April Update

Spring is sprung, in sort of a damp way, and the garden is thriving. I have nascent figs on my fig tree, the grape vines have come back to life and all around the garden, things are sprouting that I intended to sprout. I love this time of year - I'm always shocked that things are doing what they're supposed to and the miracle of food from the ground might be likely to happen again.

Not pictured - all the things that've been eaten by slugs/birds already.

One thing which hasn't gone to plan is to start relying solely on my own produce from May, which was part of the original terms of the challenge. The plan was to plant seedlings early and use the sunlamp to give them a headstart, which hasn't worked as well as I would've liked. I hoped for cabbage and carrots to tide me over, but the January carrots are very spindly still and the cabbages are still more promise than reality and while we could survive by just not eating any vegetables for a month and having loads of pasta, I feel that would be somewhat against the spirit of the rules!

Next May, I will have the overwintered cabbages, carrots, cauliflower and kale to feed us with, as well as a freezer's full of stored veg, so I've decided to push the challenge back to run from June to June instead.

That looks a lot more likely to happen - the first set of seedlings that I grew have mostly survived the transfer into the ground. I started with 3 broccoli, 3 cabbages, 7 cauliflowers and 3 brussels sprouts. Of those, only 3 cauliflowers and 1 brussels are pronounced dead yet, which is a pretty good hit rate for me.

If anyone's playing along at home, the best advice I ever received was to use bell cloches to protect vulnerable seedlings - these are basically miniature greenhouses which you place over the seedling so that light can get in, but cold winds and predators can't get in until the plant is big enough to look after itself. I've managed to make my own, shockingly enough out of empty Diet Coke bottles and they're doing a really good job of keeping my future meals alive.

A surviving cauliflower

The next exciting stage is when they stop looking like leafy things that may or may not die and start looking like miniature food. Hopefully, that'll be in the next few weeks.

PJW