Peas Out

Today is slightly warmer but a heavy mist of rain which may dry off if the sun comes out. It is what we in Ireland call 'a soft day'. This type of rain is great for the ground as it soaks through instead of running off and the ground is very dry at the moment.
Yesterday I had an hour to spare before collecting the girls from school so as it is in the same area I went out to the plot.I took out the peas, both sowings of them and put them into their bed. This stale bed idea is a good one, I had prepared this bed about 3 weeks ago and when I went to plant, a lot of small weeds were easy to hoe from the surface, there were a few bigger weeds just developing tap roots, easy enough to remove now but if they came up through the peas would be impossible to dig out. There are 28 seedlings planted out and about 6 more in the greenhouse for filling in gaps if needed.

The seeds were planted in loo rolls and newspaper pots and were planted out in them also.I leave the ends open for the roots to grow down and in the photo you can see the length of the root system.They are easier to handle in planting out too as I could hold the plant and fill in around the roots without any disturbance. I watered them in and covered the whole bed with the fleece tunnels again to help them acclimatize to the great outdoors.I will leave them in the tunnels until they need the support of pea sticks.

My new wonder compost additives! Garden lime,blood ,fish and bone and the seaweed extract.The lime would not be used for everything and very sparingly.

I had read about Seaweed extract on the down under blogs, they seem to use it a lot so when I saw this I decided to try it. I have used it diluted for watering the seedlings and I am sure they are responding with growth spurts!It is recommended for germinating, propagating,transplanting and even mature plants and lawns! It is organic and as the amount used is minimal, 1 to 2 inner capfulls in 2 gallons of water it should last all year.