Start of the 2025 Kitchen Garden Season #1

  Now Spring has finally sprung, I can get enthused about this year's work in the kitchen garden. Encouragement came in the form of the warmest day of the year (21 ℃) so far on 20th March (Figure 1) ...

Figure 1: Daily Maximum Temperatures (1/1/25 - 21/3/25) for Hereford

... though not the suuniest; that was two days earlier on the 18th March (Figure 2) ...

Figure 2: Daily Solar Radiation (1/1/25 - 21/3/25) for Hereford

 Seeds, onion sets, seed potatoes and strawberry plants were ordered January and we picked up some coir compost a few days ago. The seed potatoes (Premiere) have been chitting for a few weeks and the onion sets (Red Baron) arrived at the end of last week. The start of 2025 has been unusually cold (Figure 1); thirteen air frosts in January, five in February and ten in March (up to the 20th). As a general rule, the last frost dates for Hereford are middle-to-late April though we did have an air frost in the middle of May 2020 and lots of cold/cool nights in April 2021 (with 8 air frosts). I usually wait until the beginning of March before sowing vegetable seeds, just to be on the safe side. So I'm already 3 weeks behind!! In my defence, I have the logistical problem of trying to co-ordinate the growing process (sowing, pricking out, transplanting, hardening off and, finally, planting out) with family visits and holidays while still keeping one eye on the weather (current & forecast).

Meanwhile, Mary has emptied, cleaned and restocked the greenhouse ...

Photo 1: Greenhouse - Clean & Tidy

The greenhouse is usually a no-go area for me since Mary purloined it for the growing of garden flowers. I did, however, manage to borrow a little temporary space, on the left hand bench, to pot on my recently arrived strawberry plants (Malling Champion) and garlic cloves (Mersley Wight). The greenhouse has a small electric heater to keep it frost-free with additional help from horticultural fleece when sub-zero temperatures are forecast.

Photo 2: Malling Champion Strawberry Plants

Photo 3: Mersley Wight Garlic

I have to retire to our spare kitchen in the annexe (which doubles up as my citizen science laboratory when we don't have guests) to sow my vegetable seeds. Here I can set up my heated propagator and daylight growing lamp (the lamp isn't required for germination but will come into its own once the green shots have appeared).

Photo 4: Heated Propagator and Daylight Growing Lamp

The temperature control on the propagator is a bit coarse, with no indication of the temperature setting, so I always set it using a thermocouple thermometer (Photo 5). Other means of temperature measurement are available. I set the temperature between 20 ℃ and 25 ℃ which is ideal for germinating cucumbers, tomatoes, sweet and chilli peppers, and aubergines (Photo 4).

Photo 5: Thermocouple Thermometer Used to Set and Monitor Propagator Temperature

Episode #2 coming soon ...