Sunday, March 22, 2009
And finally today
This blog has been going for a year. Now I can really start comparing this year's progress with last year's...
Have leeks. Will travel.
Whereas yesterday was warm and sunny, today had sunny intervals and was a little chillier. It is set to rain tomorrow and to get a little colder. The rain is very welcome as the taps on the site are not yet switched on and there is no more water in my water butt. A drought is not particularly useful when seeds are going into the ground.
Two short digging sessions over at the plot today. During the first one, I dug over Bed 6 and half of Bed 7 (it was quite hard going). During the second one, I dug over pretty much all of Bed 9. See piccie below.
On Bed 9, there was a lot of the weed pictured below. I was worried this might be ground elder but, judging by photos of that on the Interweb, it isn't.
In Bed 6, I found a few red Spring onions which I sowed months ago and as I didn't see much sign of them a couple of months after sowing, I didn't think they had grown. What a nice surprise to find a dozen of them dotted around.
I emptied out the smaller of my two compost heaps onto the larger one which I will leave to cook. I have restarted the smaller one with yesterday's lawn mowings, some veg peelings and some tired salad leaves that were growing over Winter in troughs in the garden. There were a couple of ladybirds on the small compost bin. I saw a fair few of them today.
Before leaving the plot, I removed the wire mesh from the broad bean patch as some of them are emerging now. On Wednesday, I counted 4 seedlings coming through (out of the 52 sowed). Today, there were 21. I also harvested some leeks.
Two short digging sessions over at the plot today. During the first one, I dug over Bed 6 and half of Bed 7 (it was quite hard going). During the second one, I dug over pretty much all of Bed 9. See piccie below.
On Bed 9, there was a lot of the weed pictured below. I was worried this might be ground elder but, judging by photos of that on the Interweb, it isn't.
In Bed 6, I found a few red Spring onions which I sowed months ago and as I didn't see much sign of them a couple of months after sowing, I didn't think they had grown. What a nice surprise to find a dozen of them dotted around.
I emptied out the smaller of my two compost heaps onto the larger one which I will leave to cook. I have restarted the smaller one with yesterday's lawn mowings, some veg peelings and some tired salad leaves that were growing over Winter in troughs in the garden. There were a couple of ladybirds on the small compost bin. I saw a fair few of them today.
Before leaving the plot, I removed the wire mesh from the broad bean patch as some of them are emerging now. On Wednesday, I counted 4 seedlings coming through (out of the 52 sowed). Today, there were 21. I also harvested some leeks.
Seed swapping bonanza
Earlier in the week, I received some free organic vegetable seeds from Christine, my fiance's auntie. Very kind of her especially as I have just run dry of beetroot and spring onions which were included. Yesterday morning, I received some more seeds from a friend of ours called Ben. Very kind of him too. Ben is a keen gardener and always seems to have some particularly exotic and interesting seeds to hand.
He has sent me the following:
Squash: Tromba d'Albenga (which can be picked when 20cm as courgette but apparently can reach up to 1.5m if left to be a squash)
Courgette: Striato d'Italia
Pumpkin: Llena de Naples
Tomato: Chore di Bue
Green pepper: Friggitello F1 Hybrid
Cucumber: Marketer
Ben says that the squash and pumpkin seeds come from Spain so they might need a lot of sun. Given that all of us on the allotment site seem convinced that we are going to get a particularly fine Summer, this may not be a problem. In the meantime, I will send Ben some different seeds back.
And this weekend, I am joined by my future outlaws and as they now have a veg patch, I have given them some of my seeds and some of the ones that Christine sent over.
Tomorrow was warm and sunny but I focused on the garden. I mowed the lawn for the first time this year and weeded and fed most of the pots of herbs on the patio. Things look a little tidier now. However, I was helped/hindered by our cat who sat on the cold frame again. As the lids were only carefully placed on top given previous cat activities, they soon collapsed beneath her (see piccie below of her leaving the scene with as mch dignity as possible).
And I saw my first ladybird of the year...
Today is forecast to be another lovely sunny day so I plan to get over to the plot to dig over 1 or 2 beds.
He has sent me the following:
Squash: Tromba d'Albenga (which can be picked when 20cm as courgette but apparently can reach up to 1.5m if left to be a squash)
Courgette: Striato d'Italia
Pumpkin: Llena de Naples
Tomato: Chore di Bue
Green pepper: Friggitello F1 Hybrid
Cucumber: Marketer
Ben says that the squash and pumpkin seeds come from Spain so they might need a lot of sun. Given that all of us on the allotment site seem convinced that we are going to get a particularly fine Summer, this may not be a problem. In the meantime, I will send Ben some different seeds back.
