2021 - What I did today

Binned yet more pepper & chilli seedlings with damping off disease - I've really screwed up this year! Scrubbed and bleached a load of pots, filled with fresh coir from a new brick and put in the propagator to warm ready for sowing tomorrow.
Endlessly vacuumed & mopped as MrPP is at maximum dust creation in the extension.

After a difficult week in work (including a particularly sad case), I was looking forward to a nice gentle day of doing nothing much except some gentle tidying. Then I learned this afternoon that a doctor I knew a little in the past (and, sharing a specialty, would have expected to encounter on and off for many years to come) has died far, far too young. And now my Mum has just messaged to say she has COVID symptoms and has booked a test for tomorrow. She, my Dad, and my older brother (both my brothers are living with my parents right now) are all in the vaccine group that are just about to get jabbed (just like I was when I caught it), so it would just feel like the universe was being perverse if they all catch COVID now.

So it has been a thoroughly rubbish week all in all, and no tidying has been done.

At least one of my three hyacinth tubs (£2 per pot of three bulbs from the Tesco just up the road) is in full flower, and so it smells a bit like spring.

Best wishes for a better week next week and for your mum, too, Proserpina.

The sun is out for what feels like the first time for a long time - warm enough to have coffee with our neighbour on the terrace. He and I are both vulnerable so have not been inside each other's houses since last May, sticking to meeting outside.
A lovely day for just pottering and making lists of jobs to do tomorrow ...
Cleared more algae from the pond.
Started weeding and topping up the compost in the ornamental pots - I have a weakness for container gowing, highly foolish in this climate!!

Now watching the rugby and doing some dinner prep.

A couple of walks today, Mrs B joined me for one

Exercise with No.2 son

We have now introduced a weekly weigh-in to gauge if this exercise malarkey is worth it, results not too bad!

Tidied/sorted seeds into new containers

Sowed some bits

First thing this morning I had to go out and feed the birds, then watched the church service, then lunch, after lunch I had to feed the birds again, thenwent out to the greenhouse, but after mixing some compost for seed sowing, but it was far too cold to stay out for long

While distracting myself from pending parental COVID swabs, I have reclaimed some compost from a very dead poinsettia I had over Christmas (I think it would have lasted longer, but it gets warm here so I'm keeping the windows open and it is definitely not warm outside). I have had a lot of problems with bugs in compost from pot plants so I am going to moisten and then microwave it in the hope that helps. It's only a small amount and the windowsill is cold. Don't think I'd want to grow anything edible in it though, so that ruins my plan to get at least some cress or peashoots going.

I've also been watching the huge quantities of woodchip mulch that the hospital estates department liberally spread everywhere slowly rot down over the last few months. I reckon there is some fantastic compost a couple of centimetres down, and it's being used as more of a weed suppressant than a growing medium so I wouldn't feel bad about borrowing a scoop here or there (to be returned at a later date)... Probably also not a great idea for trying to grow edibles in though, and I only brought seeds for things like microgreens and salad greens here with me anyway.

I think it's things being generally a bit rubbish that is making me want to see something, anything sprout from seed and turn into a proper little plant. The pot plants I have are nice, but it's not the same as starting something from scratch.

Potted on 30 leeks grown from leek 'grass' out of modules and into   3 inch pots. They were in the greenhouse at the allotment but the compost was still frozen!

Planted the Broad Bean seedlings that had been languishing at the end of the garden during the cold snap. They looked a bit limp but I'm sure they'll pick up. Made them a ramshackle enclosure to stop the dogs charging through them, and the chooks, when they're finally allowed out.
Cleared a load of brambles that were suckering everywhere - or so it seemed - as I kept tripping over them.
Weeded GH No 2, clearing out the old lettuce and some oriental veg leaves - don't know what they were - something with a funny name...
Really nice to be able to play in the sun today.

Cut back a honeysuckle that grows across the pergola right back to the upright because there was so much dead underneath.
Sorted out the ugly metal shelving that lives in the living room window full of seedlings until I can start hardening them off.

Yesterday - Nothing, was curled up on the bed/sofa all day feeling poorly (although I managed to watch 5 episodes of Vikings!)

Today - Had my vaccine

Planted 24 shallot sets into modules

Sorted some spare seeds to send to my best man

Managed to get my 10k steps just