It is 4°C (39°F) at the moment. The forecast is for around 2°C (36°F) through til Tuesday next week so not much point waiting for it to improve! And on the plus side it isn't actually raining/snowing right now, though it is pretty windy.

Last year I sowed my carrots on April 29th, and even that was early, so I reckon that if this lot don't show I can resow in the first half of May and still get a crop.

I sowed Early Nantes 5 in two squares. One square is in a 12" deep box, under agricultural fleece, and the other square is in a 6" box which at the moment has a cold frame over it so it should be a bit warmer in there. I can lift the frame off later when it gets warmer.

I'm aiming for 25 carrots per square because I use string for the grid and 16 carrots looked too few last year. I thought I should put three seeds at each station since germination may be poorer than normal - in practice my fingers were so cold and the wind so strong (the tears in my eyes did not help either) that the spacing was very erratic!

The squares I used are the back-right square of the strawberry box, and the front-left square of the deep box which I just moved.

Stupid weather!

I made the most of a mild spell, and moved the deep box further back in the garden (behind where it was). Before I moved it, I put a layer of weed barrier down in the new patch, covered that with a thick layer of newspapers, and covered that with more weed barrier. I hope that will keep the fruit tree roots out for longer.

I plan two make two new boxes, a shallow one to put where the deep box was, and another deep box to put at the back. That will give me two shallow and two deep 4x4 boxes, and a small box in the centre with rhubarb in it (the rhubarb is coming up nicely, clearly much happier than where it used to be).

Meanwhile, I weighted down the exposed weed barrier with paving stones, and covered the box with garden fleece so that the grow mix will warm up faster. It was all looking good...

...then on Sunday we had the worst storm of the winter! I went out twice to add more rocks to various things (just saved the newspapers from blowing away) and still the gas grill blew over! I don't think that I actually lost anything but it was a close thing with the cold frame and the wheel barrow.

Today I decided it was time to sow some seeds indoors.

12 calendula
12 gazania Gazelle
1 tray of antirrhinum
4 pepper sweet minimix
4 pepper California Wonder
16 kalibroc
12 broad bean Masterpiece
10 broad bean Medes
10 sweet pea
15 strawberry Sarian F1 Hybrid

Most of these are seeds from last year or the year before. The broad beans I bought in the UK. Masterpiece is supposed to be very fast, and Medes is a heavy cropper so it will be interesting to see which does best. I sowed them in cut down cardboard tubes as peat pots are so expensive.

I still need to sow a tomato plant or two. And it is only three days to CARROT DAY! The SFG website is having an organised carrot sowing on or around April 15th so I need to sow some Nates carrots then. Given the weather they will have to go in the cold frame I think. I'll try a square in the deep box too but I suspect the germination rate will be very poor.

I'll post again when I have done some more :-)