And so it begins....

It's now the end of the third week in January and for me at least this years season has started, albeit slowly at present.
One third of the garden plot has been dug, mainly to turn in the remained of the manure I got last weekend. Primarily the manure was for the greenhouse, to refil the beds with some goodness; and as the manure was steaming warm and barely 3 weeks old it should do the job nicely.
The section of the garden plot dug will take this years first earlies, and knowing my soil there will be little evidence I manured it when I come to plant in about 8 weeks time ... boy doesn't time fly.
I also cleared the brassica's from the beds on the Sunningdale plot, but the soil was just to saturated to warrent digging it at this time. That's one of the dig differences between all threee of my veg plots. My garden plot I can dig as soon as the surface water is gone without noticing a huge difference in texture or effort. The Sunningdale plot requires a week or so to dry, depending on the time of year, although it's somewhat flooded at the moment, and my plot is at the "top" end of the site. Digging the last of my father-in-laws potatoes out this afternoon was a slurping experience.
My Bracknell plot I avoid at this time of year, it's heavy clay means, that even with the raised beds I shall have to wait until the middle to end of March before I can do much. Having said that I did foray down their last weekend to dig out the Jerusalem artichokes, and returned with half a 40litre full. Some are already spoken for but as we don't like them I shall have to find a home for the remainder. Hoepefully I got them all out this time.
In the greenhouse I've started this years sowings with onions and leeks. If I had more space in the propogator then I'd be able to sow more varieties early, and as I haven't I've had to limit myself to the remainder of the Mammoth onion seed, the remainder of last years HDSL pick up-to-date , another onion, pandora, which if I remember is a late leek, one head from the leeks which flowered this year, the problem being I'm not sure which variety it is, and lastly the first of this year's sowing of greyhound, which is a pointy summer cabbage.
I sowed them this time last year as an experiment, and they produced a better and earlier crop than the Excel brought as plug plant from Marshal's. Given my Olympia (calabrese) also did better then Marshal's variety, and the cauliflowers were a disaster, I shall not be buying plugs again.
Now I have to count the weeks until I can free up the propagator and make the next sowings. In the mean time I have plenty of digging to be done........weather permitting.