Shoots and leaves...
The whims and woes, highs and lows, of trying to grow fruit and veg in Nordic latitudes.
Red pepper Redskin F1 from Lord Nelson (first try with these) Sown indoors 28.2.2015 8 seeds in seed compost topped with vermiculite Aubergine Moneymaker Nr.2 F1 from Lord Nelson (same variety as last year) Sown indoors in pots 28/2/2015 5 seeds in seed compost
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Time to start sowing. I'm off to the Garden Centre to get some seed compost and then it's time to restyle our living room into a heated greenhouse! The arrangement works quite well, but it means we are surrounded by plants for almost 3 months until we can move everything to Pojo.
I've ordered seeds from Marshalls again but only the varieties that I struggle to find here. They deliver seeds-only orders to EU countries but annoyingly their website can only deal with UK postcodes so I had to phone in the order. I got my French beans, broad beans, butternut squash and a few other things from there. I also bought seeds from seedaholics which has some heritage varieties and a few unique varieties such as Squash F1 Autumn Crown which is a fast maturing hybrid between Crown Prince and a butternut squash: looks like a pumpkin but tastes like butternut. And then I got some Lord Nelson seeds from the local hardware store, Nelson is a Nordic company. I have been scouring Lidl for the "Saladin" cucumber seeds that I bought two years ago - so far no luck, but they were a German variety from Sperli and just perfect for our conditions so I might just order them online. My new laptop refuses to recognise the weather station so I am back on the old hp Touchsmart to update the winter weather data.
It has been an exceptionally mild winter with temperatures mostly hovering around zero. There were a few dramatic dips though especially during the Christmas holidays: On 26th December at midnight we had -15.3C and the coldest temperature of the winter so far was on 29th December at midday when the mercury hit -20C. In January the coldest day was 6th (I was in the UK!) at -17.7 and then on the 12th we had a milder -12.9C. In between the chilly dips we had many frostless days culminating in a positively balmy +11.9C on the 11th February which could well be warmer than last year's midsummer when I spent two days in bed with flu. Then the temperatures dipped again briefly during Valentine's weekend but climbed just above zero during the day. We had cloudless skies and a magnificent view of the Milky Way when we took our sauna on Sunday night. |
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