First sowing of the year

I see from my gardening diary of last year that it is exactly 12 months to the day since my first sowing last year! The warm weather tempted me out today to do some sowing of misc things for the mini greenhouse.

I have sowed three varieties of sweet pea from Kings Seeds - Tara, Ethel Grace, and Alan Williams (three more will go in at the end of the month). Also tomato Tiny Tim, and four large pots of salad leaves to get the season started - lollo rosso, Salad Bowl, rocket and a mixture of oriental salad leaves.

I also sowed the first of the broad beans Bunyard's Exhibition into bed 1 (the raised be nearest the house), together with some pak choi and Little Gem lettuces. Little Gem did well for me last year despite severe neglect, but pak choi got slugged, so we shall see - if it's not a success this year, I'll give in gracefully and concentrate on other things!

I really need to get some large troughs for the salad leaves - the Factory Shop had some last week, maybe I'll call in on my way home tomorrow and see if they still have any. Six would be good - two for tomatoes (rather like growbags, but more orderly!) and four for a succession of salad leaves.

More will go in at the end of the month - I have a list! - but so far I have filled two and a half of the four shelves of the mini greenhouse. More sweet peas, more toms, and the chilli which is my fun sowing of the year, will account for the rest, I think. When the sun has been on it for a couple of hours, it's appreciably warmer in there than outside. It will be interesting to see what effect it has on germination times - I recorded those last year, so have a benchmark - last year's were indoors, but in very dark conditions as I just don't have enough windowsill space in this house (and what there is tends to be rather prone to being jumped on by Sophie! - for whom I have also sown the latest indoor mini-lawn of cat grass!).

The trees are all looking good - the quince especially is well on and covered in lovely downy leaves. Given the hammering they had during the winter, I am quite relieved. The dogwoods are in leaf too, which looks great against the red stems.

The Acer palmatum Okagami which I bought down in Dorset last year, and which I potted on in Feb as per instructions from the nursery, is looking well too - lovely deep wine-red leaves, which is what it's supposed to do! I really must get round to getting it a proper pot soon - the blue glazed one it's temporarily standing in (simply to stop it blowing over) doesn't suit its new colour scheme at all. Cue a visit to the garden centre!