More Sowing

 We escaped the worst of the weather yesterday, although it was only 5°C first thing in the morning. There were a few spots of rain, but nothing substantial and it was a great excuse to visit a plant nursery. I bought a couple of courgette plants, 2 different chilli plants, 4 different tomato plants and some flowers (calendula and stocks). By the afternoon it had warmed up a bit so I sowed some more seeds:
Sweetcorn (Sundance F1)
Dwarf French bean (Compass)
Butternut squash (Honeyboat)
Nasturtium (Tom Thumb mixed)

The French beans, along with the plants I bought, are in my patio growhouse to protect them from the weather. It was very cold again last night, so I'm glad I did. I also put some fleece over the raised bed I sowed last week (no signs of germination yet). The rest of yesterday's sowings are now on the kitchen windowsill above the radiator to germinate. In the background you can see the new fence we had installed last week. I took the opportunity to cut back the shrubs and re-edge the lawn, uncovering the paving slabs in the process. I'm pretty pleased with how it looks now, just a few gaps to fill.

First sowing of the year

22nd April 2018

I bought a few packets of seeds on-line which arrived a couple of days ago, so I made the most of the good weather today to get some into the ground. Today I've planted wild rocket, carrots (F1 Match) and Land cress, 1 row of each. I've not grown Land cress before, but I understand it's a cross between rocket and watercress. I'm hoping that by putting the carrots between these two, the carrot fly may be put off by the smell.

As a deterrent to the local cats, and sparrows, I put a few sticks over the planting area as protection. These were last year's forsythia prunings. I used a few of them to support netting last year and one of them rooted itself. When we replaced the wooden beds, I dug it up and put it in a pot. Today, I've chopped the top off and put that in the same pot. Hopefully I'll get 2 new plants for free!

Planting out garlic

11th April 2018

Now the new raised beds are in, I can plant out the garlic. I bought these back in the Autumn along with some onion sets, but didn't want to put them in the ground before repairing the wood. Instead, I put them in pots and left them in my little growhouse over the Winter.

They've grown pretty well despite being almost completely ignored. Some of them have grown well out of the bottom of the pots, so they probably could have gone in the ground a bit sooner. However, we've had a very late Spring this year, with snow over Easter, and this if the first opportunity I've had to get them out.

So, I carefully eased them out of their pots leaving as much root intact as possible and transplanted them into the small square bed. 3 of them had rotted/been eaten by slugs, but I still had 24 good plants to put out.





Update 23rd April

They looked a bit sad when I first put them out, but nearly 2 weeks on they're looking good, undoubtedly helped by the lovely sunny, warm weather we've had for the last week.

Renewing the raised beds

So, the parsnips did even better in 2017 than in 2016, this was the last of the crop that I dug up a couple of weeks ago in order to clear the ground for this year's planting. 2017 was another bad year for the veg growing (and blog) due to other commitments, but the parsnips went in early and did a grand job.

However...

When I dug these up, it became clear that the raised beds we installed way back in 2012 (see here, here and here) were well past their best. The corner pegs had rotted, as had some of the side boards. 3 of the beds were completely falling apart, the other 3 were worse for wear so we decided to replace them all. Time for an upgrade.

One of the old beds in better less bad condition with Autumn planted onions.

I scraped back the gravel, and in the empty beds I dug the soil away from the inner edges too.

My husband made up new beds from pressure treated gravel boards and fence pegs from Wickes. The pegs are quite a lot bigger than those in the original kits, so hopefully they'll last longer this time. They're also quite a lot taller, so they stick up above the bed sides about 14cm which will give me some extra height when netting the beds.




















The other improvement I've made is to peg down the weed-proof membrane under the gravel. Whilst it hasn't really been a big problem, there were a few places where the edges has poked up through the gravel. I've used old tent pegs that are past their best but still good enough for this job.

The finished product, ready for this year's planting.

Spring 2016

Hmmm, I didn't post much last year did I? We did alot of DIY in the house last Spring so the garden was a bit neglected. Having said that, the potatoes and parsnips did well. In fact I'm still digging up the parsnips - here's today's crop:

Don't think I'll win any prizes, except maybe for rude unusual shapes

I'm not sure parsnips are worth growing again? We all love eating them, but they take up so much space and for such a long time. They also don't seem to taste that different to shop bought ones (unlike home-grown carrots). Maybe I just need to be better at inter-planting?

Last Spring, in the end of season sale, I bought 4 tomato plants and a yellow courgette plant from a local nursery. The tomatoes grew really well, but then succumbed to blight before they had a chance ripen - it was a cold, wet summer. However, the courgettes were great and I'd grow them again.

I planted onions, shallots and garlic last Autumn which are doing well. I had too many sets to fit in the raised beds, so put the spares in individual cells. My plan is to use these to fill the gaps in the next couple of weeks.

Today I have dug over 3 of the beds, and sown lots of seeds which are now sitting on the kitchen windowsill:

I made a batch of newspaper pots for the sweetcorn (they have long roots) and the rest have gone in cells in my (new) windowsill propagator. I've not grown tomatoes from seed before, so fingers crossed for them. The 2 types of squash came free with Kitchen Garden magazine, so they're new too. The chillies I have tried before, with mixed success due to weather conditions (I think).

Here's hoping for a more productive year than 2015!

