More seeding

Dull weather today but not too bad for sowing seeds and Jamie dug manure into the sweetcorn patch.

In the morning we soaked some seeds (sweet peas & beetroot) in hand-warm water for a few hours to help them germinate a little quicker. This softens the tough outer shell of the seed so the seedling can break out more easily... well, that's the plan.

Seeds soaking

The 2 types of beetroot were sown directly into the ground - the Boltardy are in the onion quarter and the Moneta (which are a monogerm variety which means they only grow one root per seed) are sown into the raised bed.

The following were sown into seed trays and put into the cloche:

• Nelson F1 brussels sprouts
• Minicole cabbages
• Sweet peas

I used my Nether Wallop paper potter for the first time to make some pots for the remaining sweet peas (I made the pots longer than the potter is meant to make because I want the sweet peas to get long roots). The potter is designed to make little 3cm pots and they're really sturdy so I really want to find some more seeds that would appreciate a little pot to start growing in.

The salad cloche in the raised bed had a row each of mixed leaf, radish (Dragon F1) and corn salad. The radish look ok but not one corn salad showed up! The mixed leaf started ok but each visit there have been less plants - today there were just 4 tiny seedlings left!! So, my succession sowing hasn't quite gone to plan but another row of each has been sown in the cloche today... and I did buy a new packet of Corn Salad seeds.

4 lonely seedlings!

A whole long row of Little Gem lettuce was sowed in the other cloche in the raised bed, so hopefully I'll have some kind of lettuce for my lunch in a few weeks time...

It's due to rain all day tomorrow and the ground certainly needs it, so I hope the weather people are right for Marsh Lane!