NEW PLOT!

A couple of months ago, I had the good news that I had a new plot!

It's a full size plot - 4 large beds that had been dug over and hardly used for a couple of years - looks in pretty good condition - could have been a lot worse! Sadly no shed ...

Left Side

Right Side

There's a path on the left, another down the middle, another on the right. The front bed (1) is sheeted over with plastic. Then there are a few raspberry canes and another bed (3), uncovered, quite a lot of dandelions in there.

Beyond that is a huge clump of rhubarb that desperately needs dividing. Beyond that is enough space for another bed. The old shed used to be down there.




On the right is another uncovered bed (2) with a few shallow weeds. Beyond that is a bed (4) covered in blue plastic and then space for another bed beyond that.

The remains of the old shed are on the plot. It burnt down a while ago. I'm using the pieces to cover parts of the plot until I can clear, dig and plant them.

While it all looks 'ok', there's a lot of work to do .....


I started with some carpet - very handy for keeping the weeds down. A local carpet fitter had a car load, just enough to cover the front right bed. I got a huge room size carpet which covered part of the bottom end of the plot. While collecting these, I cracked a rib. I sowed hundreds of seeds at home - anything and everything.

I pulled back the blue sheeting and dug over bed 3 on the plot and planted loads of spuds. Due to time and cracked rib, it was only a quick dig, no earthing up. I dug over about 1/4 of bed 3, dug out loads of dandelions, sowed a few rows of carrots.

Sadly, seed sowing at home was a total disaster. Very little sprouted. Brassicas cooked on hot days. Sweetcorn and beans were eaten by mice or slugs. Salads disappeared. With re-sowings, I got enough to fill an 8x8 bed at home, nothing for the plot. Leeks in buckets have done ok so far, ready for transplanting to the plot.

With nothing to plant on the plot and the cracked rib, I didn't go to the plot much. It was covered anyway, just hoped that mother nature would rain and shine on the spuds and carrots. I sowed some cauliflower and PSB for autumn / winter - these are nearly ready for planting.

As leeks are ready now, I've been to the plot again this week. Not too bad - some of those long straggly weeds over the carpets, some brambles and nettles at the bottom, so grass coming through holes in plastic sheeting etc. A couple of hours later I'd cleared quite a lot of it, moved some carpets around. Bed 2 (the front right above) is now uncovered and almost ready for the leeks - just needs a quick hoe and pop some holes in.

The spuds on the plot have mostly died back. Carrots were a no-show. I thinks it's just been too hot and dry for them all. Since the wettest winter on record, it's been quite dry.

In fact, right now, it's a heatwave, temperatures of 30C+ forecast for tomorrow and not far off that torday. I'm heading to the plot soon to hoe and pop some holes in for the leeks. I'll pop down in the morning to plant out .....

And I'll try and keep this blog updated more often ....

Planting Out Broad Beans

We've had a bit of sunshine over the last couple of months, but it's been pretty cold - barely above freezing. This week we finally had a warm and sunny day so I took the opportunity to plant out the broad beans.

Broad beans planted out

I sowed 45 Aquadulce Claudia a few months ago. 31 of them had sprouted and were planted out in 2 pairs of rows.  They stayed in the seed trays in an unheated greenhouse all winter. They look pretty good!

They are in the bed that had the potatoes last year - I did plant some leeks here very late and they didn't grow any bigger than blades of grass, so I've pulled them up.

The veggie patch is looking generally ok. Fairly tidy, no major weed problems. The leeks are still small but looking good. We'll dig them up later this month.

The rhubarb is looking good. The big rhubarb has about 8 stalks coming up and the small one nearby is just starting to shoot. Three more small crowns behind the greenhouse have sprouted too - I thought they had all died last year, but it must have been just the cold, wet weather.

I had a quick tidy up in the greenhouse too and sorted out all the seed trays and cell modules. The peas I sowed a few months ago are now about 3in high. The first brassicas I sowed a couple of weeks ago have sprouted.

My seed potatoes are chitting. The onion sets are ready to go in the ground. I need to get a move on! I'll crack on with sowing more seeds this week.

First Sowings 2013

We had another sunny spell this afternoon, so squelched down the garden to sow some seeds in the greenhouse. As usual, seeds are sown in cell modules in seed trays.

4 Tomato Gardeners Delight
4 Tomato Belle
4 Tomato Sungold
4 Tomato Alicante
8 Sweet Pepper

8 Broccoli Summer Purple
8 Cauliflower All Year Round
8 Lettuce Winter Gem

10 Leeks Autumn Mammoth in a Morrisons bucket

I only had 10 leek seeds out of that pack of 150 seeds. The missus must have sown about 140 seeds into 2 large pots last year - that would have left them very crowded and not able to thicken up. The extra spacing this year should help.

I have a long plastic tunnel cloche - it was a bargain in the garden centre clearance last autumn. I'll probably set that up for the brassicas once I've cleared a bit of ground and tidied up.

Next job on the list is to sort the rest of the seeds so that I can so more soon!

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!

Sunshine at last!

Last year was a bit of a washout - the wettest year on record. The rain rarely stopped for long enough to let the ground dry out enough to work. It was gloomy most of the time, colder than normal - veggies didn't grow very well.

When it stopped raining, it was like "commando gardening" - get as much done as possible before the heavens opened up again. I planted out loads of brassicas for the winter - pigeons stripped the whole lot within days before I had a chance to set up frames and netting. Cauliflowers rotted. Demoralised, I kind of gave up.

However, I did sow a few more things in the greenhouse for overwintering - I had every intention of planting out, sowing more, but the weather was just depressing and I couldn't be bothered. The last time I went to the greenhouse was early December.

For the last week we've had sub-zero temperatures and thick snow - overnight it warmed up, rained, the snow melted away and we now have bright sunshine, so I'm off to the veggie patch and greenhouse to find out what's survived.

From memory, we should have:
4 elephant garlic in large tubs outside the greenhouse
1 sack of new potatoes in the greenhouse - they were meant for Christmas, but weren't doing very well so left them longer
3 seed trays of winter onion sets - the aim was to plant them out late October, but it didn't happen
1 tub of peas - these were the handful of seeds (about 13?) that came free with Grow Your Own magazine last year
24 broad beans (Aquadulce Claudia) - I did want to plant them out late last year, but no chance of that
80-100 small leeks planted out
various broccoli / kale (probably all just skeletal after the pigeons fed themselves)

I'm also going to sow a few seeds today. The sooner I start, the better. I've missed the growing .....