2022 - What I did today

Potted on my Kale plants hopefully that should spur them onto grow big enough to be planted out soon.

Today I sowed DFBs and did a lot of tidying edges and trying to break up very solid dried up ground in an attempt to weed it.

More digging on plot 3....Still finding Kiwi roots!

^^^ they probably come from the thug in my garden. Its still coming back every year despite have a solid GH base built on it.

Apart from ripping out bits of the kitchen and collecting replacements, I've been digging up Cow parsley which is another of those plants that are nice in small doses but are trying for garden domination. They have tough competition with white comfrey, montbretia, vinca, creeping buttercup, couch grass,. nettles, brambles, bracken, dock, hogweed and wild arum - to name but a few. Makes me wonder how I manage to grow anything!
I've had my daily fix of counting the germinating courgettes and beans. So satisfying when seeds that are way past their sow by date actually grow. Seven courgettes out of about 50-60 so far.

This is more what I didn't do. We had a -1°C frost last night, it was forecast cold but not that cold. So I took precautions, covered tenders in both gh's, set the fan heater up in one gh, the other has to take its chances, covered strawberry flowers with fleece, etc. Who's the numpty that left my biggest courgette out on the hardstanding? I'd put it out I the sun yesterday and totally forgot about it. Needless to say it's mullered. I've brought it inside just in case the growing tip survived. Luckily I've got more than enough replacements, just not as big. I could kick myself.

Planted 4 tomatoes in their final positions in GH1. A San Marzano, Gardener's Ecstasy and 2 Mountain Princess - chosen because they were the most well-developed.
I'm trying not to buy compost this year so I've filled the lower half of the bottomless pots with Hotbin compost and topped it up with last year's tomato compost. Since tomatoes are always fed with liquid fertiliser once they get going, I'm not convinced that they need new compost each year. Time will tell whether this is an experiment that should not be repeated.

Potted on some tomatoes, echinacea and catanache.
Sowed some sunflowers and acorn squash.
Did some weeding.

Potted on a second batch of toms into bigger pots. I've already got one of each in large pots for my own use, so this batch was into medium pots possibly for my own spares or to go outside. I'll offer unpotted ones to a pal. Like Veggie I've used a combination of old use compost, sieved soil and well rotted horse manure. We'll see how they compare with the new peat free stuff from lidl. I haven't yet found a peat free I like.

There is a bit of rain forecast but watered my alliums (leeks, onions and garlic) that are in some very free draining soil. Also planted out some kale and caulis.
No frosts forecast for the moment so uncovered my early potatoes which are more or less all showing now and I haven't covered up the tomato and other tender plants with fleece in the greenhouse this evening.