Cabbages

This year, the cabbages were a real success. Planted out in early summer, about 7 of the 9 plants formed really decent cabbages. Variety was Greyhound, the seed packet said produces cabbages up to 750g but they were getting on for 1kg each. A second sowing didn’t do so well, the plants were hit bad by cabbage white, but perhaps a later variety would be better. For a few of them, I’ve taken a tip read somewhere about leaving the stumps in the ground to grow a supply of greens, seems to be working.

All the brassicas have been growing in my new net which is doing the job of keeping the pigeons off BUT has totally failed to keep out the butterlies! I foolishly thought that 1 inch mesh would be small enough to deter them, surly their wingspan is greater than 1 inch? But they get in with ease. Grrrrr! There were loads of ‘em too! In fact I admit resorting to inorganic practices before we went on holiday, otherwise there would have been nothing left by the time we got back.

Summer Update Part 1

I’ve been meaning to post for weeks, just can’t seem to find the time! The main reason for running this blog was so that I could come back in future years & compare notes. Not much point if I don’t make any so better start again now – there’s a lot to report. I’ll take it one veg at a time….

Spuds. This years crop was 3kg each of pentland javelin and saxon. In the end, probably 2.5kg of each got planted, the rest finding hom,ees in Dads garden. No blight this year, thankfully, and the plants grew well but didn’t get a lot of watering while we were on hols early august so the remaining plants (all the saxons) were looking a bit dead. Decided the time had come to lift them last week. The dry soil has kept the slugs out, and there was only a little scab (always get scab) to spoil things. In total, there were about 35kg of spuds stored. So, with whats been eaten already thats probably a total of about 50kg. There’s also a few pink fur apples which are still in the ground, these were left over tubers from last years harvest which I couldn’t bear to bin so stuck ‘em in odd places round the garden.

Onions. It was a poor year I think, considering I planted both onions & shallots. The onions looked like rotting as early summer was very wet so I decided to harvest. I think the vield was only about 6kg, probably half last years harvest. Garlic was a bit crap too – next year I’m going to plant these earlier, before christmas probably.

Tomatoes have been doing very well, and seem to be ripening early, we’ve been munching at them for several weeks. The tiger ones are great and very early. harbinger are coming on ok but the odd monetyymake I planted is producing much larger fruit. The bush variety is ridiculously packed in on the plants, very difficult to harvest. No real disease problems to speak of, kept the blossom end rot at bay in the greenhouse (only 2 casulties) and outside there was one blight fright, but since binning that one everything else looks OK. Because we had loads of plants this year, I pinched out a lot of the outdoor plants at 3 trusses to try to make sure the ripened, seems to be working.

Cucumbers. Got an inital bach of about 4 per plant, then nothing! Now however they have come back to life and are sprouting loads of new fruit. With the initial batch were lots of male flowers, none at all this time round which is strange.

Sweet peppers in the greenhouse: Crap. One small pepper so far.
Aubergines: Sowed very late and consequently only in flower the last week or so. A couple of tiny fruits starting, not sure if there will be anything worthwhile.

Chillies: doing well as usual, some nice big fruits, still green. Not exactly rocket science, growing chillies.

More later…

May – too busy to blog

Lots of stuff has happened this week.  The end if the purple sprouting brocolli season first of all.  Finally gave up on it and removed the frame to let the pigeons in.  Well, for a few hours then chopped up the plants and put them on the compost heap rather than let the pigeons have any of it. Grrrr.  Its been very dry this month and perhaps that contributed to the mediocre show from the PSB this year, despite the massive plants. Also they seemed to pick up some sort of fungus on the leaves during the winter which killed a lot of the winter growth.  Brown blotches around 1cm diameter, then the leaves fell off.  Seemed to go once the new growth began so not too worried about it. 

Potatoes went in during the easter hols and have already been mounded up, saxons growing faster than pent. javelin.   Cabbages and kohl rabi sown in the greenhouse a few weeks ago are in and are doing well, protected from the pigeons.  First load of leaks planted out this weekend - scratched up by cats within hours   I’m putting them in early this year and have realised I need more so have just made another late sowing which hopefully will germinate quickly. 

Two rows of carrots sown this week; early nantes 2 and autumn king.  Radishes & spring onions sown directly into the new salad patch yesterday to join a couple of rows of lettuce planted out last week. A huge patch of corriander self seeded from last year has sprouted up in the middle of the patch far better than my greenhouse attempts!  There’s still plenty of room for more stuff,yesterday also  a row of mange tout peas at the back of the patch.

In the greenhouse, things are going well.  All sorts of toms this year, all potted up and coming along nicely.  Three cucumber plants to choose from, chillies doing well.  Sweet peppers – 3 have come up but again are slow growing.  Next year not sure if I’ll bother. Yesterdays greenhouse sowings included all the runner beans, some french beans, courgettes, pumpkins and squash (from the free BBC “digin” seeds! 

Asparagus!

After about three years of waiting I finally harvested the first asparagus spears.  A grand total of 4!  (seen above with some perpetual spinach which the pigeons finally seem to have given up opecking and is growing nicely) The asparagus was carefully savoured, very nice.  More on the way!

Today was spud planting day.  The spouts were looking perfect on the saxons but a bit weedy on the first early penland javellin, but after seeing Gardener’s World the other day I felt happy to stick ‘em in like that as they said it’d make no real difference.  also on GW they dug a trench, then just covered the spuds lightly, slowing covering as they come through. So this year I’m trying that, planing a little deeper but not filling in the trench.  Well it started as a trench but after digging one I got fed up and wet back to my usual holes dug with a trowel technique, but only half filling the holes. 

