26th June, 2013

Another month has passed and I'm pleased to say I have been quite busy in that time.  That's thanks to some nice weather and a few days leave from work.

Now that the tennis at Wimbledon is on we think of strawberries, and mine are looking good I think. They aren't ready yet but they need protecting from the birds. So the net frame has been installed.

I planted the tomatoes (Gardeners' delight) into their final pots in the greenhouse.

 

I planted the outdoor bush tomatoes in the sidebed.  The leaves are rolled up and an indication that the plant is trying to reduce water loss.  The new growth though is not showing this.

 

The courgettes and lettuce have grown well.  I harvested three small courgettes already and the lettuce can be cut soon.

The climbing beans (no runner beans this year) and dwarf beans are planted out.

Along with the turnips....

and leeks which I planted by digging a trench first and then the planting holes.  The idea being that I can back fill and get longer stems.

I've got some carrots, hooray!

Peas in flower.

and broad beans.

I'm pleased with the potatoes, although some of them have been eaten a little.

 Lastly, the onions are looking good and I've had one of them for a meal last weekend.

So far growth is good and a plentiful harvest is promised, despite the late start and harsh winter.

Google reader shuts down on Monday

If you are following this blog with Google Reader then this is a reminder to swap to another feed.  I've tried bloglovin' and feedly which I think work well.

29th May 2013

Finally a nice weekend and I made the most of it. I potted on the tomatoes, chillies, peppers, aubergines and melons into 3" pots.

The dwarf beans have finally germinated and there are signs of life from the sweetcorn and climbing French beans.

Outside I planted the courgettes with some lettuce between which I hope will be ready before the courgettes shade them out.

The peas went out too with their supports.  Behind them are the broad beans which are full of flower, I'm expecting a good crop.

At long last the potatoes have emerged and I've earthed them up.

The beetroot went out too along with the onions I grew from seed.  I should have plenty of onions again after a failed crop last year.  No garlic this year though.

It took some time to plant them as the soil had dried out and was quite hard to dig.  If only I had soil like Monty Don who seems to be able to plant his veg by digging with his hands!  Will my soil ever be like that? 

21st May 2013

Another month has passed since the last entry, the reason being that as before nothing much has happened.  The beds still look quite empty of crops but the greenhouse is beginning to green up.

So I have trays of seedlings.  These are beetroot which I will probably plant next weekend.

And some lettuce, I'll need to sow some more for later harvests.

On the other side of the greenhouse are the tomatoes, chillies, peppers, aubergines and basil which all need pricking out.

On the floor are the sweetcorn and climbing french beans which haven't germinated yet.

I had a few spare pink fir apples so they went into a bucket for an early crop and they are growing well.

 

Outside the beds are largely bare.

This is the potato bed with eight rows, nothing showing.

  

There are some onions, the largest being those that overwintered and the sets I planted a few weeks back are showing, plus I have some seed grown onions to plant too.  Under the mesh are kohlrabi which I planted last weekend.

 

The broad beans are flowering, not much will stop them.

 

The newly planted asparagus I grew from seed look anorexic compared to the established shoots.  It's not been a bumper harvest just two meals so far.

The strawberries appear to be free of virus this year.  I removed the plants that had contorted fruit and leaves which I assume was due to virus, whatever the plants look to be normal although the plants are not so big and there may not be so much fruit this time.

There has been plenty of blossom this year and the pigeons have not eaten it (so far) although they are pecking at the leaf shoots on the plum tree.  The apple looks good now in the evening sun.

 

Also the cherry is full of flower and shows promise for some fruit later on which will be a first.

 

 

 

17th April, 2013

Finally it has warmed up which was confirmed by some nesting activity by the starlings.

Given I had a week off for Easter I tried to make the most of it and started some seed sowing and potato planting.

So what have I sown?  Well, all the greenhouse plants for starters including tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, chillies, melons and aubergines.  Some of these require a bit of warmth so I've started them off indoors on a windowsill.  I put them in the greenhouse as soon as they have two proper leaves.

I also sowed courgettes, parsley, kohlrabi, beetroot and radish.  All in seed trays.  So the greenhouse looks like this.

Above you can see the broad beans showing good growth and I can plant them out soon. You'll notice the cacti in the picture above too; I've potted these up and I already have a flower on one of them!  Beautiful flowers.

I haven't sown carrots or parsnips which i will do soon directly once I have prepared the bed which is properly dug over (see below). 

Planting potatoes was hard work.  I did it over 2 days.  Did I tell you I hate my clay soil.  It was still wet and therefore quite heavy and lumpy.  Digging the trench was not too bad but returning the soil was not easy as it involved bending right down to shovel the stuff back in.  My back is still complaining.

I've managed to prune the apple and pear trees which are budding up nicely.  Checking back on this blog a year ago, I had much of the seeds already germinated and the fruit trees were in blossom.  So I guess the season is about 2-3 weeks later this year.