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.

And More Shopping, More Sowing, More Digging, More Planting

The last 2 weeks or so have been very busy. So much to do in the veggie patch - not just the normal sowing, digging and planting, but even more, partly due to not doing much last year, and partly because Her Ladyship just can't stop shopping! 

She picked up loads more seeds including Iceberg lettuce, several courgettes and squashes, plus some chillies, carrots and tomatoes (which we already had, but always going to need more of), a horseradish root, some spring onions, and a few other bits.

Last weekend
We popped down the garden centre to get some more seed potatoes as most of the ones we had were rotten, and to look for nice pots for the olives. We came away with 2 bags of seed potatoes (half price), 4 herb plants (because Her Ladyship had already bought the herb planters and didn't want to wait months for herbs to grow), 5 large pots for the olives and other things, another olive (much bigger than the ones we already have) and a peach tree.

I planted the cherry tree and 63 shallots and dug over part of the salad bed. Half the salad bed still has potatoes in from last year - I'll need to dig them up soon. I then spent 2 hours putting the new fence post in and putting the fence together again. Only two more posts to do on that fence (for now).

My son and I then finished digging out the first pallet compost bin. The bottom half was full of roots, so no good to use. Half the roots are thick and woody, possibly from the tree over the back, the other half seem to be bramble roots that have spread everywhere in the compost. The contents of the bin are now bagged up and I'll take them to the council dump for the green waste bins. In return I'll pick up loads more Croypost to use as a mulch.

Her Ladyship sowed loads of broccoli as the ones in the greenhouse had died, and another 96 peas as the mice had eaten the ones in the greenhouse. She planted out the Winter Gem lettuce - they were still in the 3.5in pots they'd been in for months. The olives, lemon, orange and fig were planted in the new large pots and the herbs were planted in the herb planters.

The Last Week
It's been a very hot week and I've plodded along doing something every day.

I dug over part of the onion bed and planted out about 60 Stuttgarter Giant and 60 Red Baron. We still have 40 reds in the greenhouse ready for planting out. I started another 80 Stuttgarter Giant in the 2 inch pots. These are the last of the onions for the summer.

I cleared remaining brambles along the rhubarb / plum side where the currants will go, and dug it over, breaking my fork in the process. I have now planted the blackcurrant, whitecurrant, redcurrant and blueberry. The are all several feet apart. Next winter I'll dig up the rhubarb and split the crowns and plant the newly split crowns between the currants.

Her Ladyship has sown loads more of everything. I've lost track for now, but will catch up with what she's sown over the next week or so ....

February Sowings

I've always heard about how women love to shop and how they love a bargain. Well true to form, my partner has been out bargain hunting! I should really have known what was going to happen when she moved in with 400 pairs of shoes and 80 handbags. Yes, really, she does have that many pairs of shoes and handbags!

She pops in all sorts of shops when she's at work and found some seed potatoes, onion sets and shallots in the pound shop. She bought some. They were a bargain at only �1. Apparently!  I'm not complaining though, I think it's great!! There weren't many seed potatoes in each bag - only 8 in the first and 10 in the second - but about 50 onions in each bag. That means the onions are half the price they are in the normal garden centres.

Anyway, today was the day we finally got round to sowing loads of stuff - not just the cheapy stuff she found in the pound shop, but other seeds we had and other seed potatoes and onion sets we'd bought. We've had a couple of cold weeks, snow that lasted a week or so, and now it's quite mild again and the weather forecast is looking good for the next few days.

Potatoes - Swift - 1st Early
These were the pound shop seed potatoes. There were only 8 in the pack and all were sprouting, so we put them in buckets for the patio. 4 inches of compost in the bottom of the bucket, spud on top (sprouts pointing upwards), then cover with more compost. Keep topping up as the leaves grow and come through until the buckets are full.

We have loads more seed potatoes - 2nd Earlies from the pound shop, and King Edward and ?? from the garden centre. We'll probably plant the 2nd Earlies in sacks of compost, and the King Edwards will go in the potato bed in the veggie patch.

Elephant Garlic
Hands up if you've been given an elephant garlic bulb as a Christmas present! We did!! We used a couple of cloves in cooking and decided to plant the rest. So 6 cloves into 6 inch pots of compost.

Garlic needs frost / cold weather to encourage it to split into cloves, so this might be the wrong time to plant it. It might need to stay in pots until summer next year. We'll have to wait and see.

