10th April, 2009

Lots happening now, so this is a monster blog with plenty of pictures! The greenhouse is filling up with seed trays and pots of young seedlings and the beds will have no vacancy signs on them soon.

So in no particular order but just because that is the way I walked round the garden and snapped away here is the latest update in the Kingdom of Veg blog.

Before I walked out the door I took a picture of the basil. It's grown a lot since I last blogged about it on 11th March, less than a month ago. It does very well on the windowsill right through to winter.



This picture doesn't look much but it's the first one that I have ever taken of carrots for this blog which probably reflects the lack of success I've had to date. I've taken the plastic cloche off them as they seemed to be drying out. I'll sow some more towards the end of the month in this bed where the soil is well cultivated (still could do with some more compost) and the carrots should form good tap roots.



The half row of radish have emerged; they will need thinning soon.



I potted up the kohlrabi into individual pots. I'm not sure this was really necessary but it will tell me how good the peat free multipurpose compost I bought from Homebase is at promoting growth. I abandoned the home made mix of turf loam and multipurpose compost of last year. It was OK but seemed to dry out quickly. Too much clay in it I suspect. Mind you the peat free stuff seems to be made of thin bark chippings. So I shall wait and see what results I get. Behind the kohlrabi are the leeks and spring onions which must have put on another inch or two since the previous blog entry (~3 weeks ago).



I potted the cucumbers up into bigger pots and they have been moved from indoors to the greenhouse. I think the greenhouse will protect them from any surprise frosts now. You can see the wood chip compost better. I'm being careful with these this year as before I have lost them due to stem rot caused by overwatering. So now I'm watering sparingly from below and none has succumbed (so far).



The melons and peppers have also been moved into the greenhouse. The peppers took about 3 weeks to germinate (indoors). It was old seed I suppose.



OK, this isn't veg but I get a strange buzz out of seeing neatly pricked out seedlings. It's a very therapeutic way to spend a few hours. The first weekend job I had as a kid was pricking out seedlings in a nursery; it was boring of course but rewarding when you went back next week to see them growing. These are snapdragons.



Peas in modules, the mice and squirrels can't get at them! When the roots show through at the bottom I'll plant them out.



A boring picture of the Dunluce potatoes emerging but useful for the blog records. I planted 3 each in 2 buckets and the shoots popped through in under 2 weeks. I followed the instructions from the JBA seed potato website and added some fertiliser to the compost but did not water to encourage the roots to grow. I used growmore fertiliser which does not have the correct balance of NPK for spuds (so I didn't follow the advice!). I might then just get a lot of leaf and few tubers.



Outside in the garden beds, the overwintered onions looking hunky dory. Notice also what a lovely sunny Easter break we are having. /sarcasm.



The overwintered broad beans are getting taller.



Garlic. Finally a picture of them to show that they did overwinter just fine.



Onions sets emerging; planted them about 3 weeks ago.



Raspberry bed with lots of new shoots racing skywards.



The rhubarb almost looks like a mature plant now. Behind it which you can't see well, are the puny crowns I bought and planted last year. They have only just started to show, I thought that I had lost them.



I'm hoping the summer raspberries I bought last year will really get going this year, I don't expect much fruit. I gave them some growmore and a mulch, I hope they noticed.



This is what my compost looks like. Quite woody really, but lower down it is acceptable. I'll be laying this in the bottom of the potato trenches. The potatoes are going to be planted in the beds where the lawn was and the soil structure is still quite dense with clay, so this stuff, I hope, along with the turning of the the soil will improve things.



Alright don't laugh, this is my Heath Robinson style potting up station which I hastily made (can't you tell) from old hardboard. That's hardboard not cardboard! The kids also purloined it for a step up to climb the tree.



Still no sign of the asparagus, yet others are reporting theirs coming through.

I sowed courgette, squash and cucumber and left them to their own devices in the greenhouse. I've sown more than I need but if they all come through I can swap the seedlings at my work's plant swap day.

Phew! I'll leave it there. I have some more pictures of the pear and plum blossom which should provide a reasonable amount of fruit. The fig tree was moved from the greenhouse on to the patio and it is developing about a dozen figs already! No picture this time.

25th March, 2009

Despite the sunny weather it is still quite cold once the sun sets, there was a frost one night, so I decided to use my plastic cloches to protect the carrots sown in the patio bed and to warm the soil.



The rest of the bed has strawberries (nearest) and to the left of the cloche are the perennial herbs (rosemary, chives, sage, oregano and thyme) which have all survived the winter well.

