Spring!

First Asparagus spear

Believe it or not these are the hands of someone in their late thirties although you would be forgiven for thinking I am at least seventy by this picture!! Anyway, this (I am VERY proud to say!) is our first ever Asparagus. Sadly as this is the first year of planting we won't be able to eat it as it needs to build strength for the first couple of seasons. I'm chuffed though that it has come through as we planted it in the middle of all the VERY cold weather when it went down to -10c some nights, so I wasn't sure it had survived. I must plug 'Victoriana Nursery Gardens' again for their excellent mail order/internet order service.

With Easter being at a more normal time this year ( very early last year) I decided to jump ahead for planting the first early potatoes. I've tried to stick to planting on the traditional day of 'Good Friday' in previous years but we will be travelling this year during Easter so I decided to do them now as it's been such good weather. I've chosen Belle de Fontenay again for my 'firsts' as they were very good for us last year, good result and taste.

This year I have only put muck in the trenches, last year I also put shredded paper with the idea that it would help conserve water, I'm not sure if it made much difference so I'm only doing muck ... LOTS of muck!

Potato trench

After a good week of weather we've been able to get to the plot quite a few times to start the season off and whilst it's still early in the season it's starting to look ok. We've got loads of parsnips still from last year and the Purple Sprouting Broccoli is bloomin' GORGEOUS almost as nice as fresh asparagus tips.

I've also managed to get the first of the peas in which I started off in toilet roll tubes last Autumn at home. I've got several more lots just sown for successional sowing as this year I'm hoping for bumper crops of fresh peas!!! You can't beat the taste of peas eaten straight from the pod.

Peas against Hazel sticks