20th March, 2012

I managed to get some seed sowing underway at last.

So I have sown some aubergine (moneymaker), tomato (cristal and tigerella), pepper (gypsy) and sweet basil which are on a windowsill indoors.

In the greenhouse I have got spring onions, radish and lettuce.

The leeks I sowed three weeks ago are starting to germinate.

There will be more sowing next weekend when I have can dedicate two days to the garden.

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.

24th November, 2008

It was a very cold weekend, the coldest this year. But I still got outside to do some of my latest favourite pastime...leaf collecting. I still have a way to go to fill the new leaf cage.

The greenhouse is the place to be if you are a young plant at this time of year I reckon. The broad beans are looking great.



The spinach and spring onions haven't done much but I will prick them out into modules next weekend. But the onions outside are a good size.



The lettuces are small and I think they may be bitter to taste, maybe I should taste a leaf and find out.



The garlic and shallots too are showing some green shoots.

The soil is very wet now and I won't be doing any digging for a while since I'll just make the soil structure worse by walking all over it, but also it is too heavy to work. I don't have a lot of compost left and I intend to incorporate the compost every time I am digging. So I'll have to wait.

Finally, I used up nearly 3kg of the stored apples to start off some apple wine. It's bubbling away nicely in the airing cupboard. It will be ready in 6 months if all goes well, that is when I'll be harvesting the broad beans. This is my first venture in to wine making and it seems to be relatively straightforward. Let's hope it works out. But it has inspired me to make more, I think I'll try some parsnip wine next. It's nice to have a bottle of wine at the weekend so to satisfy that demand I calculate I need to make a batch of wine every two months!

I've given up on the cider making unless I can find a cheap cider press, but that seems unlikely. I did make a bid on ebay for a 6 litre press but it sold for the price of a new one (~£110+). They seem to be popular at this time of year not surprisingly, so maybe I'll look again when they are not in demand.

I overestimated how much chicken wire I'd need to make a cage for the leaves. Or there was a generous amount of wire provided. Whatever, I have a very large cage now! I doubt I will fill it; it would be great if I did as I know I will use as much leaf mould as I can make.



I had to use the flash to take the photos, as it was getting late in the day. I've only managed to fill about half of the cage.



I've braced the supports for the blackberry and loganberry plants. The blackberry especially put on so much new growth over the summer that the supports were buckling under the strain.



I plan to cut down the Leylandii hedge (behind the blackberry in the picture) as it mostly dead and therefore not very attractive and it's very hard to trim, and it's probably drying the soil out.

The broad beans continue to grow in the greenhouse and there are two main leaves on most of the plants. The lettuce under the cloches are growing too and there should be enough to pick some leaves for a salad soon.

The potatoes are lasting well and we'll be eating them well into the new year. Also in store in the garage are the apples which are lasting well and are being used for apple pies mostly. I shall make some more apple jelly though on a cold day when I can't get outside, as every week there are a few apples that have turned brown. The onions should last us until the next harvest, although I have rediscovered fried onions.

5th November, 2008

Not much activity now. I've been collecting leaves for more leaf mould.





The beds look very empty now. I've pulled up the squash and pumpkin plants and taken down the runner bean wigwam. There were two green marrow shaped and sized pumpkins which I am going to leave for a while to ripen up hopefully.

Leeks and cloches over the lettuce in the side bed.



Just parsnips showing, but I've dug in compost/leaf mould at the far end and planted garlic next to the parsnips, bu there is no sign of their green tips yet.



Only the parsley left in the middle bed.