Starting to plant up the polytunnel

Well, things have moved on quite a bit since my last post, courtesy of my greenhouse, heated propogator and a whole week of excellent weather up here. My parsnips, which seemed to take forever to germinate now have their first true leaf,

the Sweet Candle carrots, which seemed to take even longer, are just showing signs of their first true leaf,

the Hative de Niort shallots are starting to split so will be ready to thin out to four bulbs each soon, with the thinnings being replanted for culinary use,

the Bunyards Broad Beans are all through, except for the five that the mice took, though I had ten replacements in pots so the mice loss was not such a big deal and the first sowing of Pablo beetroot are through.
I have also sown my Stenner Runner Beans and the first batch of the Prince Dwarf French Beans as well as another two Cucumber Carmen in the heated propogator

The other tomato plants etc in the propogator are for some of my clients greenhouses.

My greenhouse was getting a bit crowded, so on Sunday afternoon, I took a load of plants over to the polytunnel - 10 x Tomato Cedrico, 5 x Tomato Shirley,

5 x Aubergine Half Long Violette and a tray each of Hispi Cabbage, Samantha Savoy Cabbage, Cauliflower Cheesy, PSB Red Arrow, Calabrese Marathon and the first of the Cucumber Carmen plants. The cauliflower are planted to the left of the cuke frame -the idea being that the cuke foliage will provide some shade - but if it doesn't, I have some shade netting I can attach to the cuke frame uprights. Hopefully this will  help keep the curds white.

These were all duly planted out and each of the tomato, aubergine and cucumber plants have one litre pots sunk into the soil beside them This is to ensure that when I water them, the water (or feed for that matter) gets to where it needs to go - the roots! It also stops (or at least lessens) the chances of water soaking the base of the stems and causing rots. The Medwyn Triffid has slowed a bit but is sooking up water like a good 'un - 1 x 5 gallon drum every second day during this warm spell, even with the tunnel door open.
And to finish, tonight I have sown my peas (Show Perfection) in root-trainer pots, sown my first batch of Snowball turnips, a second batch of Pablo beetroot and a dozen Red Lettuce Feska (this will be successionally sown every ten days of so from now on.