Sowing under glass

We are sowing under glass to get ahead this growing season.   

Last week M and I visited the small greenhouse where my husband had nailed together an insulated wooden box.  We sowed chilli pepper (saved) seed in this.  The theory is that thus doubly insulated, the chilli peppers will have a head start.  We also sowed summer cabbage in seed trays and early peas in a length of old drainpipe.

My husband then got busy at home with tomatoes (commercial - a packet from last year), winter squash (saved seed) and pumpkin (culinary - saved from last November) under sheets of glass to retain warmth.

M and I went down to the big greenhouse this week and sowed dwarf french beans in pots.  Once more my husband came up with a handy construction - a sheet of corrugated plastic nailed to two laths of wood, which is now covering the beans., once again keeping in warmth.

Last time we looked, there was no movement with the chillis the peas, and the cabbage but in the favourable conditions of what M calls our 'luxury greenhouse', otherwise known as our lounge-diner, the squash, pumpkins and tomatoes are beginning to appear.  Here we are at the end of February and I am surprised at their speedy germination.  Our climate (outside the controlled conditions of our flat) is unpredictable as ever.  The trick will be to keep these young plants growing at the right speed, to know when to transfer them to the big greenhouse, at what stage to pot on and when to take the big step of planting out when the risk of frost is over.

On the uses of vinegar

I have already used vinegar for making chutney and for cleaning our two greenhouses with M.  Today I combined bicarbonate of soda (an ingredient of Lancashire Parkin and teabreads) and hot distilled vinegar to unblock a slowly draining handbasin in our bathroom.

The technique is to pour down the bicarb. first, then the hot vinegar and to follow this with hot water to flush through.

As I watched the reaction that occured when these two substances came into contact with a satisfying 'fizz' I  thought back to my days at high school. I was an 'arts' person who found essays easier than equations.  Moreover our teacher, God rest her soul, often struggled with ill health.  I therefore dropped Chemistry as soon as I could.

Today as I watched the water draining down the plughole I came to the conclusion that (with time) I could have grasped Chemistry.  If only I could have started with household stuff: bicarb, bleach,  beeswax, and then built up to the equations. 

My chemistry, like my cooking will always be 'kitchen chemistry' but I will still wonder at and record the amazing nature of everyday things.  I console myself.  I am capable, I could have taken Chemistry.

Clear Glass

At the bottom of my winter tasks that include barrowing out manure, enlarging beds and pruning comes cleaning.   I prefer 'outdoor' jobs on the allotment, but M loves cleaning and so we tackled the large greenhouse last week armed with two cheap sponges from the pound shop, yellow rubber gloves, a bucket and a bottle of distilled vinegar.  

The greenhouse on our orchard plot is larger and sturdier than the other one and accordingly much easier.  Most of the green lichen-like stuff was along the east and south sides.  I went backwards and forwards between the plot and the amentity hut with buckets of hot water as M sponged down the exterior followed by the interior.  I then contorted myself and knelt under the metal tables cleaning panes at floor level (M is taller than I).  My final contribution was to attach a sponge to a bamboo cane with a plastic clothes peg in order to reach the highest panes.   This makes M laugh. 

I asked M why she liked cleaning so much (and  have her permission to blog this).  She told me that it comes from her love of photography, which literally translated means 'writing with light'. 

We stepped back to admire our handiwork.  Our greenhouse is now ready for propagation in the spring.  Once again, it seemed much larger.  Much of the glass was now so clear and clean that it was hardly visible. 

(PS  On Monday we went to the plot.  It started to rain, once more.  My husband tidied our big greenhouse.  The showers diminished overhead and through our newly-cleaned windows we saw a double rainbow.)

Subsoil

M came down to the plot with me yesterday to help me finish extending one of our beds which I had decided to enlarge.  I find it hard to think in metric measures on the plot and the amount of turf we removed was roughly rectangular, a foot and a half by six feet (measured by green wellingtons). 

I gave the whole area a very quick weeding while M, who has learned not to rush things, shook off the excess soil and put the sods that she had cut into the barrow for transportation.  Some them were very heavy and very soggy.  The yellow clay M uncovered right at the bottom looked like modelling clay.

As I worked I moved outward from the central cultivated area where last season we grew tomatoes in one half and chard in the other.  This was the good soil, enriched over several seasons and easy to fork and weed.  Next we reached the margins where meadow grass, dandelions and buttercups unceasingly attempt to colonise the beds.  Then we made a fresh inroad into the layer just above the subsoil, full of flinty pebbles. 

We barrowed out two and a half loads of manure.  Most of the rich stuff went, where most needed, on top of the subsoil.