The New Year Update

A little bit overdue ..... been very busy with sorting the house out and decorating, not had much time for any updates on here .... will try and do regular updates all year now!

Onions
Last October we started a whole load of winter onions in 2in pots. They started off well, and about 110 were planted out in the veggie patch around the end of November. The rest stayed in the greenhouse in the 2in pots.
I'm a bit disappointed because a lot of those that were planted out have just "disappeared". It looks like they have been pulled out by birds or trampled or kicked around by the foxes. On the plus side, I'll still have plenty of the early summer and I'm ready with the summer onion sets (see the next post).

Herbs
The whole lot failed to sprout. Guessing the greenhouse over winter (even a mild winter) is not a good way to start them.

Carrots
The carrots sown at the beginning of October seem to be doing well in the greenhouse. They are in large troughs. The second sowings of carrots sown mid-October were quite poor - one trough had just the one seedling, so given up with that - emptied it to start again.

Garlic & Elephant Garlic
The normal garlic (from supermarket bulbs), planted early October, is looking really good - big strong thick stems growing straight up. The elephant garlic planted mid-November has sprouted, only a couple of inches tall, but looks good and healthy.

Cabbage & Cauliflower
All sprouted but died. They were sown early October - guessing that's a bit late to sow them - they probably didn't have enough time to grow big enough and strong enough to survive the winter in the greenhouse.

Winter Gem Lettuce
Doing well - clumps of leaves about 4-6 inches tall. We've had some leaves for salad. I'm going to set up a cloche next weekend and hopefully plant a few under that soon after, and plant others outside to see what happens.

Pickles, Chutneys and Jams
We made some jams late last year - they've gone down a treat! We made some pickles and chutneys too - I'll get round to posting the recipes on here soon. My favourite was tomato and chilli chutney - tastes amazing with cheese and crackers! We'll be making loads more this year!

Life in General
Life is good! After 11 years as a single parent, I now have a partner living with me and everything just seems so easy. I'm a lot more motivated with work, the house, garden etc - it's all good! I have cleared and decorated the box room, so I now have a home office. I have cleared half the loft and lagged it. We have been out in the garden clearing brambles. We must have taken 10 car loads of crap to the dump! The house is looking much nicer now - although it was "mostly clean, mostly tidy", it was lacking that woman's touch that makes it look better - the pictures on the walls, the ornaments, the things that make a house look homely.

And best of all, she loves growing fruit and veg and cooking it too! It's going to be a really good year!!