Lockdown Day 47 - The vegetables waiting to go out

In contrast to the many unthinking and selfish people that mingled yesterday for street parties with the lame excuse of VE Day, we are still making sure we keep to the Coronavirus lockdown rules here. Don't get me wrong, VE Day should be commemorated, and we should remember those who gave so much for our freedom seventy-five years ago, but other countries have managed to do this in a dignified way without putting others at risk.

We are only going out for shopping for ourselves and my parents, exercise and working in the allotment (the latter has been allowed here in the UK, in contrast to the Republic of Ireland) . We are making sure we stay well apart from other people as far as we can which is easier said than done when other people don't think and push past you in the supermarket....

With a cold spell approaching the lean-to greenhouse is getting full as we put our seedlings and some of the summer loving plants under lockdown to avoid harm from any potential frost. Looking at the forecast it will get down to about 3 deg C here but at the moment the nights look too cloudy and windy to get a damaging frost. Fingers crossed!

In the greenhouse we have peas, purple sprouting broccoli. cabbages, gherkins, pumpkins, courgettes all germinated. There's a tray of leeks and a tray of swede that haven't yet come up and in the house there is a tray of minipop sweetcorn that have almost all germinated so that will be around forty-eight plants each with two or three mini sweetcorn on them! These have been reliable almost every year and we freeze them in batches of about nine or ten for use with stir-fried Chinese dishes. 

I am though a little worried that I am not able to tell the pumpkins and courgettes apart though as they grow things will become more obvious I hope! Better labelling next time! 

We eat a lot of beetroot, there's already some in the allotment and I may well put more in to germinate. Delicious fresh and also we pickle some for the winter months. 

All being well by the back end of next week all risk of frost will have passed and I will be able to start putting some of these plants into the allotment and into pots in the garden and the yard. We want to grow courgettes and beans up the old swing in the garden if we can. In the allotment we have another old swing frame that is great for beans to climb up. We have had really large crops of runner beans and french beans in the past but nowadays we grow borlotti and kidney beans and sometimes ying-yang beans for drying and storing.