Big job in the garden this week was rebuilding the compost heap.  This has freed up a little more growing space and tidied things up as there’s no ugly heap to look at now its hidden behind a fence.  Also finally tackling the path to the shed.  Again, more space freed up which for this year at  least will see a few more veg planted.

In the greenhouse, things are sprouting.  Tomatoes sown a week ago are starting to appear; several types this year.  Some cucumber have just come up, potted up a few cabbages, kohl rabi appearing, leeks looking good, a few lettuces coming along nicely.  Indoors, some sweet peppers have appeared. Still no sign of the aubergenes and chillies.

Nearly April already?!

I suddenly realised that it was probably time to dig out all the seed packets and find out which ones should have already been sown. It’s nearly April!  Where did March go?

It’s been a few weeks since the last post but not a great deal has happened.  A month or so ago I dug pretty much the entire contents of the compost heap plus a big proportion of a 5 year leafmould/twig pile into the veg patch.  Made me remember where all my muscles were.  The last of the leeks was harvested at the beginning of March, just a week or so before the first brocolli harvest. Dead chuffed, that’s the first time that we’ve actually had stuff to east from the garden for an entire year.   Last years perpetual spinach (which was pretty much ignored all last year) is sprouting some little leaves so also providing a little extra fresh veg.

Last week the onions (red baron) garlic and shallots (golden gourmet) went in. The garlic is already sprouting nicely. The birds seem to have left the onion sets alone this year. Back to the broc, it’s been affected with some kind of what looks like fungus. I thought at first it was frost damage but now I’m not so sure. No info in my gardening books, will have to resort to google for this one.

SO, the seed packs came out today, and it was great to sit in a nice cosy greenhouse in the sun and sow just a few seeds to get things started.  Some cabbages, cauliflower and leeks.  There’s a few others I’ll do tomorrow (including sweet peppers, which were useless last year and didn’t germinate well so I’m going to start them indoors)  I never did get round to sorting out proper greenhouse staging, the aluminium stuff in the shops looks just too expensive for how flimsy it is, but I guess I’ll just have to bite the bullet. Don’t really want to do another year with a plank resting on two old mortar plasticiser drums!

Spent another half hour this afternoon removing the stump of the large evergreen tree cut down last autumn.  Removing tree stumps has to be the worlds most tedious task.

2009 Starts Here

Spuds and Onions

The sun came out for a hour or so today and gave me just enough motivation to take a trip to Elmers hardware in search of seed potatoes. Each year I say I’m going to do some serious research and come back with something different but more often than not the words “Saxon: Heavy yield, good multi purpose” on the label in the shop means I buy the same as last year having failed to do any research whatsover. This year was no different, 3kg each of Saxon second earlies (£2.99) and Pentland Javelin first earlies (£2.80). The latter are supposed to be good salad spuds but do well if left in the ground, which also invariably happens as I delay starting to dig til its too late. 6kg is a lot for the little patch, but there is a recession on so it’s time for us Brits to dig for victory again. I’ll find somewhere for them. Chose Red Baron onions again this year as unlike last year the sets werent all mouldy in the shop, exclusive and expensive at 99p for a pack but hopefully very nice again.

Winter veg

This is the first year ever that we’ve actually got something from the garden between the months of October and April!   The swede are to say the least slightly pathetic because I didn’t thin them enough and they didn’t get pigeon protection (speaking of which I accidently left the wire front off the anti-pigeon cage last week   )   But despite being small they are packed with flavour! The leeks are tasting good too.  There are still a few carrots left in the ground which I’ve been leaving as I haven’t really got anywhere suitable to store them (need some sand really) but I think I’ll probably get them all in soon regardless.

 

With a huge pile of rotted compost now on the veggie patch awaiting use I’ve started a new heap.  This time I’m going for flat and large rather than tall, as the previous tall heaps seem to shrug off too much rainwater and stay dry in the middle.  I’m also mixing dry leaves with everything as we don’t have so many now all the big trees have gone.

LED Pumpkins

Wooohooo scary!  The three pumpkins were too small for candles so instead we used LEDs!  Also had to cut them round the middle to make scooping easier.  The red one is Holly’s, the yellow one Evan’s, the one in the middle is my lame effort. Don’t worry I didn’t set the kids loose with the carving knife, they just marked out their designs with a pen!

Pulled up all but one row of carrots, hoping they will store better in the garage for a week or two than they would in the soil getting eaten by beasties.  Incidently the idea of planting carrots late to avoid the fly seems not to work, I pulled up a row sown very late (late august) which hadn’t developed because the roots were totally destroyed by maggots

Chutney Time !

Last weekend I decided to bring in all the remaining toms, a few had started going mouldy.  So the green house is now empty making me wish I’d have thought to start a few things off to overwinter there. On the other hand it’ll be easier to kit it out with proper (bodged homemade diy!) staging if it’s empty. 

The pumpkins got scooped out, they were too small for candles – even last years comparitive whopper ended up burning. So I stuck some LEDs and a 9v battery inside instead! kids liked it cos they got to choose LED colour!  I guess I should take a photo of them when it gets dark.

Anyway, there was enough pumpkin soup for about 4 portions – next year perhaps we’ll try growing one a little bigger!

First Leeks!

We gave into temptation today and harvested the first two leeks.  I’m pretty pleased with them!  This is the first time we’ve grown leeks.  I dont think they were planted out as soon as they should have been but they seem to have caught out.  So for lunch today it was a garden leek & potato soup, and very good it was too!

The runner bean plants & cougette plants have been dumped on the compost heap, no chance of anything further from them.   The tomatoes are still looking OK in the greenhouse, although I’ve now removed pretty much all of the leaves to aid ventilation and try to reduce the souce of any mold.

This week I cut down an evergreen tree which has been shadowing the veg plot for ages.  Huge pile of branches to dispose of