The tortoise has left the starting blocks.

All talk of seed sowing on other blogs has left us feeling a bit like the tortoise in its race with the hare. Although we had sown some seeds under the indoor growing garden our seed sowing activity paled into insignificance alongside everyone else. I can now report that our seed sowing is now well underway. The first serious sowing of the season – broad beans – Witkiem Manita – has taken place. The seeds have been sown into small pots and will be planted out as small plants.

The cut and come again lettuce that was grown under the growing light was a success and has provided us with lots of salad leaves. We may manage another helping but I think that will be the end of that mini harvest. If we had transplanted the young plants maybe they would have continued to produce for longer but that wasn’t the point of the trial – we wanted to see if just leaving the lettuce to grow under the lights would provide some useable leaves. The next seeds to take up residence are the newly sown tomatoes - Moneymaker and Amish Gold to be joined shortly by other varieties of tomato, peppers and any other seeds that need a more cossetted start to life.

We managed lots of tidying on the plot – so much that we produced a gigantic heap of dry material. It was too dry to compost and so a bonfire was called for and the pile very quickly disappeared. Too quickly to take a photo other than at the very end.

Most of the permanently planted fruit beds have been tidied. The soil has been loosened and the bushes and trees fed with pelleted chicken manure. Last year’s canes of the autumn fruiting raspberries have been cut down to the ground – this year I think I’ll reduce the number of canes that are allowed to grow as quite a thicket is being produced.

Buddleias that mark the end of some of our long beds have also been cut back hard – it’s always hard to imagine how much they will grow after this treatment.

The heat treated onion sets arrived – three varieties, Fen Early, Hytech and Hyred and these have been planted directly into a bed on the plot. These always arrive later than the ordinary onion sets as it can take up to three months to prepare the sets. We have used these type of sets for a few years now and it has certainly saved us from the problem of onions bolting.

I had a happy surprise when clearing away the straw that had protected the carrots over winter. We thought we had dug the last of the useable carrots but I found quite a lot more large firm roots. We also pulled some spring onions that had been left in all winter and are also still harvesting parsnips and leeks. Fresh curly leaved kale is providing some fresh greens.

The frantic activity in the garden pond appears to have quietened down. The brief courtship ritual over, the frogs have hopped off leaving a clump of frog spawn to fend for itself.

On the other hand activity in the nest box has increased. Although at the moment there doesn’t appear to be a great deal of nesting material being collected what has been deposited in the box is being constantly rearranged and each night one of the blue tits roosts inside.

Don't forget to check our latest updates from the web cam update link on the sidebar.

I also have a detailed diary of activities in the garden and on the plot on my website which can be acccessed from the link on the sidebar.

There are more photos of our progress on Martyn's blog

Just a little warning about computer security. I had a call from a very persistent man with an Indian accent trying to tell me that my computer had been compromised and he wanted to help me rescue the situation. He tried all sorts of scare tactics to get me to agree to let him help even after I made it clear that I thought it was a scam. I contacted a computer expert friend who pointed me to this article . Just thought you should be aware!