Radish seedlings emerge to life Easter Monday (13 April 2020)

Happy days indeed – despite the quiet covid apocalypse most of us are living through as if through a dream…  

The Easter weekend was a scorcher and the days felt more like June than early April, with temperatures in the 20s every day.   So no wonder that the first seedlings have started to emerge.  The radish seeded into terracotta planters showed signs of life for the first time today.   These are our first seeds to sprout!  Yipee!  

We’ve got three small terracotta window ledge planters, each planted with radish (but not all seeded on the same day to stagger the crops, and we’re also trying two different types of radish).  Basically each planter will be equivalent to a bunch of radishes.  Tidy!   

Be careful when you plant radish.  Make sure you carefully follow the recommended seed depth.  If you plant radish seed too shallowly they will fail to properly develop and be a completely wasted crop. (But the worms in the compost heap will love them).  They also like loose friable soil.  Which is why planting into pots is a safer option – especially if you have heavy clay soil like we do on the allotment.

We also have a longer terracotta pot seeded with coriander that’s on the side flower bed near the damask rose, which I’m hoping will be happy and self-seed to create a permanently perpetuating patch.  But no signs of seedlings in that pot yet (seeded 6 April).

Mature self-seeded Mizuma patch.  (13 April 2020)

Speaking of permanently perpetuating patches, I’m very happy with the patch of Mizuma I created to the side of the red rose arbour.

We purchased started mizuma lettuce plants two seasons ago. I let them go to seed when they’d run their course, and the resultant seeds scattered around the same space.  These in turn sprouted and grew into a new patch of mizuma – which is a super yummy spicy asian leaf lettuce.  The big guy loves it.

The patch shown here is the self-seeded patch of mizuma, which is starting to set flower heads and will self-seed into that same space again in due course.

As a general rule, once a salad or leaf crop sets flower heads the plant becomes bitter to eat, so best just leave them to do their thing once flowers appear.  But if you’re not leaving your patch to self-seed, this is the time to pull out these crops and prepare the ground for something new.

What a system!  Zero effort gardening once you get the plant conditions just right.

Mizuma plant’s developing flower heads, April 2020.

Robin, making use of the water table at the allotment.

New guidance on Covid-19 that appeared on the Heath today. (Easter Monday, 13 April 2020)

Corona updates – over 10,000 deaths in UK and experts now projecting that this country will be the worse effected in Europe.  Good grief!  Boris is out of hospital and up recuperating at Chequers, the country seat of the British Prime Minister. Over on the continent, the lockdown has been extended in Italy.  Face masks required to be worn in France.  And across the pond, deaths in New York equivalent to UK deaths more or less, and overall there have been 22,000 deaths in the States.

Still dialling in daily to listen to Governor Cuomo every afternoon – what a breath of fresh air he is! He doesn’t dice with the truth but dishes it out hard and brutal though it may be.  Tough and strong but loving is his mantra.  New York tough, but tough guys can be loving. Amen! To me, Cuomo’s been the silver lining in the dark clouds.  So glad to have had the chance to hear him speak.  If only there were more public representatives so frank and candid, who doesn’t sugar coat reality, and won’t shy away from tough topics. Oh my!  I’m smitten and impressed by Cuomo in equal measure.

And then into all this pandemic pandemonium, last night there were massive tornados landing in the East coast of the States, with lots of damage there on top of the covid craziness.   Difficult days!