And this weekend, I am joined by my future outlaws and as they now have a veg patch, I have given them some of my seeds and some of the ones that Christine sent over.
Tomorrow was warm and sunny but I focused on the garden. I mowed the lawn for the first time this year and weeded and fed most of the pots of herbs on the patio. Things look a little tidier now. However, I was helped/hindered by our cat who sat on the cold frame again. As the lids were only carefully placed on top given previous cat activities, they soon collapsed beneath her (see piccie below of her leaving the scene with as mch dignity as possible).
And I saw my first ladybird of the year...
Today is forecast to be another lovely sunny day so I plan to get over to the plot to dig over 1 or 2 beds.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Spuds I like
This weekend was about getting as many things in the ground as possible. According to the Synodic way of doing things with the moon (considering the phases of the moon: waxing, waning, full and new), now is apparently a good time to sow/plant root crops as there was a full moon on Wednesday and we are now in a waning moon situation. Come Tuesday though, we will be into the last quarter and it is recommended that nothing is sown/planted then. This covers next weekend. According to the Sidereal way, the Moon is in Libra so it is not a good time for roots. Hmmmm. The Synodic way is probably the only one I am going to pay any attention to as it is simple and, as I have the Moon phases in my Filofax, it is most accessible for me. After all, it is just a way of helping choose what to do on the plot at any given time.
Below is a piccie of the root crops I wanted to get started this weekend.
Yesterday was not a bad day - a bit cloudy at times with bright spells. Once digging over on the plot, it was quite warm but when I stopped, I felt the chilly breeze. I dug over the remainder of Bed 8. I wanted to sow some root crops in Bed 1, according to my plan (made back in August), but that bed needs some prep. I used a section of Bed 2 instead - the spot that had been dug over by the Bramble Man. It was a tad rough but a bit of raking and watering helped. I sowed the following:
- carrot (came free with a magazine along with some lettuce and have lost the original packet so I am not sure of its exact variety);
- spring onions (Ishikuro);
- beetroot (Bolthardy);
- radish (Rainbow Mixed).
I covered the carrot over with a mesh tunnel to stop the nasty carrot fly.
Today was a lovely sunny day reaching the heady heights of 15-16 degrees. It was t-shirt weather and warm enough to put washing on the line. I started by sowing some celeric (Monarch) and leeks (Musselburgh and Lyon 2 - Prizetaker). The celeriac puzzles me. Is it a root or leaf crop? According to the rules of crop rotation, it is a root. However, according to Moon Calendar, it is a leafy crop. For today's purposes, it was a root crop.
See piccie below to see the leeks. Like last year, I sowed these in some deep pots that came with some fruit canes, to give them room to grow downwards.
There seem to be some mushrooms growing in one of the pots on the patio. I am guessing they aren't edible but I'd be interested to know what they are.
So, I collected up my chitted spuds and headed over to the plot. I needed to finish off Bed 8 by cutting around the edge and then arranged the 48 (16 of each of the three varieties) seed spuds over the bed (see piccie below).
I used a trowel to put these in. I reckon this got them in deeper than the bulb planter did last year. Talk around the site suggests that using a trowel is the most popular method (as opposed to digging trenches). I'll earth them up once they appear.
I then hurriedly dug over part of Bed 5 in order to put some garlic and shallots (seed in). Some of the garlic had shrivelled away to nothing but there were some usable cloves. Fingers crossed that these prove viable.
Below is a piccie of the root crops I wanted to get started this weekend.
Yesterday was not a bad day - a bit cloudy at times with bright spells. Once digging over on the plot, it was quite warm but when I stopped, I felt the chilly breeze. I dug over the remainder of Bed 8. I wanted to sow some root crops in Bed 1, according to my plan (made back in August), but that bed needs some prep. I used a section of Bed 2 instead - the spot that had been dug over by the Bramble Man. It was a tad rough but a bit of raking and watering helped. I sowed the following:
- carrot (came free with a magazine along with some lettuce and have lost the original packet so I am not sure of its exact variety);
- spring onions (Ishikuro);
- beetroot (Bolthardy);
- radish (Rainbow Mixed).
