Spring stirs

Fumigate, originally uploaded by mike1727.

Spring is just round the corner, or so it feels. Learning from last year's hurried planting we spent the weekend clearing children's toys, patio furniture etc out of the greenhouse, replacing glass broken by falling conkers, cleaning layers of green crap off the glass and finally fumigating the whole thing to get rid of any nasties left over from the diseased vine which used to grow in there. We planted a bay to fill a gap in a evergreen herb bed and did a load of tidying up.

I planted the first batch of tomatoes last night- including 'Big Boy' beefs, which will allegedly yield fruits weighing 500gr each. We'll see.

Tonight's batch of planting will be a few pots of sweet peas and a couple of dozen broad beans, red and white- then garlic and shallots this weekend. Spousal objections to seeds trays and pots on every windowsill have limited the available propagation space so I'll see how the beans get on in the greenhouse- it was 50F in there yesterday with the door open, so it should be warm enough to get them going.

Elsewhere: new grass is yellowing a little and needs feeding, fruit trees need pruning soon (to spray, or not to spray?...), first show of green from some of the bulbs planted last year, a couple eof crocusses and a solitary iris. Fig cutting still ominously dormant.