Carrots
Another 3 troughs. 1 each of Nantes Frubund, Early Nantes and Rainbow. The rainbow carrots said to sow from March, but it's quite mild weather and we'll be keeping the troughs in the greenhouse for a few weeks, so decided to take a chance on sowing them now.

Cauliflower
Back in the autumn we found Romanesco cauliflower in Surrey Street Market in Croydon. And then we found the seeds in the garden centre, so we just had to have some! It kind of looks like something from another planet - it's green and spikey, but it's definitely cauliflower and tastes like normal cauliflower. And while we were in the garden centre, we found Purple Grafitti Cauliflower seeds - this looks the same as normal cauliflower, but it's purple.

We sowed 4 Romanesco, 4 Purple Grafitti, 16 All Year Round. We love cauliflower, so we'll be sowing more in a couple of months.

Broccoli
We love broccoli too. There are enough varieties (broccoli and calabrese) to ensure we can pick broccoli all year round, and we have several varieties of seeds here. We already have 15 Summer Purple growing in the greenhouse, so today we sowed:
16 Green Magic
8 Summer Purple
We'll be sowing more in a couple of months.

Tomatoes
We want literally as many tomatoes as we can grow. If we don't eat them in salads and sandwiches, we can cook them or freeze them for later. We are going to need LOADS of big pots! So the list of todays sowings is:

24 Moneymaker
4 Belle (Beef tomato)
1 Shirley (as it was the only one left in the packet)
19 Pomodoro
4 Tumbling Tom (Cherry) for growing from hanging baskets
4 Sungold (Cherry)
16 Gardeners Delight (Cherry)

Chillies & Peppers
We love chillies and peppers too, so need to grow loads of these. The sweet pepper seeds we sowed last month did nothing, and I don't normally have much luck with chillies, so hoping for better results with these. Today we sowed:
Chilli (Cayenne)
Chilli (Hot Stuff)
Chilli (Twilight)
Pepper (Caribbean Blend)
Sweet Pepper (Worldbeater)

Cucumber
Had trouble finding greenhouse cucumbers this year. Only found one variety called Bangkok. The packet says 5 seeds per pack - we got lucky, we got 6! OK, so we're not going to need loads and loads of seeds, but it still seems a bit tight of the seed companies to only put 5 (or 6) seeds in a pack. Anyway, we sowed 4 today, wait and see what happens ....

Celery
Never had much luck with celery before, but love it, so trying again this year. 4 Lathoms Galaxy sown. Will do more later. Must find out the best ways to grow it.

Spinach
Baby spinach leaves are always good in salads, and bigger leaves are good in a curry etc. I've always managed to grow spinach just fine, so sowed:
8 Hector
8 Picasso
I'll sow some spinach beet this year too and hopefully find a permanent home for it.

Onions
The other half found Stetton and Stuttgarter onions in the pound shop - approx 50 per bag. We picked up 100 Red Baron and 100 Stuttgarter Giant from the garden centre too.
Packs often have a few more than they say, but some are dried up or rotten, so it's always just approximate. We planted:
100 Red Baron
50 Stuttgarter (from pound shop)
10 Stuttgarter (from garden centre)
all in 2in pots to give them a head start against the weeds in the onion bed. We'll start the other onions in a couple of weeks time.

And Then ....
.... it was time for a well earned cuppa. We've got loads more sowing and planting to do, and loads of other garden jobs to do. It's going to be a very busy year!

The New Year Update

A little bit overdue ..... been very busy with sorting the house out and decorating, not had much time for any updates on here .... will try and do regular updates all year now!

Onions
Last October we started a whole load of winter onions in 2in pots. They started off well, and about 110 were planted out in the veggie patch around the end of November. The rest stayed in the greenhouse in the 2in pots.
I'm a bit disappointed because a lot of those that were planted out have just "disappeared". It looks like they have been pulled out by birds or trampled or kicked around by the foxes. On the plus side, I'll still have plenty of the early summer and I'm ready with the summer onion sets (see the next post).

Herbs
The whole lot failed to sprout. Guessing the greenhouse over winter (even a mild winter) is not a good way to start them.

Carrots
The carrots sown at the beginning of October seem to be doing well in the greenhouse. They are in large troughs. The second sowings of carrots sown mid-October were quite poor - one trough had just the one seedling, so given up with that - emptied it to start again.

Garlic & Elephant Garlic
The normal garlic (from supermarket bulbs), planted early October, is looking really good - big strong thick stems growing straight up. The elephant garlic planted mid-November has sprouted, only a couple of inches tall, but looks good and healthy.

