Lots of sowing this week including sunflowers, ‘dazzling blue’ kale, perpetual spinach, the second bed of carrots and the third round of peas. We harvested some wonderful purple sprouting broccoli for tonight’s dinner.

On Wednesday the unexpectedly warm (hot!) weather began. The volunteers helped us dig through and prepare the large bed next to the greenhouse ready for planting up soon. We were pleased to find the blinds on the new greenhouse and pulled them down to give the seedlings some relief!

Yesterday was even warmer with the greenhouse pushing 36 degrees - a big change from the snow less than a month ago..! We’ve put all of the young plants in trays of water, hoping they’ll survive a weekend in the heat.

We planted out a bed of ‘early oakleaf’ lettuces in the polytunnel and sowed a patch of radishes direct today. We also started weeding the fruit cage again – a lot of weeds fighting back since we were in there a few weeks ago!

Today we were treated to some sunshine and warmth and took the opportunity to plant all of our many, many potatoes – the children can eat a lot of them throughout the year! We also planted out a couple of hundred onions and the first drainpipes of peas, at the base of what will be the pea tunnel. The next round of peas were sown straight away.

Fiddlers Estate are kindly germinating some of our plants with their heated greenhouse and they delivered the first seedlings today. Some lovely spring onions and salad leaves.

Earlier this week we sowed our first bed of carrots direct. We covered them with fleece to keep them damp and slightly warmer. A batch of broad beans started in the greenhouse have also gone out. We also built a few sweet pea towers and planted a couple of plants at the base of each pole.

There were no volunteers today – they were all enjoying the Easter break!

Too wet for volunteers today! We have still been out in the rain constructing a tunnel for our ‘Champion of England’ climbing peas to climb up. The children will enjoy picking fresh peas as they walk through the tunnel of green!

We have also sowed mustard as a quick-growing green manure over many of the veg beds. This will reduce weed growth as the soil warms up. When we come to plant vegetables into the beds, we will incorporate the mustard plants into the soil, increasing the organic matter in the soil.

We were surprised by snow again over the weekend and the garden seems to be in shock from the chilly weather! We continue sowing into the greenhouse (bringing seedlings into the classroom overnight when frost is expected). This week we are sowing kohlrabi, spring onions, leeks and turnips.

To make our peat free compost we use a 5kg bale of dried organic coconut coir which is soaked in a couple of buckets of water until fluffy. We then add organic and vegan slow-release nutrients along with a helping of vermiculite (for improved water and nutrient retention). The final ingredients are mycorrhizae and bacteria mixes which we hope will form beneficial relationships with our plants and make them nice and healthy!

This week we have managed to use up all of the lovely woodchips from New Forest Energy. They are filling wet muddy patches around the garden and a deep path between most of the vegetable beds. These paths will not compact the soil, can be walked on when wet, will retain moisture between veg beds and slowly rot, feeding the soil over time.

The peas sowed in drainpipes a couple of weeks ago are now peeking through, adding a vibrant green to the greenhouse.

In the polytunnel the winter salads are exploding with life. Self seeded claytonia (winter purslane) has been weeded from amongst the salad and used as a mulch, returning all its goodness to the soil whilst reducing evaporation and weed growth.

Yesterday we sowed almost 200 lettuces using old seed as an experiment – let’s see what germinates! We also made a visit to our neighbours, the spectacular Furzey Gardens, for some inspiration and resource sharing. Today two of our faithful  volunteers have been helping to clear the beds in front of our new greenhouse, ready for cultivation.

The compost has arrived! We have chosen to steer away from any peat based products out of respect for our endangered boglands. Instead we are working with coir from Fertile Fibre and mixing in many secret ingredients to produce the best growing medium.

Our young visitors cannot get to the Centre today.... the wheelbarrows are staying put!