Pests!

Arrgh! I lifted the fleece on my carrots, parsnips and beetroot to discover hundreds of ants have set up home. I remember hearing that ants like warm, humid conditions so putting the fleece on must have seemed like heaven to them. Do they actually do any harm? I'm not sure, but don't want to risk my precious seedlings. Maybe the birds will eat them?...


Having left the bed uncovered, I retreated to a safe distance to watch the flocks of birds appear, only to see the sparrows descend on the next bed over and start eating the cabbages!


The solution? I don't want to use chemicals, especially as I'm not sure the ants will actually do any harm, so for now the cabbages are going to be covered up and the root veg will stay uncovered. Watch this space...

DIY cloches

I read a magazine article recently (Green Times Issue 1, free with Kitchen Garden May issue) suggesting that you use plastic pipes to support covers over your raised beds. Well I've gone one step further in the thrift stakes. Now is the ideal time to prune forsythia, so I've used a couple of the longer stems to keep the fleece off my rapidly growing salads. Finally, a free bit in this project :-)

More warmth required

I have moved my mini greenhouse! The seed trays I brought inside a few days ago (see here) are already looking more promising, so I suspect my greenhouse was just not warm enough for them. The greenhouse used to be in the most sheltered corner of the patio, but this meant that it didn't get any sun until mid afternoon. I've moved it onto the West facing wall, where it is a little less sheltered, but should get sun  from early afternoon (not this week judging by the weather forecast!).

First harvest!

 My salad leaves are coming on really well. I sowed a wide row outside on the 26th March and have kept the bed covered with horticultural fleece quite a lot of the time. They are doing almost as well as the ones I planted in my mini greenhouse 3 weeks earlier. I decided to pick a few (!) to have with our lunch today - mostly decorative, but they tasted great!













You can also see how well the spinach, onions and peas are coming on:

Running out of space

Before...

I pricked out the cell grown salad leaves and some of the onions yesterday. I even remembered to pre-warm the compost by putting it in the sun for the morning!


I've run out of space in my mini-greenhouse, so have brought the more tender seeds (which still haven't germinated) inside the house. It has been pretty cold since I planted them and my greenhouse doesn't get the sun until the afternoon. Maybe I should move it to a sunnier position? Hopefully the seeds haven't rotted, but are just laying dormant - only time will tell...

After...

PS I took these photos yesterday and the seedlings looked a bit bedraggled - I'm glad to say they look suitably perky again today!

Potato bags

The seed potatoes I bought have been chitting on a window-sill and are now ready to plant. I put a few in on Easter Sunday (here) but they take up more room than I'd bargained for! As I just can bring myself to throw any away, I've bought some potato bags. With 4 seeds per bag, you gradually fill them with compost as the leaves break through. It will be interesting to see which do better - these or the ones in the bed...

Chitting Sante potatoes

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.