New Year

It finally feels as if Spring is on it's way and my thoughts have turned to sewing and planting. Last year I grew Maris Bard Potatoes (First Early) but was quite disappointed with them. The haulms flopped and died very early on and they didn't produce that many tubers. This year I've chosen Nicola, a second early from Taylors, which will hopefully do better. For now they are chitting in the kitchen:

I was given some seeds for Christmas, so I sowed the first of these at the week-end. I've done 3 rows of parsnips, with a row of lettuce in between. My parsnips haven't done so well the last couple of years, so I'm hoping that fresh seeds will do the trick. My the time the parsnips need the space, the lettuce will be coming to end (well that's the theory any-way)

Filling the gaps

My previous sowing of carrots hasn't done very well, and there's no sign of the parsnips or spinach I put in either. So I decided to fill the gaps. A couple of weeks ago I sowed Radish (French Breakfast 3), Carrot (Resistafly F1 Hybrid) and Kale (Nero Di Toscana).The radish and kale has germinated beautifully, and the carrots are just beginning to show. I'm not sure why the first seeds didn't do so well - cats, birds, mice? I've now covered the bed with netting so fingers crossed.

Update - the carrots and kale did pretty well and I dug up the last few in early March, with very little carrot fly damage :-)

Soft Fruit

I put in some Autumn fruiting raspberries (Joan J) and strawberries (Royal Sovereign) a couple of years ago (see here), but haven't really had much fruit of them. All change this year! Although the raspberries are Autumn fruiting, if you don't cut all the canes back in the Autumn, you get a bonus crop in early summer. What's even better is that there's still loads just ripening.

Companion planting

I managed to find a few minutes yesterday to plant out my sweetcorn and courgette plants. I lost a few of the sweetcorn seedlings to the gastropods, but I still had 11 to plant out. I've interspersed these with 6 courgette plants. In order to make space for these, I harvested a good few Spring onions.

Spring onions that were planted around last year's runner bean wigwam

Sweetcorn interspersed with courgettes

Peas and beans

While I was waiting for my peas to germinate I spotted a pack of 6 plant cells on offer in The Range, with each cell containing several good looking plants. Needless to say I bought them! So yesterday I planted them out, next to my little sprouting peas. I added some sticks pruned from the Forsythia and threaded some twine around for support.

My peas just sprouting, with the bought plants to the right

I also put out the dwarf French beans. I had too many plants for the square bed, so I've put the rest in the gaps in the onion bed.

Dwarf French beans

Peas

Having dug over and added compost to the small, square bed a few weeks ago, I covered it in fleece until I was ready to plant into it. This has had 2 benefits - warmer soil and more importantly, no cat poo! So today, I have sown mangetout peas "Delikta" directly into one corner of the bed. I plan to sow some more in a couple of weeks time, and fill the rest of the bed with French beans that are doing nicely in my patio growhouse for the moment. I have replaced the fleece for protection until I plant out the beans.

Maintenance jobs

Boring but essential, I spent quite some time this afternoon weeding my onions - they were looking a bit neglected. I was joined by the female blackbird who is nesting in our front hedge. She seemed quite happy, just inches away from me while I worked. After removing all the weeds, I watered and mulched them with homemade compost, so now they look much better.

I planted these as sets last Autumn as that gave me a fantastic harvest last year. However, this year they don't seem to be doing quite so well and I'm not quite sure why. I think some may have been dug up by cats and some may have rotted as the winter was so wet. When I planted them I had quite a few left over. I couldn't quite bring myself to throw them away, so I very generously free-cycled them. On reflection, I should have planted them in pots to grow on and fill the holes. Maybe next year...

The other job was earthing up the potatoes. I used more of my homemade compost, combined with some of the top soil which I'm still using up.

More sowing

Today I have planted some courgettes (All Green Bush). They did really well last year after a complete wash-out in 2012, so I'm trying again this year. I wasn't sure where I'd plant them out, but have now decided that under the sweetcorn should work. I tried the "Three Sisters" approach a couple of years ago, but it wasn't very successful - the pumpkin plant grew massive, but the fruit rotted before it ripened and the beans pulled the sweetcorn over. Hopefully I'll have better luck this year.

I have also sown some salad leaves, directly into the raised bed - spinach "Toscane", Rocket, lettuce "Little Gem" and a "spicy oriental mix"  from Suttons seeds.

Meanwhile, some of the chillies have germinated along with one of the pea shoots. The French beans and sweetcorn are doing well in the greenhouse, so I've started opening it up a bit more to harden them off.

The beetroot has germinated well, but not much sign of the parsnips or carrots yet. Time will tell.

Sweetcorn and pea shoots

The sweetcorn I sowed the other day (see here) has germinated well - only 1 out of 17 seeds hasn't developed. They've grown so quickly they've reached the lid of the windowsill propagator, so time to move them on. As I did last year (see here), I have added toilet roll tubes to enlarge some of the pots.

I tried to buy pea shoots the other day (Amy and I have been watching Masterchef!) but couldn't find any. So instead, I decided to grown my own (Variety: Twinkle). I've sown them and put them on the windowsill, so they should be ready in about 3 weeks.

Potting on

The French beans I sowed last week popped their heads up over the last couple of days - from bumps in the soil surface, to leaves within hours it seemed. So, time to pot them on, and these are the results:

I've put them into my greenhouse for the time being, then hopefully out into the garden in a couple of weeks time. Having emptied the two of the little trays in my windowsill propagator, I've refilled one of them with chillies. We were a bit over-run with chillies last year, and they were very hot, so I've sown fewer this year of a different variety - Hungarian Hot Wax.