What's Growing, What's Not

I've had a quick trip to the veggie patch - some good news, some not so good.

The peas from Grow Your Own magazine have sprouted. All of them! Yep, a whole 14 seeds in one packet. 

Peas, free from Grow Your Own magazine

As there were so few of them, I sowed them in a 10in pot. As the mice scoffed all my peas, sweetcorn and beans last year, I covered the pot with a propagator lid to try and keep the mice out. It seems to have worked.

Using a propagator lid meant that I had to keep the pot in the greenhouse for the winter, otherwise the lid would have just blown off outdoors.





Propagator lids also worked with the broad beans. We have 31 of them and another one sprouting.

Aquadulce Claudia

I had actually sown 45 of them, so this isn't a bad result. I'll get them planted out soon.

Onion sets in seed trays

There were actually 4 seed trays of onions. They've sprouted, but gone a bit soft. I have no idea if they'll survive or not, but might as well try, nothing to lose except a bit of time.











What hasn't worked so well is the garlic - all the elephant garlic planted outside in tubs have been pulled up and the green shoots have been eaten. I had also planted 2 large tubs of ordinary garlic and left them in the greenhouse. There were probably 15-20 cloves planted. Only 3 have survived - the rest have been pulled up - there are bits of roots left that show where the cloves were. I'll plant some more. I don't know if we'll get enough cold nights for it to split, but if all we end up with is rounds, that's fine - it's still usable!

Leeks are "ok". The big ones are about half an inch thick. The small ones are still like blades of grass. This is the first time I've grown leeks beyond the "blade of grass" stage. I sowed them too thickly in pots so they were too crowded to thicken up, and planted them out far too late to grow to full size. But I'm happy to have leeks and we'll use them.

I've also learnt a good lesson about growing leeks and potatoes. This year I'll grow early spuds in the ground so that I dig them up in summer and plant the leeks out earlier. I'll also sow the leeks thinner so they have room to thicken up.

And the first rhubarb is sprouting. Won't be long till we get our first rhubarb crumble this year!