The cold March laid waste to my plans for starting off my vegetable seedlings - the snow trashed the greenhouse and the hid the bags of compost under a whacking two foot of the white stuff.
But all is not lost for I have a great green fingered cheat to help me make up time. Oswestry Country Markets at the Memorial Hall, and Oswestry Markets at the Bailey are both fantastic places to source good healthy vegetable seedlings - at a great price.
I've loaded up on dwarf broad beans and peas, together with sweet peas and other insect attractors. They've been popped into their lovely raised beds and should give me enough head start while I plant up my climbing french beans and heritage peas.
Oswestry Country Markets are brilliant also for all sorts of garden shrubs and flowers - some of the more unusual varieties - as well as more traditional country garden herbs.
Now that Spring is finally sprung - the stalls at the Oswestry Market on Wednesday's especially, are a fantastic source of inexpensive bedding and container plants, as well as a veggie delight, with sweetcorn, cabbage, onions, leeks, as well as the peas and beans, and later on salads, tomatoes and peppers.
While I am more confident growing legumes leeks and potatoes, I'm ot sure my green fingeredness extends to sweetcorn, squashes and courgettes, so this is a great way to buy just the amount of plants I need, and get the advice from the growers.
As the song goes - "Plant a Radish - get a Radish, never any doubt. That's why I love vegetables; You know what you're about!"