Cabbage & Cauliflower
All sprouted but died. They were sown early October - guessing that's a bit late to sow them - they probably didn't have enough time to grow big enough and strong enough to survive the winter in the greenhouse.

Winter Gem Lettuce
Doing well - clumps of leaves about 4-6 inches tall. We've had some leaves for salad. I'm going to set up a cloche next weekend and hopefully plant a few under that soon after, and plant others outside to see what happens.

Pickles, Chutneys and Jams
We made some jams late last year - they've gone down a treat! We made some pickles and chutneys too - I'll get round to posting the recipes on here soon. My favourite was tomato and chilli chutney - tastes amazing with cheese and crackers! We'll be making loads more this year!

Life in General
Life is good! After 11 years as a single parent, I now have a partner living with me and everything just seems so easy. I'm a lot more motivated with work, the house, garden etc - it's all good! I have cleared and decorated the box room, so I now have a home office. I have cleared half the loft and lagged it. We have been out in the garden clearing brambles. We must have taken 10 car loads of crap to the dump! The house is looking much nicer now - although it was "mostly clean, mostly tidy", it was lacking that woman's touch that makes it look better - the pictures on the walls, the ornaments, the things that make a house look homely.

And best of all, she loves growing fruit and veg and cooking it too! It's going to be a really good year!!

Pickled Onions - Part 1

Some of the onions didn't grow much - barely worth the effort of peeling, slicing and cooking - so decided to pickle them! And they are the perfect size too!

We have some red and some yellow, so we're going to pickle some of each. Having looked at various pickled onion recipies, we're going to pickle some in pickling vinegar and some in malt vinegar with a mix of spices.

We topped, tailed and peeled the first batch of onions and put the in a bowl of salty water, using a small plate to push the onions below the water. The salty water apparently helps to partially separate the layers in the onions, which helps to let the pickling spices penetrate the whole onion. We left them there for 24 hours before rinsing and drying them.

Once dry, we put the onions into two jars. We re-use old jars rather than buying new: we don't like waste, old jars are perfectly fine so long as they're cleaned and sterilised. One jar is an Uncle Ben's jar, the other was a Sainsbury's jam jar - we chose these as they were the right size for all the onions we'd prepared. Both were washed in the dishwasher and then sterilised with some boiling water. We then packed the onions into the two jars.

For the first batch of onions, we chose to use Sarson's pickling vinegar, partially because it's one of those on the list to try, and partially to save time on preparation. We poured the pickling vinegar in to the jars, filling both to the top, then put the lids on. Job done! And here they are:

These will stay in the cupboard for a couple of months or so before we try them. We'll do the next batch soon ...

Winter Onions

We stopped off at the garden centre today and picked up some onion sets for overwintering. Varieties are:
Electric (Red)
Troy (Yellow)
Senshyu (Yellow)
Each pack has approx 50 onions.

In the past, I have started onions in 2 inch round pots. 2 or 3 weeks later, I dig over the onion bed and clear all the weeds, and then plant out the onions. By this time, they normally have good roots and the stems have reached 4-6 inches. This gives them a really good headstart against the weeds.

In spring this year, I was working full time, which meant I didn't have time to plant in pots and transplant later, so I planted the onion sets directly into a freshly dug onion bed. Sadly the weeds took control and the onions didn't grow very well.

Today I reverted to the old method. Some were a bit dried out and simply won't grow, but as there are normally a few extra in each pack, we managed to get 150 onions into the small pots. All are in the greenhouse now.

Rain at last!

We've just had a week of badly needed rain. As I really only have potatoes, onions and sweetcorn on the allotment, and they only need watering, I haven't been up there for a week. However, I will go up there this week and pick all the redcurrants and gooseberries.

Fruit at home is doing well. I've picked about a pound of raspberries or loganberries per day from the garden - I have several pounds of each in the freezer, ready for making jam. The gooseberry jam at home has gone. I'll be making some more this week, along with either raspberry jam or loganberry jam.

The rhubarb crowns I split seem to be doing well. 3 of the crowns in the ground have new shoots, along with the one in the bucket. The other 3 are showing no signs of life at the moment. The big old crown in the old rhubarb bed is still doing well - it looks like that needs splitting into 3 crowns this winter.

I've picked some of the small Iceberg lettuces at home. Not sure if they were Mini Green or Little Gem, but they were good.

The seeds I sowed just over a week ago are doing fine - loads of seedlings showing, especially PSB. Hopefully will have time to build a frame and set up some netting for them this time. I'd rather feed me than the pigeons!