Pricking out seedlings

 These are the cabbages I sowed a few weeks ago (08/03/12). I forgot to take a "before" picture, so here's the "after" one!

And here's the brussel sprouts. Before...

And after...

More sowing

We had some spectacular weather last week, with lots of hailstones and plenty of thunder rumbling around. Dodging the showers, I managed to get out and plant a few more rows of veggies.

I'm trying a different way of planting the parsnips this time. I've used the dibber to make deep holes, which were then back-filled with potting compost. Into each hole I have put either 1 or 2 seeds and covered them up with more compost. I'm assuming that a few won't germinate, so the doubled up ones can be thinned into the spaces. My Dad tells me that Joe (his father) used to grow his this way and it does make alot of sense. I've also put in another row of carrots along with some garlic chives - supposed to be good to deter carrot fly! Finally a row of rocket and some more lupins (as green manure where the cabbages will go later on in the year).

Sprouting

Lupins (green manure)

Peas

Spinach and speedy salad leaves

Everything's beginning to grow! Here's a selection of how they're coming on...

Fruit

Ready for raspberries and strawberries

My fruit patch has expanded! I thought I'd done enough the other day (here), but after browsing the garden centres and seed catalogues (a dangerous hobby unless the credit card is hidden!) I decided to expand it a bit.


The brick edging previously stopped about halfway along here. I'm not entirely sure why, although at one stage we had a missing fence panel which our children thought was great for playing with next door's children! I think it was around that time that my Dad helped with a load of tidying in the garden, including installing the brick edging. Maybe he ran out of bricks? - or time more likely. Anyway, I found enough to bridge the gap up to the compost bin.


I have ordered 6 raspberry canes and 12 strawberry plants for the time being. Depending on how well these grow, I may put more in later in the year. The rhubarb will have to wait until the Autumn. The garden centres charge a fortune at the moment and it is supposedly better to plant it later anyway.

Apple blossom

Apple blossom

The existing fruit trees are all bursting into life compared to just over 2 weeks ago (here) and judging by the number of bees around we might even get enough cherries to feed us as well as the birds this year!

Cherry blossom

Cherry blossom

Planting Kestral potatoes

Easter Sunday, 8th April 2012.

Joe's draw hoe

Chitted potatoes

Planting stage 1

Planting stage 2

Having watched Gardeners' World earlier, I'm told that Easter is the time to plant potatoes, so today's the day! I decided to plant the Kestral 2nd earlies today, so I've put 8 into my square bed. Monty Don said he used a mattock (although it didn't look like what I'd call a mattock) to make his trenches, but I don't have one - instead I used another inheritance, Joe's draw hoe, and this did a great job. To allow room for earthing up, I actually removed a bit of the top soil before I started, otherwise I think the bed may have overflowed!

More sowing

Amy finally got to plant her sweetcorn yesterday, along with some dwarf and runner beans.

We sowed 12 seeds, with a view to doing the same again in a few weeks time to spread the cropping time, and used Joe's multi-dibber to make the holes for the sweetcorn to be sown into. 

The remaining seeds have been transferred to Amy's home school-made packet.

The beans have gone into recycled toilet roll tubes, so that we can plant them out later without disturbing their roots.  I filled them with multi-purpose compost and put them in a mushroom tray from the local greengrocers lined with a left over scrap from the weed-proof membrane. This is a bit of an experiment as I haven't tried it before - I hope they hold together long enough, as one of them is already unravelling a bit!

Weeding

The weeds are now showing themselves in full force, so I spent an hour or so clearing them this afternoon. Think I might have to invest in a hoe...
The other thing I noticed was how warm the soil feels, even with the frosty mornings we've had this week. Definitely time for some more sowing.

Frost!

Given the schizophrenic weather we're having at the moment (I had to scrape ice off my windscreen this morning - was in shorts yesterday!) I thought I'd better protect my seedlings a bit, time for a fleece covering:

Fruit patch

After tidying up in the back garden the other day, it occurred to me that I had the ideal place for my rhubarb and raspberries. This patch has never really had much done to it and was overgrown with crocosmia. The children's sand-pit (now rarely used) has sat here all winter, so there's not much growing underneath it - weeds or otherwise. The neighbours had their fence replaced last year, which makes this area look even more bare (the old ancient fence was covered in ivy), so this seems like an ideal place for my raspberries. It's south facing so should get plenty of sun to ripen the fruit. Seeing how rhubarb and raspberries are permanent fixtures I figured they might as well both go here. So, a sunny afternoon in the garden and this is what it looks like now - ready to plant.