I covered the carrot over with a mesh tunnel to stop the nasty carrot fly.
Today was a lovely sunny day reaching the heady heights of 15-16 degrees. It was t-shirt weather and warm enough to put washing on the line. I started by sowing some celeric (Monarch) and leeks (Musselburgh and Lyon 2 - Prizetaker). The celeriac puzzles me. Is it a root or leaf crop? According to the rules of crop rotation, it is a root. However, according to Moon Calendar, it is a leafy crop. For today's purposes, it was a root crop.
See piccie below to see the leeks. Like last year, I sowed these in some deep pots that came with some fruit canes, to give them room to grow downwards.
There seem to be some mushrooms growing in one of the pots on the patio. I am guessing they aren't edible but I'd be interested to know what they are.
So, I collected up my chitted spuds and headed over to the plot. I needed to finish off Bed 8 by cutting around the edge and then arranged the 48 (16 of each of the three varieties) seed spuds over the bed (see piccie below).
I used a trowel to put these in. I reckon this got them in deeper than the bulb planter did last year. Talk around the site suggests that using a trowel is the most popular method (as opposed to digging trenches). I'll earth them up once they appear.
I then hurriedly dug over part of Bed 5 in order to put some garlic and shallots (seed in). Some of the garlic had shrivelled away to nothing but there were some usable cloves. Fingers crossed that these prove viable.
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Respite from the showers
Things did clear a little at 1500ish so, after GQT, I gathered up the logs and branches and headed over to the plot. Now, as I am back on the sofa writing this, the rain has come back. It was glove weather today - much chillier than the past couple of weeks.
The piccie below shows the extent of the digging a couple of days ago.
Bed 8 is in the foreground and is only half-dug over. The next piccie shows where I had hurriedly covered the broad beans (yet to show) in Bed 3 with fleece on Wednesday night given the forecast of a hard frost.
I piled up the logs near the fence right at the bottom of the plot. You can see them in the piccie below not far from the apple tree which is generally agreed to be on my plot (I had assumed it was my neighbour's). The bramble man (as I will now call him) has done some pruning so it should crop nicely this year.
A peek into the raised beds showed lots of nice salad leaves to harvest (see piccies below for the Mispoona, Spicy Mix and Little Gem).
I cut some of the Mispoona and Spicy Mix but have left the Little Gem to get bigger. It is great to be able to pick this stuff at the start of March.
Before leaving the plot, I removed the fleece from the broad beans to allow the rain to get to them.
Next week, my priorities should be sowing (especially parsnips, leeks and salad, perhaps tomatoes) and digging (finishing Bed 8 and tidying up 2 or 3 other beds). There might be time for some hoeing, and harvesting of leeks and parsnips but those are lower down on the to-do list. Depending on the weather, I plan to plant my spuds in 2 weeks time though it may be possible/tempting to do that next weekend - a few other allotmenteers have already put theirs in.
The piccie below shows the extent of the digging a couple of days ago.
Bed 8 is in the foreground and is only half-dug over. The next piccie shows where I had hurriedly covered the broad beans (yet to show) in Bed 3 with fleece on Wednesday night given the forecast of a hard frost.
I piled up the logs near the fence right at the bottom of the plot. You can see them in the piccie below not far from the apple tree which is generally agreed to be on my plot (I had assumed it was my neighbour's). The bramble man (as I will now call him) has done some pruning so it should crop nicely this year.
A peek into the raised beds showed lots of nice salad leaves to harvest (see piccies below for the Mispoona, Spicy Mix and Little Gem).
I cut some of the Mispoona and Spicy Mix but have left the Little Gem to get bigger. It is great to be able to pick this stuff at the start of March.
Before leaving the plot, I removed the fleece from the broad beans to allow the rain to get to them.
Next week, my priorities should be sowing (especially parsnips, leeks and salad, perhaps tomatoes) and digging (finishing Bed 8 and tidying up 2 or 3 other beds). There might be time for some hoeing, and harvesting of leeks and parsnips but those are lower down on the to-do list. Depending on the weather, I plan to plant my spuds in 2 weeks time though it may be possible/tempting to do that next weekend - a few other allotmenteers have already put theirs in.
