Why March needs a good punch up the bracket

This month has been something of a disaster in the garden. Firstly, you may remember the over-wintered cauliflower that formed very tiny heads very early. The ones where I quipped that I should harvest the 5p sized heads now and have done with it to avoid further disappointment?

I'm a pretty flower!

Should've listened to my own advice, no matter how sarcastic it was.

Secondly, the Swift variety potatoes that I bought that were supposed to be harvestable in mid-April? There is not a single hint of a potato plant yet - I appear to just be providing lodgings for bags of dirt. I'm not hopeful of homegrown potatoes in a fortnight's time.

"Swift"

Thirdly, I planted the next tranche of broccoli seeds into pots before I went away from home for a long weekend. I didn't put them under the artificial sun because it seemed pointless to waste electricity on unsprouted seeds. I come back to:

The one time I don't want you to be bloody efficient and quick sprouting. No, Up =/= Light! Not yet, not until I've plugged the sun back in! Just chill the fuck out, okay?

They are now under the artificial sun constantly, in the hope of saving them. I don't hold out much hope.

Now, this shouldn't've been a massive disaster. I had my most successful seedlings ever this year - sown in February, nurtured under the artificial sun and I'd spent this month acclimatising them to outside conditions, ready to be planted out in a week or two. I had doted on those seedlings, giving them perfect soil, perfect conditions and going out to move them between the mini-greenhouse for shelter and warmth and outside in the sunniest spot in the garden to help their growth. I was going to have early broccoli, created myself purely from seeds and it was going to be beautiful.

And they would've been delicious.

You may notice a lot of the conditional perfect in that above description. You may also notice that, in the picture, taken just three days ago, they are on top of the mini-greenhouse, rather then inside. The weather had been fine and they needed to get inured to a little bit of wind and rain to build them up big and strong. So, that was where they were left when I left for the weekend.

Anyone who's been in Bath this weekend will attest to the 30mph+ winds over the last couple of days. I live on top of a tall hill. There is no current picture of what remains of the seedlings; I'm too upset.

Needless to say, I shan't be having early broccoli this year.

Bollocks.

PJW

Beds paved with gold

Every time I try to convince myself that vegetable gardening could be seen as a money-saving enterprise, I have only to think of my last visit to the garden centre to shake it off.

This weekend, I have bought over 500 litres of compost, soil and manure. If you can't picture that, it's about enough to fill 4 and a half bathtubs full and would normally cost more than £50. I only bought that much because the garden centre was doing a half-price clearance sale to get rid of old stock and I thought I could stock up and sort myself out for the year.

It's all gone already. And there's still more needed.

February's payslip, right there. The most expensive cat litter tray imaginable.

This is the problem with gardening in raised beds and pots, rather than in an actual garden. All the matter that goes into creating cauliflower leaves and carrot tops is very finite, so when I pull my crops out, the dirt can only be replenished from my wallet. Or from home composting, but the small amount I get from that doesn't put a dent in my garden's needs.

Still, in using all the dirt, I have managed to get a lot of the garden set up for the growing season. I now have all my main growing beds set up and ready to go, as well as having all of my potatoes planted, which is good Unfortunately, the "Swift" potatoes I planted last month don't appear to be that swift at all - there's not even a hint of a sprout yet, which isn't promising for me getting the first potatoes next month.

Do you see the difference between last month's Swift plantings at the front and the newly planted bags behind? Nope, neither do I.

The early broccoli, on the other hand, is going great guns and has already been moved outside to get the best of the sunlight and get used to the temperatures. I've put them into biodegradable peat pots, rather than plastic ones, as these can be planted straight into the soil whole and hopefully give the broccoli strength from not having their roots buggered about with. I'm really hopeful of getting an early crops from these.

One thing which has been a surprising success has been cat shit prevention. Back when I first started complaining about cats digging through and shitting on all of my work, someone suggested that men's urine was a suitable deterrent. It seemed like a sensible idea in terms that cats won't soil an area that's the home ground of another cat (hence why they all come here, as we're the only house on the block without a cat of our own), but it involved either filling a bottle which was kinda grim, or going out at night and hoping the neighbours weren't looking, so I didn't get around to it.

However, I've given it a try the past month and it really appears to be working. No cat shit since the first application, which puts it head and shoulders above any other method so far. Gardening advice for March - piss on everything you can.

PJW