26th March 2012

A lovely weekend and with the clocks going forward, the evenings are also available to carry on in the garden.  The veg growing now takes on an exciting tone filled with anticipation of what's to come.  I did some more sowing of:

kohlrabi and beetroot in seed trays and peas in a rain gutter which I like to start off in the greenhouse.

I grow peas in the gutter to try and minimise and losses by mice/squirrels.

I also sowed some turnips, rocket and coriander directly in drills outside.

We had visitors round on Sunday and I cooked rhubarb crumble using of course, the forced rhubarb which had lovely pink stems.  Most of it got eaten and I finished it off tonight.

For the main course, I made some more leek pie for the vegetarians amongst us and I roasted the last of the parsnips that had started to sprout new green shoots; so time for them to go.  Do you like the T rex and half a brontosaurus?

 

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.

18th February, 2009

The milder weather has encouraged me to plant out the broad beans, also I was worried that they were getting pot bound and on a sunny day they might dry out in the greenhouse. So here they are in 2 double rows.



That should provide ample beans for this year.

To the right I have planted out some spinach which I sowed last October. Perhaps I should put a cloche over them to bring them on a bit.

The garlic hasn't done much through the winter but hopefully all the action is happening below ground, the individual clove is meant to be splitting I think.



There is still no sign of the second row of garlic I planted.

The rhubarb is emerging although the first shoots have suffered from the cold. This is one of the original crowns I got from my father and it's now the third season, so I should be able to harvest a good few sticks. The other 1 year crowns I bought have not emerged yet.



The weather feels like it is warming up and I'm looking at my seed packets. Perhaps I'll sow some in the next few days. I will also fit the automatic louvre windows to the greenhouse before I fill it up with seed trays. It's a lot different to just a few days ago. These were the blueberries in their pots on the patio under a blanket of snow.



I pruned the apple tree yesterday using the pruners I got for Xmas. They attach to a long pole and I was able to cut back the long branches that I couldn't reach last year. Great tool. I still have apples stored that are holding up well although a little shrivelled, but they are still good to eat.

The autumn fruiting raspberry canes have been cut down to ground level and there are new shoots coming through. The wooden supports for them have rotted at the base so I will have to rig up something more permanent.

27th January, 2009

I emerge from my blogging hibernation; it's been a cold winter! The good side to the cold snap is that I hope many of the garden pests such as slugs, will have been killed off. Let's see if their numbers are reduced this coming season.

I have done very little in the garden and have not posted as a result. The only activity has been digging up some of the leeks, which are not as big as last year but they taste great which is the whole point.



The parsnips were fine too but again somewhat on the small side and I didn't grow enough.

In my last post (November!), I wondered about the lettuce tasting bitter, well I did try some and they were fine. But I'm not used to the idea of picking lettuce during the winter and forget to brave the cold outside and get some as a crispy addition to a sandwich.

The broad beans are about 4-5" tall now.



I may need to plant them out soon if they grow anymore as they may get potbound. But at the moment they look very healthy.

The seed potatoes arrived from T&M. I ordered International Kidney (aka Jersey Royals) for salads and Kestrel (maincrop) which were recommended by the grapes on the GYO forum. A third pack of Dunluce was also included free with my order along with some Corrado onion sets.



The blight resistant varieties I grew last year were too floury and were not that nice to eat all said and done. They resisted blight well but the idea for me in growing your own is for maximum taste.

The overwintering onions (Radar) have not grown much, not surprising given how cold it's been.



Likewise the garlic and shallots have stood still over the winter. The second sowing of garlic have still not shown themselves, however, the rhubarb is beginning to emerge.

The garden is fairly waterlogged so there has been no digging. Despite all the additions of compost last autumn it still looks like the soil is mostly clay. My compost bins are full though so the goal to transform my soil continues and I suspect will never end.