Has spring arrived?

Well there you go, there was me yesterday having a whinge about there being no sun and hey-presto I woke up this morning to a glorious sunny day! I took the dogs for a pleasant walk on the heath, the farmer was plowing in the muck ready to plant out his potatoes and boy did it stink! I couldn't wait to get back and out into the garden. First job was to clean out the hen house, I grabbed several handfuls of grass from the overgrown part of the front garden to keep them occupied and out of the coop. Whenever I clean out the coop their in and out of it like yo yo's! There were only two eggs waiting for me today, they had a big bowl full of left over's this morning which soon disappeared much to Clyde's disgust!
Well It was quite warm in the greenhouse today. I now have quite a few seed trays in there, I moved the ones from my sons bedroom into there and the rack that was in the summerhouse has also been moved into the greenhouse

I had to sow some more Alicante tomato seeds as three of the ones I had sown hand dampened off, damping off can affect any seedlings, it is caused by a soil borne fungi and various things like poor humidity and air circulation and especially when sown early under glass. I had only sown four of each variety as I ended up with far more seedlings than I needed last year so I thought I would sow less as usual it has backfired! We live and learn as they say.
I had a look in on the peas that I had sown to over winter and there was only about eight that had survived out of fifty seeds. The variety was meteor an over-wintering pea, I sowed some kelvedon wonder in their place and replaced the fleece over them so fingers crossed. I have sown another sixty Kelvedon wonder peas today as well as the 30 I had sown a few weeks ago. Hopefully we will get a big bumper crop of peas, there's nothing better than eating peas straight from the pod, at least this way some will make it to the dinner plate!
I sowed some more sweet peas today, Butterfly Kisses by Thompson & Morgan I got these free with a gardening magazine last year, they are a new variety, so I will be looking forward to these growing. The leeks that I had sown weeks ago are coming on well, you can just make out the shoots in the photo

The gooseberry bush has green shoots coming of it and if you look closely at the the other photo you can just see my rhubarb poking through.

As it was such a nice day I had a good inspection around the garden, I noticed I have lost more strawberry plants so I am now down to ten. I will need to purchase some more at the weekend whilst I  am at the garden center. The onions that are on the decking are growing really well compared to the ones in the ground and in pots on the patio, so I moved the ones from the patio on to the decking in the hope that they might grow better there. The garlic is growing quite well compared to last year, the variety is Christo if I remember correctly.

And finally..... If any of you are considering becoming a hen keeper then take a look at my web page where there is lots of information all about being a keeper of hens from where to site your coop to the total care of your hens.

http://www.squidoo.com/sharing-the-good-life-a-keeper-of-hens