Just when you thought spring was on it's way

It starts blowing a gale, throwing it down and temperature drops like a stone.
Before work I had to repair the fleece that had blown off the peas over night (it's them peas again what does it, i swear). The slidy window in the battered g/h needed repairing and one of the lids has blown off the cold frame again !

So put the broadbeans back inside to give them a bit of a break and put other black buckets outside the g/h doors to stop them from flying away. Got back tonight and everything seemed to be intact, so .... result !

At last I have some pics to show you.

The amaryllis has shot up. A good 2.5' now and one of the blooms is just about to be born. Don't think they will be as big as last year though.














I certainly don't remember planting this double snowdrop, but I'm glad I did.












This hellebore (variety unknown) is doing it's own little thing under the front hedge. That's twice it's surprised me now by flowering. I keep forgetting it's there !












Three times this poor honeysuckle has been uprooted, once when it was given to me, and twice since I've had it. I've put it behind ickle g/h to keep it's feet cool but hopefully it will grow up the side and onto the roof to get the sun. It suffered quite badly from mildew last year, so will keep it well watered again this year. No lasting signs of damage so far though.












Spotted Mr Robin having a nice quiet rest in the sun last weekend.














and found this little chap/chapette sitting right in the garlic bed. 5 mins earlier it was sitting in the hanging bird feeder enjoying the same sun as Mr Robin. I got quite worried as it let me get up really close to take this shot and I thought it might have been ill. It looked really healthy though and eventually flew off. I hope it comes back to see me next weekend.












These are two of the spanish peppers/chillis (origin and variety unknown - basically cos I cods up the labelling system last year). Seeing as it's the end of Feb, I think they're doing quite well ! There's still a few more to comes yet (although not as large) and there's still a couple of Numex Twilight STILL ripening.







The trays of petunias and lobelia have germinated and I'm willing them to get bigger, they're sooooooo tiny ! I heard that tea tree oil was good to prevent damping off, but as I couldn't find my bottle, I used lavender oil instead (well it's all anti-bacterial eh ?). One or two seeds have collapsed, but nowhere near as many as I was expecting. Maybe the lavender works !

8 more varieties of toms were sown last night:

Golden Sunrise (Lishka)
Marmande (Lishka)
Legend
Ferline (Lishka)
Cream Sausage (Mum)
Muchamiel (Biscombe)
Tres Cantos (Biscombe)
Pineapple (dearest Supersprout)

My Tigerellas (Lishka) have their first true leaves and are sitting in their tin foil box to catch some extra light.

The Masterpiece cukes took exactly 3 days to germinate, the Marketmores have still to show.

See what happens when the growing season starts ? The pages get longer !

This is going to be a terrific month ..... terrifically busy but so exciting.

Oh and I started the new job last Monday. Seems good so far and I've only bored two people to death with gardening chat ! One of the girls was even excited about Carol Klein's GYO. I think I might have made a friend (or at least found a home for some spare seedlings !)

There's a friend out there who's having a bit of a battle atm, so love and best wishes to our mate SS.

See you soon chaps and chapesses. Hope you're having a good a time as I am.