Cold and Wet

And I'm not refering to the weather, I'm refering to the state I found myself in at two thirty this afternoon, having spent three quarters of an hour getting the asparagus planting finished. It's one thing to have a waterproof coat with integral hood, but unless you've waterproof trousers as well, the water just pours off the jacket onto your jeans and into your boots.
Having watched the BBC weather forecast online before I'd left for the plot this lunchtime I'd hoped we were going to escape, and allow me to plant the first 13 feet of the bed, and if possible prepare and plant the last 5 feet. The turn of the weather with 5 feet left to plant put paid to the last, and I planted those 5 feet in a contineous combination of light and heavy sleet showers.
The upside, if there is one, is that I'd fprgotten to take the camera with me, so it didn't get drenched. I had wanted to photograph the bed before I started planting it, and to photograph some of the crowns as I knocked them out of their pots, teased their roots out, and laid them on their ridges, before carefully covering with soil. In some cases it was very carefully as some of the crowns already had 8" spears, and virtually all had several spears of at least 1" in length. I must try and remember when I next get down there to prepare and plant the remaining 5 feet of edged bed. I still can't make up my mind wether to make the bed the full 21 feet in length I'd originally planned.
Now today's planting was made possible by yesterday's leg work, installing the sides of the bed, moving 12 feet worth of soil to the last 5 feet of the bed and the small clear area beyond, raking out the manure down the 13 feet length of the bed exposed, putting back 2" of the soil, and creating the three ridges on which to plant the asparagus down the length of the bed. If that wasn't enough I decided to start on digging over the last but one of the raised beds, the last one still having sprouts growing in it. I managed to dig and manure half the bed, before failing light, falling temperatures, and depleting energy reserves caused me to call it a rapidly aproaching night.
Anyway back to today. Having dried out, put on dry clothes, and fed my face, I trundled out to the greenhouse to continue with the seasons planting. One of the primary reasons for wanting to get the asparagus in, apart from the obvious that it was sprouting left, right, and centre, was to clear some space in the cold frame in order to harden off the onions which are also doing likewise.
In fact it seems everything is doing it's best to get the better of me. I've had to take the peppers and tomatoes out of the propagators to stop them getting to leggy, which of course means I'm left with space. In turn moving the onions means I've space in the greenhouse. So into the propagator has gone more tomatoes, momenymaker and gartenperle this time, marketmore (outdoor cucumber), and defender (courgette). Into the second propagator, that's the one my mother-in-law gave me which works perfectly, went greyhound, primo, and bedfordshire fillbasket (brussel sprouts).
Seeds sown, it was then time to prickout the broccoli (olympia) and the first batch of greyhound, which as a consequence revealed how few of the All-Year-Round cauliflower have actually germinated. I'm going to have to find some time to sow some more.
Well that's it for this week. I'll try harder and see if I can get some pictures, most likely not next week though as I've an appointment with a copse that needs the attention of the 2-stroke deathwatch beetle.