March 2018 in pictures

What a start to the month! Freezing temperatures and on March 1st we had heavy snow. This lasted 3-4 days, disappeared and then reapppeared with a vengeance two weeks later. No way were we going to be sowing or planting anything outdoors this month.

In between snow storms the rhubarb was bold enough to poke its head above ground. It was planted about 18 months ago so we are hoping to be able to harvest some stalks from it this year.

Indoors, we were enjoying some pea shoots growing on the window sill but I suspect we may have started them off far too soon. We have no clue as to when it is going to be warm enough to plant them outside.

We finally took the plunge and sowed our tomatoes in modules indoors toward the end of the month, three weeks later than usual but there was no point in starting them off any earlier. The weather forecast is still not good and it will take a while for the ground to warm up. It looks as though that, like last year, everything will be a month late.

We did, though, have some harvest from our perennials: ramsons (wild garlic), Babington's leeks and red veined sorrel. And we were still pulling up the spring onions that probably grew from a packet I had dropped in the autumn last year. 

Pea shoots

As well as the viability of the bean seeds in the Reading Food Growing Network's seed swap boxes I have been testing the pea seeds as well. Rather than throw away the germinated pea seeds - it's too cold to plant them outside at the moment - I have been putting them in pots on the window sill to grow pea shoots for food.

They are very easy and quick to grow and we've already had our first "crop". Further details on how to grow them together with a video are at How to grow pea shoots.

Our first cut yielded just 96g (3.4 oz) but enough to add to lunch as a green salad. They can be added to stir fry dishes, eaten raw, used in sandwiches instead of lettuce or cress, and included in risottos. We'll see how many cuts we get from each pot but it seems that most people manage to do two or three before the shoots become too stringy and lose taste.





So our lunch consisted of vegetable biryani (parsnip, squash. swiss chard, onion, garlic), dhal, homemade yogurt with spring onions and garlic, and pea shoots.