Chitting potatoes

I bought some seed potatoes (Kestral and Sante) on the 12th Feb and they've been chitting on the kitchen windowsill and in the spare room...

...and this is what they look like now:

Kestral are a second early, while Sante are a main-crop potato. I wasn't really sure what I was doing when I chose them, but my local hardware store had their seed potatoes on display and I was tempted! Having read around a bit, it turns out I picked 2 very good types, with good pest and disease resistance.


The other thing I've learnt is that whereas I'm used to buying "new" or "old" potatoes, growers have 3 types:

1st Early = New potatoes, eaten small and early summer

2nd Early = New potatoes, grown larger and harvested towards the end of summer

Main-crop = "old" potatoes, harvested in the Autumn onwards and the only ones that store well.

A few spare minutes

I had a few spare minutes after school pick-up today, so went out and did some more sowing. Today I've sown mangetout peas in bed 5 and the Innocent seeds in pots in the greenhouse (by now we've collected 3 packets of carrots and 1 of tomatoes). The pea packet suggests planting them in a zigzag fashion, I'm not really sure why this is, but I followed the suggestion anyway.

More sowing

Having spent the morning tidying, I spent the afternoon sowing more seeds yesterday in the glorious sunshine.

Bed 5

In raised bed 5 I planted a row each of Spring onions, Red onions and Spinach, and a wide row (approx 10cm) of Mixed salad leaves.

Bed 2

Lupin seed

In bed 2, I planted Cabbage, Lupins and Brussel sprouts. The cabbage managed a whole row, but the Lupin packet turned out to only have 6 seeds in and the sprouts only had enough for half a row! The lupins were a freeby, given away as a soil improver, so I can't really complain, however, the sprouts I'd bought myself. Not having bought many seeds in the past, this year I've got them from all over the place. The sprouts came from Wilkinson and so far I'm not impressed - not many seeds and poor germination of the ones sown 3 weeks ago. I may have learned the hard way to spend a bit more on better seeds...

Greenhouse growing

In my mini-greenhouse, I planted Aubergine, Peppers, Courgette and Chillies (Joel's favourite!). I had intended to do half a tray of each, but there weren't that many courgette seeds so I ended up planting them all, which meant fewer chillies (I'll plant more later). The courgettes were 1 per cell, but the others are much smaller seeds to doubled up.

Sweet peas

I found some old peat pots in the shed, so filled these with sweet peas (mostly 1 per pot, but a few ended up with 2 to use them up). Sweet peas are one of my favourite flowers and can't be bad for companion planting - can they?

My plot

The completed infra-structure! I'm really pleased with how it's turned out. Let's just hope that the veggies grow!

Spring is here!

Tidying the back garden

Having been away for the weekend and enjoying the sunshine, I was raring to get out in the garden this morning. I started with a bit of tidying in the back garden. This area is where the guinea pig hutch tends to spend most of its time in the summer as it's very shady. Over the winter I let the fallen leaves provide a winter home for insects etc., but today seemed to be a good day to clear them away and expose the bricks again. The border looks very bare at the moment, although it won't be long before the Lilly-of-the-Valley start to appear. The friends we visited over the weekend had lots of wood anemones in flower - maybe this would be a good place for them to add some spring colour next year?




 The apple tree is springing into life again - this is a triple grafted tree I bought about 10 years ago. It has Malus Discovery, Fiesta and James Grieve apples on a dwarf rootstock, so it's self-pollinating.

My blueberry bush is also showing signs of life,












and the neglected parsley I thought was dead seems to have self-seeded!

Planting plan

Amy has claimed Beds 1 and 4 as "hers" so these are likely to have strawberries, sweetcorn (lots!), potatoes, runner beans and the broad beans she planted at school.

Bed 2: Cabbage, Lupin, Sprout (but no Dumbledore ;-)
Bed 3: Beetroot, Parsnip, Carrot
Bed 5: Courgette, Onion, Lettuce, Spinach
Bed 6: Potato

I came up with this plan after consulting websites such as http://www.allotment.org.uk/ and the book "Reader's Digest - Food from you Garden" which I inherited from my maternal grandparents, published in 1977. I've used this book many, many times since I've had it as it has excellent, old-fashioned tips and recipes for cooking and preserving fruit and veg. I recently saw a reprint of it (available here) and would thoroughly recommend it to any would-be gardener or cook.