Planting Out the Salad Bed

Now that we have some sunshine at last, I've managed to plant out the salads bed, although strictly speaking, there isn't much "salad" stuff in there.

First 2 bean wigwams

We planted out the mangetout and the first of the runners and french beans a couple of weeks ago, but then had endless rain. The mice scoffed most of my bean seeds, so we picked up some french bean seedlings from B&Q. We set up another 2 wigwams and planted the new beans, with iceberg lettuce inside the wigwams.








I dug over and levelled the rest of the bed and planted out the sweetcorn, courgettes, marrows, pumpkins, butternut squash and an outdoor cucumber. I'm going with the 3 sisters methods to maximise use of space, so it's a bit of a tight squeeze. Sweetcorn is in a block, each plant about 15in apart. In the middle of each 4 sweetcorn is a squash, cucumber or similar. When the sweetcorn is big enough I'll sow more french or runner beans up each sweetcorn, although maybe only on the ones we can reach easily.

Planting Plan

The planting plan is shown in the image. Not all the plants are in yet - some of the sweetcorn isn't big enough and one of the cucumbers is too small.

The pumpkin, marrow and butternut squash are in the middle where we can simple leave them. We need to reach the courgettes and cucumbers, so they're in the more reachable spaces.

Beans & Mangetout

Runners by greenhouse, French beans nearest camera

I set up the first two wigwams this morning and planted out the 11 beans that have taken. 5 Purple Cascade French beans and 6 runner beans (maybe Red Rum but can't be sure).

I've planted an Iceberg lettuce inside each wigwam. I saw this in an old gardening book with lettuce planted inside rows of bean canes. Beans put nitrogen into the soil, lettuces take it out, so the two should work together. Also, having the lettuce inside helps cover some of the ground and helps to keep weeds down. Well, that's the theory.

It's a bit disappointing that we've had poor results from the beans so far. We sowed about 56 beans, always two to a pot, but only 11 have sprouted. I've lost the seed packets now so can't sow any more. I know I put them somewhere safe ..... I'll pick some more seeds up soon, just in case. I'll need more anyway so I can grow beans up the sweetcorn, if the sweetcorn actually grows.

We've had really poor results from peas this year too - we must have sown over 200 in the greenhouse, but barely a dozen sprouted and all died pretty quickly. We tried several varieties but no real luck. The mice scoffed some of the early sowings, and the rest just didn't take.

Mangetout between beans and Winter Gem lettuce

Mangetout has grown well though. We sowed 24 of them in cardboard pots and about 21 of them sprouted. The poor weather meant we couldn't prepare the ground and plant out, so they stayed in the greenhouse much longer than we wanted. They had all put on good growth, some reaching 8 inches, but had turned very pale, almost white. Hopefully they'll take to the open ground - they seem fairly strong, even though they're pale. I'm not sure how high they'll grow, so might need to increase the height of the netting later.

Potting On & Sowings

The rain has barely stopped this month, but we took advantage of a couple of hours sunshine on Sunday to get down the veggie patch and sort out the greenhouse. The greenhouse is now tidy and organised again.

Mice & Sweetcorn / Peas / Beans
The mice have scoffed more sweetcorn and some of the beans - we have sown 15 more beans into cells. Peas have been very disappointing. We originally sowed 96, but the mice scoffed them. We sowed more, still only a total of 12 have come up so far. We now have new peas (Early Onward and another) and have sown another 24 of each. All of these are now covered to keep the mice out.

I remember reading about an old trick to stop the mice eating seeds - soak the seeds in parafin before sowing. This is the first time I've had problems with mice eating seeds so never tried it before. I don't have any parafin so can't try it yet, but if I ever get round to getting a greenhouse heater, I'll have the parafin so will try the soaking trick.

Tomatoes

The greenhouse is looking very full

The missus managed to sow about 126 tomato plants (lots of varieties). She got a bit carried away! We potted on and now have 60 tomato plants in 3.5in pots. I pulled the rest of them up and put them in the compost. The missus was very sad :( She would love to have kept them, but there are a couple of issues like finding space for them all and I don't think she realises just how much watering and pinching out she'll be doing this summer!

