Brassicas

After seemingly endless rain, we're now getting a mix of wet and dry days. As the forecast was for a dry day and we had loads to do in the veggie patch, we cancelled our day out to spend the day in the garden instead. And it rained.

Brassicas bed, greenhouse is to the right.

Luckily it wasn't heavy rain, just short showers. And the ground had dried out enough to make it diggable. So I dug over the whole brassicas bed and planted it out. I had recently dug over about half the bed anyway, so it wasn't too bad.

After sheeting over, I planted through. I will be covering the bed with an old gazebo frame and netting to keep the pigeons and butterflies off. Brassicas are quite large plants, so I've planted away from the edges where the netting will go.

I was a bit disappointed with the variety of brassicas, especially the lack of cauliflowers. We had wanted lots of coloured cauliflowers, but have only 1 Romanesco and 1 Purple Graffiti and a few Violetta. Many other brassicas had cooked in the greenhouse on the handful of hot days we've had. We will need to sow a lot more for the winter.

The total planted out in the brassicas bed is:
5 Cauliflower All Year Round
1 Cauliflower Purple Graffiti
1 Cauliflower Romanesco
7 Cauliflower Violetta
2 Red Cabbage Kalibos
3 Broccoli Summer Purple
4 Broccoli Belstar
4 Broccoli Green Magic

Other brassicas have been potted on into 5in pots. Later on we'll move them into the large flower buckets. The list so far is:
28 Kale Dwarf Green
12 Broccoli Summer Purple
3 Broccoli Green Magic
5 Broccoli Belstar

More sowings later.

More Plants and Trees

Someone said that giving a woman a credit card is a bit like putting a shark in charge of a swimming pool. And now I see why .....

She's been to Wilkinsons. We now have:
2 Olives
2 Grapes Pinot Noir
1 Grape Chardonnay
1 Lemon
1 Calamondin (an orange)
1 Fig
1 Kiwi

She's also been to B&Q and bought:
1 Cherry Tree
1 Ginger Root

She then went online and bought:
Cauliflower Violetta
Lemongrass
Tomato White Cherry

The olives, calamondin and lemon will be grown in pots all year round. The calamondin and lemon will need to come indoors in the winter - not sure, but maybe the olives will too. We will need to buy some nice ceramic pots for them sometime soon, but for the time being, I've planted them into 8 inch pots.

I've seen grapes and kiwis growing over pergolas and trellis, but we don't have any of that here. We've decided to replace the DIY pallet fence dividing the lawn from the veggie patch with a new trellis fence. The downside is that the vines growing over the trellis will partially shade the veggie patch, although I don't think it'll be too much of a problem if we keep the vines under control.

We won't have time to take the old fence down and put the new trellis fence up for a couple of weeks at best, so for the time being, I've planted the grapes into 10 inch pots and the kiwi into an 8 inch pot.

When I had the allotment, the plot next to mine had a 10ft fig tree. Our fig tree is only 10inches tall at the moment, so that's gone in an 8 inch pot too. Later on I'll plant it somewhere on the lawn - probably along the fence.

The cherry tree is 6ft tall. It's been grafted onto dwarf rooting stock and after 10 years should be about 10ft tall. I'll plant this somewhere on the lawn area too, again, most likely along the fence.

Cherries need another cherry tree nearby for pollination. Most people round here seem to have apple trees, but no cherry trees. I did actually discover that one of the 'council' trees in the street is a cherry tree, but it's quite a way down the street, so no idea if that's close enough for pollination.

In any case, the cherry tree we have will give us pink / yellow cherries and it would be nice to have a red or black cherry tree too, so that's on the shopping list now.

Also on the shopping list is an apricot tree. I think that's where we'll have to draw the line for this year - so much to do, so little time!