out the rosebed completely - it was completely covered in fallen leaves and lots of weeds. Put the leaves on the compost heap, pulled out all the weeds, did some pruning of the roses. I keep meaning to remove this bed completely, not really a fan of roses and it's in a place where the boys can potentially get cut by thorns. Need to think about what to replace it with, though. Lots of winter aconites were hiding under the fallen leaves, they look quite nice.

Then set to work on the shady bed under the larch tree. This was in pretty poor condition, with lots of weeds and will need some more planting come spring.

Went to Springfield nursery in Great Chesterford, but didn't buy anything  - was on the lookout for some blueberries (they had only 1 variety, at £9.99 each, but you need 2 varieties for pollination). Also want Cape Goosebery seeds, but they had none.

Noticed that Tesco were selling winter jasmine plants for a fiver - I chucked half a dozen of them away last week!

Anyway, our local zoo was selling Tapir & Zebra manure, bagged up. They'll deliver trailerloads locally. Was thinking of posting on allotments4all to see if anyone knew how long Tapir manure had to be composted for before use....

Alexander was given a few packets of seeds for his birthday and as I took the morning off to look after him & jamie while they were off school sick, we sowed them. So, two pots of Mimosa nervosa (the plant that curls up when you touch it, which we've grown before) and two pots of the insectivorous sundew (Drosera). These will have to live indoors.

The boys didn't want to stop there, so they each sowed a couple of Pumpkins (hundredweight is the variety, i think), sunflowers (giant, single says the packet) and a pot each of tomatoes (couldn't work out what variety the packet is). Possibly a bit early for sowing these as they won't be able to go outside until April/May, but I may do some spares in a few weeks, just in case. He's also got cress, but we couldn't see the packet, plus a couple of things which will need to be sown in situ in March.

Trevor at work had a packet of Chilli seeds - 'De Cayenne', so I sowed some of those also. We also picked sprouts, leeks and parsnips, plus cleaned up the remains of last year's carrots to feed to the guinea pigs