Proudly Sponsored by.....

Today's update is proudly sponsored by my very cute nephew.  He is only about 6 months old but he has decided that he should do some bartering with me and that he will send me a photo of himself in exchange for every blog entry I do.  As I have never seen him in person and have seen very few photos of him I've decided to take him up on the challenge and try to catch up on my very neglected blog in the process.  　As a warning, they are going to be very random entries!

 

 We have a large tunnel house (about 24m long) that until this year has been very under utilised.  The main reason for this is that in the past when I have tried to plant things in there my father-in-law has always decided out of the blue that he needs to use it for seeding something or other and ends up pulling all my stuff out just as it is about to really start producing.

However it seems that he has now decided he has no need to do anything in the tunnel house so I think I have free reign over it.  Time will tell if this is correct or not!

The house isn't heated, but will still get up into the 40s on a sunny day in winter so I figured I could probably plant something and get it to grow if I kept my fingers crossed correctly.  I built a few beds and filled them with some horse poo and lots of rotted leaves and so far have managed to get some radishes, mesclun lettuce mixes and some spinach to seed.  I also threw a few bean seeds into the ground and a few are now poking their heads through.  Overnight temperatures are pretty low so chances are they won't do very well, but it is fun to try.  

I also found some very cheap passionfruit vines that I have managed to keep alive and will hopefully take off as spring approaches.

Passionfruit vines

While collecting the horse poo I found a pile of old glass doors at a friend's house which looked like they needed a new home.... they are proving to be great for raising the temperature a little more for starting off some seeds.  There are already a few tomato seedlings poking through as well as some random flowers and peas.  Hopefully they will get a bit of a start and can be planted into the new beds before the weather gets too hot for them.

Spinach, Mesclun, Radishes

I have always had an asparagus bed in the tunnel house but this year I finally got around to putting a box around it and filling it with... you guessed it - horse poo!   I'm hoping we are going to have the tastiest asparagus ever this year!

I'm guessing that I have now managed to get about a third or more of the tunnel house under control.  It is a great place to retreat to in this season, but by June and July visits become far too hot so I'm enjoying it while I can.

Next decision... more beds or not... sleepers are heavy to cart around alone!

Seedling "house"