Another sunny day

Today I finished off the boxes. I moved the large aquilegia (the seed from New Mexico) out and put them in a flower bed at the front.
I rounded-up some old seed and sowed it as shown below. The only fresh seeds were the foxgloves - they are wildflower seeds and should do well here I think.
The rest of the squares are already filled with broccoli plants, wild strawberries, self-seeded aquilegia and left-over garlic/onion plants.
I also thinned the carrots and swede. The latter are looking pretty good. Most of the carrots are up. It seems that the empty spots are mostly along the edge of the box - not sure if that is because the outside dries out faster or if it is because it is colder than in the middle of the box. I sprinkled a few more seed in the gaps, but I did not cover it so it may not grow. I didn't want to risk disturbing any seedlings about to emerge.

Beetroot X16		Foxgloves
Salad	Salad	Delphinum
Spinach X9	Spinach X9	Spring onion

June is for brassicas

I went to Hveragerði yesterday and bought some cabbage plants (and flowers).
The left-hand deep box has the garlic in it, but there were plenty of empty squares - actually, many of them had volunteer potatoes and sunchokes but I pulled them up. I added chicken manure, seaweed and mushroom compost to each square. Then I put a row of Brussel sprouts at the back, one per square; a row of Savoy cabbage in front, one per square; and the remaining two sqares each got a couple of broccoli plants. I also put four kale plants, two per square, in the shallow box.
I planted them all deep enough to cover the seed leaves - I think that I read that this makes them more stable - and firmed the soil around them. The Brussels will need staking for sure.

The garlic has come on a lot since last month, and the strawberries have a lot of flowers so perhaps there will be a crop soon!

May catch-up

The usual spring gardening was interrupted by a holiday in England this year so I did not even try to grow anything from seed indoors.

Just before leaving  (?18 May) I took this photograph of the garlic bed. All coming along nicely.

And I sowed carrot and swede in the other deep bed.

4x Kálfafells Swede	4x Kálfafells Swede	9x Nantes 5 Carrot	9x Nantes 5 Carrot
9x Napoli Carrot	9x Napoli Carrot	9x Nantes 5 Carrot	9x Nantes 5 Carrot
9x Napoli Carrot	9x Napoli Carrot	9x Nantes 5 Carrot	9x Nantes 5 Carrot
16x Amsterdam Forcing 3 (sprint) Carrot	16x Amsterdam Forcing 3 (sprint) Carrot	16x Amsterdam Forcing 3 (sprint) Carrot	16x Amsterdam Forcing 3 (sprint) Carrot

  Napoli is new for me, it was in a plain brown packet, like the swede seed, so I presume it is quite popular here.

When I was clearing the bed I found lots of old carrots and parsnips (finally!) and used them to make soup :-)

Spring, what spring?

It has been a winter of endless depressions and abundant snow. Luckily, the snow came and went before returning at once so it never really got very deep.
There was a very bad storm yesterday, with unusually high winds. I went out to replace the fleece on the strawberry bed and noticed that some of the garlic are up - the square of "white" garlic which were the undivided bulbs from last year. I put fleece over the whole box, just in case we get some frost (bound to really).
The rest of the garden looks very wet and sad. There will have to be some serious tidying done soon.