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