Just a quick note for myself. We popped out to the DIY shop, and as we were out, we popped in the nearby garden centre too. We had a look at the seeds, found loads of varieties we'd never seen before, so picked some up. Rude not to!
The missus still doesn't know the area very well, so we took a trip down to a nearby 'village', purely one of those looking around things. We stopped off at the other garden centre there too. Rude not to!
A bit of luck - they had the gardening shoes she wanted and new gardening gloves. So we got them. Rude not to!
Then it was back home to make a start in the garden. Major tidy up time. Cut out more brambles from the bed where the currants will go, sorted all the pots out, sowed some seeds and potatoes, set up the dalek composters.
We had loads of pots and troughs with potatoes, garlic, carrots and so on on the patio. I took them all down to the veggie patch so the patio is now clear. I also had to move about a dozen sacks of compost from the patio to the veggie patch.
Lots of work, lots of heavy lifting and carrying, time for a glass of red. Rude not to!
Saturday, 25 February 2012
Friday, 24 February 2012
Currants & Berries
When I had the allotment, I had a redcurrant bush and picked loads of redcurrants. Plans were for raspberry and redcurrant jam and redcurrant jelly, butI just didn't get round to doing anything with them. They're still in the freezer waiting for me to use them.
At some point over the last couple of months, there was a TV program on with chefs talking about "saving" great British foods. One episode included the whitecurrant. I'd never heard of whitecurrants before.
So I looked on a couple seed websites and found that T&M had an offer on a triple pack of currants including redcurrant, whitecurrant and blackcurrant. I grabbed my credit card and about 2 weeks later they arrived!
The missus found a blueberry bush in the pound shop so we've got that too.
I remember getting blueberry bushes a few years ago, but didn't get round to preparing the ground for them. I think I put them into pots, but think they'd been in the packet too long and had dried out and died.
This time round I'm not taking chances. The bed I'm planting them all in needs a fair bit of work to prepare it and I've got a zillion other jobs to do, so for the time being, I've planted them into large pots. I gave them a good soaking in a bucket of water for a couple of hours beforehand.
The redcurrant bush I had on the allotment was about 3ft high, 3ft wide. Hopefully these bushes will do the same. My gooseberries on the allotment were like that too, but my gooseberries at home are nowhere near that big, even though they are several years old. I'm pretty sure it has something to do with the pruning, so not sure if I should prune them or just let them grow wild. Research needed!
At some point over the last couple of months, there was a TV program on with chefs talking about "saving" great British foods. One episode included the whitecurrant. I'd never heard of whitecurrants before.
So I looked on a couple seed websites and found that T&M had an offer on a triple pack of currants including redcurrant, whitecurrant and blackcurrant. I grabbed my credit card and about 2 weeks later they arrived!
The missus found a blueberry bush in the pound shop so we've got that too.
I remember getting blueberry bushes a few years ago, but didn't get round to preparing the ground for them. I think I put them into pots, but think they'd been in the packet too long and had dried out and died.
This time round I'm not taking chances. The bed I'm planting them all in needs a fair bit of work to prepare it and I've got a zillion other jobs to do, so for the time being, I've planted them into large pots. I gave them a good soaking in a bucket of water for a couple of hours beforehand.
The redcurrant bush I had on the allotment was about 3ft high, 3ft wide. Hopefully these bushes will do the same. My gooseberries on the allotment were like that too, but my gooseberries at home are nowhere near that big, even though they are several years old. I'm pretty sure it has something to do with the pruning, so not sure if I should prune them or just let them grow wild. Research needed!
Sunday, 19 February 2012
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!
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!
Saturday, 18 February 2012
January Sowings
With the start of the new year and feeling really positive, we decided to sow a few trays of seeds early in January. Not much success though. All seeds were sown in cells and kept in the greenhouse, unheated.
15 Broccoli (Summer Purple) - all have sprouted, looking good
24 Cauliflower (All Year Round) - a few sprouted, but died
24 Tomatoes (Moneymaker and other varieties) - a few sprouted, but all died
24 Cabbage (can't remember but was a winter variety) - no sproutings
Not to worry - it's almost spring!
15 Broccoli (Summer Purple) - all have sprouted, looking good
24 Cauliflower (All Year Round) - a few sprouted, but died
24 Tomatoes (Moneymaker and other varieties) - a few sprouted, but all died
24 Cabbage (can't remember but was a winter variety) - no sproutings
Not to worry - it's almost spring!
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!!
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!!
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