Tuesday March 20

I started with planting some root vegetables Tuesday morning. I used an area near the potato plot I had sowed the early varieties in last week. I sowed a full row of shallots, which are mild Allium type onions next to a row divided into raddishes and beet roots. I divided each package of seeds throughout each row I had dug and covered them with a light cover of topsoil. I watered the rows with a light spray from the nearby hose and put labels next to each small mound. I took time to water the trays in the green house by the garden as well as the other small greenhouse in the stabel yard. The verbena I had cut the first week I had arrived had started to produce shoots from the auxillary meristems on the nodes I had left. In anothr few weeks when these stems produce a few nodes, I will cut them back again to provide a bush like plant. The verbena are spread around the house in various pots and small beds intersowed with other herbaceous species. I spent the rest of the morning weeding some potted plants and adding orgainic fertilizer to old soils. The weeds were easier to pull from the potting soil than the normal hard ground so I moved quickly among several containers spread among the doors, patios, and windows around the main house and the two small houses in the stabel yard. On my way in to wash up for lunch, I stopped by the chicken hutch and gathered the poultry waste and used beding for compost. This compost will bespread throughout the garden late in the winter amoung the various gardens and tilled in as soil is prepared before planting. After a break for lunch with the family I started germinating a few seeds in the potting shed. I started some more cabbages and brussels sprounts in trays and sowed two small rows of baby spinnach next two the previous planted rows of lettuce.
The weekend had been filled with rain, so not much needed watered today. I spent the rest of the day tidying up the stones that edged the garden beds and weeding areas that the tiller had not hit. We had discussed planting onions soon, so I focused on an area on the upperside next to two rows of Autumn rapsberries where I would rotovate and build beds later this week. After work I put together ingredients to bake a pumkin spice cake from some pumpkin puree from the freezer. I added ginger, cinnamon, nut meg, rosemary, and lemon peel to the mix for a interesting treat. This was the second time I had put this type of cake together, and was looking forward to progress with the recipe. Lindsay put together a delicious couscous with greens from the garden and some noodles with herbs for dinner. It was an early night since we were all still worn out from Galway, and the last night that Sean would be around.