2nd April, 2012

Nice weather again with plenty of signs of spring.

The fruit trees are coming into blossom.  The picture shows the greengage in front with the plum tree behind.

The flowers are very pretty.

and there are lots of them.  I should remember this year to thin the fruit so that the branches don't break as they did last year.  The good thing is that the trees are still in good health it seems.













The blueberries are also flowering.

I removed some more of the Leylandii hedge to allow the redcurrants more space to grow into.

Next weekend will be the first meal of asparagus!

I have been harvesting more PSB

and leeks.

The seeds are sprouting in the greenhouse.  These are the radish and kohlrabi.

I also sowed some chillies, the seeds were taken from last year's harvest which I dry out and can use throughout the year.

The tomatoes and basil I sowed have germinated nicely on the windowsill but I'll leave them there until they show the true leaves.

I planted the onion sets (golden ball) and potted up some strawberry runners that had rooted and I had missed.  I can give these away to friends.

I replaced the sieve with a coarser mesh in my home made compost sieving contraption.  I don't need it to be so fine and I ended up returning much of it to the compost bin.  Maybe I don 't need to sieve it at all but it does improve the soil nicely.

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.

20th October, 2008

I finally dug up the last of the Sarpo potatoes. The Miras were up first and they were very badly damaged by slugs. I reckon at least half of them were affected. So I wasn't too hopeful for the Axonas despite the few I had dug the previous week being damage free. But good news, only a few were eaten and even that was mild damage. The two varieties were grown next to each other so I think this is a good comparison and I shall be keeping some of the Axonas back for next year. It's not recommended as disease may be carried over, but these spuds are blight resistant so they should be OK, and I got blight on the tomatoes this year but not the spuds.

I made an order of seeds and potatoes from Thompson & Morgan. The bill came to around £40 which is a lot less than last year as I hope to use some of this year's unused seed.

I planted out some shallots alongside the onions. The shallots were selected from bulbs of this year's harvest, so no cost again. I did the same trick for garlic (Solent Wight); the cloves are a bit small but I planted them in the bottom bed where I dug in a lot of compost to help them fatten up.

The greenhouse was cleared of the tomato plants. There are still a few sweet peppers left, none of them has turned red though. The chilli plants don't look like they will survive the winter but I'm not too bothered as I'll just grow some more next year.

I sowed broad beans (Aquadulce), freshly arrived from T&M, in 3" pots and they will overwinter in the greenhouse. Likewise, I sowed some spinach and spring onion in large pots. The spinach has germinated quickly but there is no sign of the onions. I used a new packet of seeds to exclude the possibility that my past failures with spring onions was due to old seed. The nice weather recently has heated the greenhouse up nicely and should be good for germination, if this doesn't work I don't know what will.

I transplanted some lettuce (Little Gem) which I has sown a few weeks back, into the side bed and covered them with plastic cloches. It's a bit of a gamble but I may get some young leaves for a winter salad.

I pulled up all but one of the courgette plants which is still flowering and I even cut a courgette last weekend. It's been a good yield this year as was last year.

The chillis I strung up have nearly all turned red; I hadn't expected that.

The flowering stems of the blackberry plants were cut down and this year's growth tied in.

The butternut squash plants are dying back revealing some small fruit, I don't know if they will taste any good.

Finally, the leaves are starting to fall and I will be collecting them for leaf mould. I plan to make a cage out of chicken wire to put them in rather than the black bin bags I have used before.

Sorry no photos this post.