January beep beep beep...

Whoopee! We're already 10% through the 'nasty' month, and things are looking up already!

About this time of year, the gardening catalogues plonk through the letter box, well, into the outside box, as everything that gets posted the normal way gets shredded by JRT and growled at for several minutes!

So in the sunshine of a warm post-lunch tincture, Mrs O'Blene and your friend and mine, me, sat down to choose what we'll grow this year.

It's a bewildering task, as while I'm still a late middle-aged teenager, there will come a time when perhaps 'The Patch' might become a little too arduous, and I will cut back just a little. Mind you, what with a great new mower, and super tiller, and a decent electric bike to get down there, I have no real need to contemplate such things for many years, but these items below have been around some time, and we're going to try them.

As anyone knows, the first new spuds in the shops can cost a fortune, and we try and keep to 'seasonality', by using stuff when it's growing normally. We've grown first early potatoes in buckets on and off for several years, and always kid ourselves that we're saving cash etc etc, but these larger bags could well tip the balance, so the Jersey Royals (International Kidney doesn't sound so glamorous does it), could be within just a few yards of the kitchen, and plentiful at that!

Last year was not a good one for potatoes on 'The Patch'. Spring was a rotten couple of months, then everywhere dried out, and pests descended in their droves. We lost nearly all our first sowings, they just disappeared, and the second earlies got so big they developed an unusual condition, known as 'Hollow Heart' here. 

So this year, we'll change things around a bit, using both the Marshalls Gro-sacks at home in the greenhouse, and also sow some more in just a few of the beds on 'The Patch' under cloches, for more first earlies, and leave it at that!

A good chum has also given me some seeds of two unusual bean varieties, 'Greek Gigantes', which are pure white, and also the gorgeously named 'Cherokee Trail of Tears', and we'll be growing these up poles in all directions!

And the title of the post?

Pilot's 'January'.

We always find ourselves singing it round now, can't think why...