2023 - What I did today

Very gusty today so I dismissed the idea of sowing seeds outdoors, Goodness knows where they would have ended up!
Did some GH tidying and watering. Brought the germinated (in 3 days) DFBs down from the bedroom and put them in GH2.
Weeded the Pea house ready for some.......yes, you've guessed, .........peas.

Yes, very gusty here too.
Potted on some very straggly and elongated cornflowers into modules.
Not sure if they’ll survive. I left them for far too long congested in a three inch pot.

I potted on some tomatoes. My resolve of choosing the best one to keep and binning the rest came to nothing. The one each of the best came indoors under lights or on windowsills and the others stay in the cold gh in the propagators until I run out of room. The jury's out what will happen when the props are full
I found the birds had started pulling the tops off my young broad beans waiting to be put in the ground, bladdy things, so had to fashion a net in the wet and the wind.

Pricked out nineteen Rudbeckia Sahara seedlings. Pleased with that from one packet.
And only five nasturtiums, so hope there’s more to come.

Weeded out a million sycamore seedlings
Trimmed and weeded the strawberries 
Sowed a melon, watermelon, early cucumber, courgette, snapdragons and a tomato 
Thinned out the marigold and rudbeckia seedlings 
Potted up the begonias I grew from seed and saved last year

Treated myself to two bunches of daffs from Morrisons that were reduced to 10p. a bunch.
Can’t believe it really seeing as I have hundreds in the garden.
Just a sucker for a yellow sticker - and I don’t see yellow stickers very often.

I planted out one and three quarter rows of broad bean plants in the patch, from the edge otherwise I'd have been covered in mud. Something was chopping/pulling off the tops of the young plants. Not sure whether it's birds or mice. Anyway the new plantings have net over and a mouse trap underneath. The remaining bean modules are also protected. That reminds me, I didn't put a trap near them, must traipse out again I suppose
I also potted on some sweet peas. Is there a sweet peas that has vetch like leaves, or am I nurturing weeds?

I have been spending lots of money! 

I have put in an order for another big delivery of compost and manure. It should arrive on Wednesday and let me turn the other side of my garden into beds, as well as spread a thin layer over my existing beds. It's good that I'm getting the compost delivered earlier this year than I did last years so that I can have the beds ready for sowing. Between this year and last year, I have now spent more money on compost than I have on any other physical thing ever, with the exception my house. I'm a Yorkshirewoman, so not good at spending and I've had to sit down for the rest of the afternoon to get over the shock!

Unfortunately, all this sitting down has given me the opportunity to think about spending the Plants of Distinction voucher my mother gave me for my birthday last year. Of course, there were far too many lovely-looking things on their website and I have gone almost £7 over the value of the voucher, despite reducing my basket contents dramatically before check-out. And I still have a Premier Seeds Direct voucher to spend, so the damage could get even worse!

We're having a tonne of compost delivered to our allotment tomorrow, Pros. I still feel a bit crazy buying soil improver, or what I might think of as future dirt.

Asked the neighborhood WhatsApp group for cardboard and met a new neighbor who gave me the cardboard from her new bookcase. Hailed or to the allotment in my wagon. Spent a weirdly long time taking tape off it. Cardboard will go down on the worst bits of the plot that haven't been cultivated yet. Compost will go on top and on the previously prepared beds.I wish we'd had more time for digging out the brambles, but it continues to be a process.

I've managed to only go £1.03 over on the Premier Seeds Direct order, so I feel somewhat redeemed!