Waiting to get out
Earlier in the week, forecasts suggested that today might be ok for gardening. The chance of some light showers perhaps. It is now hailing (though it started and finished by the time I wrote that phrase). The wind is quite strong and it has been raining on and off for the last couple of hours. I am hoping this will past by 1500ish. I need to take some logs over to the plot. Most of these are from my neighbour who had some well-established hedges removed. I have a few from the remains of 2 Christmas trees. I plan to pile these up at the bottom of the plot to provide a small habitat for friendly bugs. There is also the rest of last year's Christmas tree which I have chopped up into 3 inch pieces to rot down.
Since my previous post, I did visit the plot for a bit of a dig. I only managed half of Bed 8. The bramble chap called me over for a spot of lunch which was lovely.
Another brief hail while I type...
This morning's inspection of the seed trays upstairs show some more germination (the aubergines poked through a couple of days ago). The sweet peppers and a couple of the chillies (Iranian Round and Westlandse) have showed themselves. I forgot about the marigolds which were in a different room. They look nice and strong, not leggy at all, and must have germinated a fews days ago.
The photo below shows the aubergines (bottom left), sweet peppers (bottom right) and marigolds (top).
The next photo shows the 4 pots of chillies all covered by a single clear bin bag. The two pots that showed germination this morning were the two at the bottom end of the bag (furthest from the opening which is folded under the tray to keep the heat in) so may have been a little warmer. I am guessing that this is why they have come through first. Just a guess. I have since swapped the pots around in an attempt to even things up.
Now the evenings are getting a tad lighter, there are a couple of smallish jobs I need to attend to soon. First, fixing the cold frame in the garden after our cat has finally broken the polycarbonate lids out of their frames. That must have given her a bit of a shock when it happened. Second, making a mushroom box out of a pallet I have been given. I have meant to grow mushrooms for a while.
Now the rain has stopped but I will wait things out while listening to Gardeners' Questions Time.
Since my previous post, I did visit the plot for a bit of a dig. I only managed half of Bed 8. The bramble chap called me over for a spot of lunch which was lovely.
Another brief hail while I type...
This morning's inspection of the seed trays upstairs show some more germination (the aubergines poked through a couple of days ago). The sweet peppers and a couple of the chillies (Iranian Round and Westlandse) have showed themselves. I forgot about the marigolds which were in a different room. They look nice and strong, not leggy at all, and must have germinated a fews days ago.
The photo below shows the aubergines (bottom left), sweet peppers (bottom right) and marigolds (top).
The next photo shows the 4 pots of chillies all covered by a single clear bin bag. The two pots that showed germination this morning were the two at the bottom end of the bag (furthest from the opening which is folded under the tray to keep the heat in) so may have been a little warmer. I am guessing that this is why they have come through first. Just a guess. I have since swapped the pots around in an attempt to even things up.
Now the evenings are getting a tad lighter, there are a couple of smallish jobs I need to attend to soon. First, fixing the cold frame in the garden after our cat has finally broken the polycarbonate lids out of their frames. That must have given her a bit of a shock when it happened. Second, making a mushroom box out of a pallet I have been given. I have meant to grow mushrooms for a while.
Now the rain has stopped but I will wait things out while listening to Gardeners' Questions Time.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Back to digging
I spent my day off work mainly on the allotment. It was a sunny but nippy day. 5 hours digging meant that I was cosy and warm most of the time but could feel the cold when I stopped for a spot of lunch with a fellow allotmenteer who was putting up a polytunnel on his plot. There were a few people around making the most of the sunshine.
The very same chap made a start on digging over part of my plot (not entirely with my ok but that's another story) to reclaim areas next to Beds 1 and 2 which had been subsumed by the path between my plot and the neighbour's. Today, I dug over the rest of that side right down beside Beds 4, 6 and 8. My back now aches a bit but that is cool. It really feels like I have done some exercise today.
While digging, I uncovered a fair bit of horseradish root which I relocated to Bed 5 next to the globe artichokes (after offering some to my lunchmate).
Back tomorrow to clear some more ground - probably Bed 8 ready for potatoes in a couple of weeks time.
The very same chap made a start on digging over part of my plot (not entirely with my ok but that's another story) to reclaim areas next to Beds 1 and 2 which had been subsumed by the path between my plot and the neighbour's. Today, I dug over the rest of that side right down beside Beds 4, 6 and 8. My back now aches a bit but that is cool. It really feels like I have done some exercise today.
While digging, I uncovered a fair bit of horseradish root which I relocated to Bed 5 next to the globe artichokes (after offering some to my lunchmate).
Back tomorrow to clear some more ground - probably Bed 8 ready for potatoes in a couple of weeks time.
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