So far my plans are being hampered by the cold weather and since winter seems to have decided not to stick to the timetable yet again, plants I put outdoors when it was warmer are suffering from frost now. My main concern was the lime caviar tree which is frost tender and not wanting to lose it, I tried to find easy ways of wrapping it in fleece. This is not an easy task because the thorns on this little tree are lethal and makes putting anything like fleece over it very difficult and even worse trying to remove it. I tried putting a growhouse frame over it and covering it with fleece but with such a strong wind there was no guarantee that the whole lot wouldn’t blow over and break the tree or at the least, some of it’s branches.
The greenhouse is a different matter, it’s warm inside and we have 
had sun although it’s been chilly. I’m finding homes for excess plants but even at that, I find that the changing seasons are causing chaos with my planting plans. I have plants which should be outdoors now but it’s still too cold. I even added an extra shelf to the greenhouse to cope with the queueing.
I decided to open the milk bottles I sowed seeds in earlier this year, slightly earlier than the recommended sowing times but the milk bottles provide a little micro climate. Some seeds were sown and put in a heated propagator but redskin pepper, self-blanching celery, sweet peas and tromba di albenga squash were all sown early in milk bottles, in the greenhouse but without any heat.
The tromba squash has already been potted on to larger pots and they look well. The sweet peas, I thought might cause a problem trying to get them out, but they also are planted up but not outside yet. I didn’t want to take them out until I could plant them outside but with night temperatures below freezing, I will need to keep them indoors until the temperatures are a bit more stable.
The outdoor cold sowings in bottles aren’t quite ready to open just yet, but the plants are growing well. It’s handy leaving them in the five litre water bottles for a little bit longer until I get some growing space again.
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