I've been sowing more too and the greenhouse shelves are filling up which is good to see. I sowed beetroot in two trays of 5x3 modules, seen on the lower shelf. You can also see the Brussels sprouts and kohlrabi seedlings on the top shelf in half trays nearest the camera position. At the back are some annuals for the front garden, Rudbeckia and snapdragons. In between are 3 trays of peas which I had hoped would have germinated by now, but maybe the cold nights are holding them back. On the lower shelf, is celeriac in a half tray and then in the plastic containers with lids towards the back is parsley.



I germinate parsley by soaking the seeds in water indoors overnight then spread them out on to multipurpose compost in those lidded containers. Those are what biscuits are sold in at Sainsbury's. I just poke some drainage holes in the bottom and there you have a mini propagator.

The leeks and spring onions are coming on, they are about 2-3" tall now. I also sowed some lettuce (Webb's wonderful) in pots and these are in front of the leeks/onions. The spring onions that I transplanted outside though have done very little, cold nights again?



I planted the onion sets (Corrado and Golden Ball) out into the bottom bed. I put them quite close together (about 3" apart) and 10" between rows, as I have got a lot this year due to a free bag offer from Thompson & Morgan. There was a half row left so I sowed some coriander there with the intention of sowing more in 4 week successions.

I was concerned that the overwintered broad beans were not very tall and the lower leaves are yellowing (wind damage?).



I checked my blog entry for last year for comparison and I was concerned then that the beans were not very big. Also this year's plants seem to be a few weeks ahead of last year to my surprise given the cold weather. So keeping a blog has proved very useful in that regard and no doubt I will be making further comparisons with last year for other veg.

17th March, 2009

A little more sowing has been done, this time it was the peas (celebration) which I was going to sow into loo rolls cut in half but then I remembered that I have modules. I sowed 3 trays of 15 section modules so 45 seeds in all. I still have plenty left so I'll do a second sowing next month.

I sowed some carrots (Adelaide) and radish (French breakfast). The carrots were sown in the patio bed as I call it because it is next to the patio and is effectively a raised bed; the soil in it is lovely and dark, perfect for carrots I hope. I did have the herbs growing here last year but I've removed all but one of each type (sage, thyme, oregano, chives, rosemary). The rest of the herbs have gone to the front garden. Last year they flowered profusely so I think they will be great out front which I haven't yet transformed from an ornamental garden into one that grows vegetables. Maybe growing herbs is the first step.

The cucumber has come up already (less than a week). I'll let them establish some true leaves before putting them in the greenhouse. I struggled to keep the seedlings alive last year but I think that I overwatered them and this causes the stems to rot. So I'll be careful with the water this time.



Here are the chillis (left) and aubergines looking good. Again I'll wait until some true leaves develop before they go in the greenhouse.



In the greenhouse the broad beans I sowed on February 19th have germinated and are throwing up green shoots (always a pleasing sight). These are last year's seeds and they have all come up.



Out in the garden the overwintered broad beans are flowering much to my surprise as the plants are still only around 8" tall.

7th October, 2008

A dull weekend with a lot of rain, the river flooded again. So not much work could be done outside. I had planned to dig up the last of the Sarpo potatoes but they would not have dried out. I did dig up one plant of the Sarpo Axona to find a good batch of red tubers with no slug damage. The skins are quite tough and I tried some tonight. As I suspected they are quite floury but will be good for roasting.



Speaking of eating, I picked one of the green peppers. Their skins look like they have been polished.



I rearranged the herb bed. I have too many thyme and sage plants and could use the space I free up for other veg such as more strawberries and carrots. I think the carrots will grow well because the soil has a very good structure due to the bed being well cultivated for flowers beforehand.



I will remove one of the rosemary bushes too. I transplanted some strawberries from the planter; it hadn't been very successful, I think the soil dries out too quick. I may put in a thyme plant in the planter as they will tolerate drier conditions.

I cut down the asparagus ferns and then mulched it with a good layer of compost (boring photo below). I'm hoping for more ferns next year of course. That's the joy of gardening, next season is always anticipated as you never know what it may bring.



I'm going to take regular photos of the 3 beds to follow the seasons; they can change so dramatically.

Side bed showing leeks and empty ground where the spuds were with the Sarpos behind that. In the immediate foreground are some pathetic carrots, that's why I want to try carrots in the herb bed.



Beyond the Sarpos are the overwintering onion sets and then some more leeks and a few remaining beetroot with the asparagus bed beyond that.



Looking back up the bed to the greenhouse with the grapevine against the fence, no grapes though but it is only its second year.



The bottom bed is mostly empty after I dug up the sweetcorn. In the foreground are the parsnips which have got some good root on them. I need to grow more next year. At the back are some rubbish squash plants, I suspect they haven't grown as they are in the shade of the apple tree for much of the day.



The middle bed also has two squash plants then the flat leafed parsley and pumpkin. Behind all that is the runner bean wigwam which is still producing.



Finally, the Japanese maple bonsai has turned a most magnificent red.