Chillies & Peppers
Not looking great at the moment. We have a small handful of seedlings from several trays of sowings. It might just take more time for more to come through.

Lettuce, Spinach & Salads
The new Iceberg lettuce is doing well in the greenhouse. We have a handful of other salad seedlings like pak choi and spinach - we simply haven't sown enough, so we now have another tray sown. We will need to do some more pretty soon. The pak choi seems to take a lot longer to grow than spinach and lettuce, so best sowing them separately.

The lettuce and spinach we planted out into the patio tubs isn't looking very healthy. It's probably been too cold and wet. But never mind, we've sown a lot more so can replant the tubs later if we need to.

Radish
French Breakfast radish was sown in seed trays of compost and both trays are doing well, but drying out very quickly now. They are starting to swell. Aim is to do one tray every 3 or 4 weeks so we have a constant supply of radish. The long rooted Hilds Roter radish is looking very healthy in the trough in the greenhouse. We have more to sow next month.

Carrots, Parsnip & Beetroot

Our first carrot this year!

We have a few Boltardy beetroot seedlings showing in the outdoor trough. The parsnip trough was looking good with 2 rows of healthy looking seedlings. However, it was waterlogged with the recent rain, so is now back in the greenhouse. All troughs of carrots are looking good.

I pulled up a single carrot from the first October sowing - it's looking good, but we'll probably leave them longer.

Onions & Garlic
The garlic and elephant garlic are looking good - the elephant garlic is looking very strong and healthy. I poked around in one of the garlic troughs yesterday, not much in the way of swelling of the bulbs yet. I'll be very surprised if it's ready in 2 months time, but no problem if it takes longer.

The winter onions are not doing too well. Even more have "disappeared" and some of those remaining are looking a bit squishy, like they're starting to rot in the wet. The summer onions are looking fine and healthy. I still have 160 in 2" pots. 120 of these are in a cold frame - there simply isn't room in the greenhouse and I want to protect them from the heavy rain which could simply wash the compost out of the pots.

Cabbage, Cauliflower, Broccoli & Kale

Trays of everything in the greenhouse

Lots of seedlings have come up, most are looking good, but some are a bit stringy. Some of the red cabbage got eaten by slugs or snails, but the tray is now covered and the remainder seem to be doing well. Brassicas tend to take up a lot of space, so most will end up in pots after the tomatoes and potatoes have finished.

Potatoes
Everything seems ok so far. I took a quick look at the bags under the weed sheeting - the sheeting seems to be helping - the compost is moist, not soaked, and despite the cold weather, the compost is quite warm. The leaves are coming up nicely - not enough to earth up just yet. 

6in pot of leeks outside

Leeks
Several pots of leeks are doing well, some in the greenhouse, some outside. It looks like we'll have a lot of leeks over the winter!

We found more seeds at the weekend for a larger variety of leeks, so have sown some of them too.

Update

It's been a very cold and wet month so far. We've had some warm sunny spells, but only for a few hours on the odd day here and there. It's not been the best weather for gardening, so we've been decorating and sorting the house instead.

I've popped down the greenhouse to make sure everything is ok and water as required. One night of frost seems to have killed off our 3 grape vines - I'm not sure why Wilkinson's would sell grape vines that couldn't survive the local weather, so will be contacting them about it.

Not much action with the sweetcorn - only 2 out of 30 have come up so far. A root around in a couple of sweetcorn pots showed no seed left, so have re-sown them. Have also sown another 12, this time Swift.

Not much action with the peas either. Out of 48 each of Oasis and Jaguar, only about 10 have sprouted so far. Guess that's the end of my hopes of early peas - time to replace with normal peas, probably Kelvedon Wonder again. Ho hum.

We've made up 3 salad tubs for the patio. They have a mix of various loose leaf lettuces, spinach and a couple of pak choi. I'd prefer to have more variety including rocket and mizuna, but it seems that lettuce grows much faster than the rocket, and I don't have any mizuna this year. Not to worry though, we have plenty more salad tubs so we should plenty of variety.

I've also sown runner beans and french beans in pots in the greenhouse. We have green and purple French beans and 2 varieties of runner beans.