Yet more Seedlings

My stock of seedlings awaiting the allotment increased dramatically yesterday when I made a quick trip to Aldi.

They have just got in a batch of vegetable seedling plugs - a pack of 15 for £1.99.

I bought Winter Onions, Winter Cauliflower, Winter Cabbage, Spring Cabbage and Purple Sprouting Broccoli.

All I have to do is to transplant them into a proper seed module tray and water them in.  Once the roots start coming out of the bottom of the module it is time to plant them out.

The seedlings are in a tiny amount of compost which is sitting in a layer of gel (it is supposed to help with water retention and you can mix it with your compost in the seed tray if you want).

A quick spin around the seeds I have recently planted -

In the blow away almost everything is starting to show - both pumpkins are going well  (the Jack O' Lantern is doing best).



Jack O'Lantern on the left, Mammoth to the right





White Lisbon Spring Onions





Paris Market Carrots

The spring onions

are also coming on, as are the carrots. 



Kelvedon Wonder Peas



The peas are nearly an inch high and growing noticably every day - there is even a sigle kohl rabi sprout as well.

 

Basil - at last!

Best of all - there are a few basil coming up as well.  This will be the first time I have managed to get basil to germinate in over three years of trying, so I am very pleased with this.

Nothing from any of the courgettes as yet though, but they were only planted six days ago so I really shouldn't get too impatient just yet.

On last Monday evening I planted chillis, tomato, another pumpkin 'Mammoth', borlotti, sugar snap peas and radish on the box room windowsill, so they have only had four full days so far.

The only movement is from the radish.  It started to show after only two days, and this is where they are now.

Some of the seedlings are nearly an inch tall, and almost all the seeds have germinated meaning that I have two seedlings at each station.

I may try to transplant the weaker one of each pair, but I have read that radish doesn't like being transplanted, and you should seed it where it will be growing.

It will be interesting to see how the radish that I will move fare compared to those left behind.

Windowsill Goodies

Even though I have run out of room in the blow away, and the table in the front garden is completely covered with seedlings just waiting to be taken down to the allotment when I finally manage to get in there (8 days and counting!) I just had to pot up some more seeds tonight.

I am going to put them on the bedroom windowsill in the boxroom, right next to the computer so I will be able to take good care of them.

I sowed 9 radish 'French Breakfast' - I grew these last year but only managed to get a couple of them before they were munched by the pests, so I am hoping that by growing indoors I might be able to have a few more.  Sowed a couple of seeds per station.

There are three pots of Chilli 'Anaheim'.  We love chillis and already have some strong plants growing in the blow away, but I fancied trying a new variety.  Only put a single seed into each pot as I want to see how the Square Foot Gardening method of sowing works out - it is recommended to sow one or two per station.

Windowsill Goodies

There is a single pot of tomato 'Sweet Baby'.  I think this is a bush-type, and most of the others I already have growing are cordon, so I wanted a change.  About 4 seeds in this pot.

I have also got a pack of Borlotti and one of SugarSnaps - going to get them going tonight too.  I realise that they may be too late for this season, really, but hey - it's only a few seeds.

Finally, I couldn't resist potting up another pumpkin - 'Mammoth', just in case the one I potted in the blow away doesn't come up - no movement as yet.

Talking of the seeds in the blow away, I had another peek at the ones planted eight days ago.

Still no movement from either pumpkin, got a few peas showing now, quite a few carrots are starting to germinate and I even have a couple of spring onions coming through, but not a thing from the Basil.

I have never been able to get Basil to germinate, either inside or out - I really don't know what I'm doing wrong.

Time to check Google, I guess.

More Goodies for the Allotment

Last Friday I ventured out in the pouring rain to have a look at a plant Nursery near to where I work.

It was a tiny thing, round the back of a row of terraced houses but with an amazingly wide range of veggie plants for sale - lots more variety than I have found with the big boys.

I went with a list, unfortunately some had sold out but I still managed to come away with quite a haul.

6 x Calabrese 'Marathon'
6 x Purple Sprouting Broccoli (these did fantastically well for me last year, so I decided to have another try)
6 x Beetroot 'Boltardy' (not so good with these last year - never did manage to get one much more than a couple of inches across)
6 x Climbing French Bean 'Blue Lake Stringless'
6 x Onion 'Red Baron'
6 x Onion 'Rjinsburger 5'
6 x Viola
1 x Nasturtium 'Empress of India'
1 x Tomato 'Golden Gem'
1 x Tomato 'Little Sun'
1 x Chilli 'Jalapeno'
1 x Sweet Genovese Basil
1 x Coriander 'Calypso'

Garden table groaning with the weight of seedlings just waiting for a home at the allotment

I had a boot full of goodies - and the cost?  Only £16.25 !!

The owner was really helpful, recommending alternatives to things on my list that were out of stock.

If you are ever in South Manchester I can recommend the Chorlton Nursery

http://www.chorltonnursery.com/

All I have to do now is keep them alive and well until I can get my first bed set up on my allotment - hopefully within a couple of weeks.

More seeds

Sowed a load of seeds yesterday ready to be transplanted to the allotment as soon as I have a bed ready for them, which I am hoping will be around my birthday on July 10.

I put in loads of cucurbits (courgette family) as last year I put them in late, and although some small fruit formed almost all rotted from the flower end before they were big enough to pick.


I planted 3 x Courgette 'De Nice A Fruit Rond' (never had a round courgette before so really hoping these come up),  4 x Squash 'Patty Pan Custard White', 3 x Courgette 'All Green Bush', 3 x Courgette 'F1 Defender' and 3 x Courgette 'F1 Atena'

I had a few spaces left so I decided to try some Kohl Rabi 'Purple Vienna' - another veggie I have never grown, or even eaten for that matter.  I sowed three or four seeds in each 'plug' just in case some didn't germinate.



What I planted today.



I also planted out a couple of spare plants to replace the slug and snail eaten ones - a couple of Romanesque broccoli and a Cavolo Nero kale.  All my brassicas are now protected by pop bottle cloches.

I don't want to lose any more seedlings so the cloches will stay on until the plant is too big for them and hopefully big enough to survive the odd leaf being munched,

Fully loaded Blow Away

Had a quick look at the seeds I planted 10 days ago - no signs of anything from either of the pumpkins or the spring onions, but a couple of the Kelvedon Wonder peas are showing, and there is even a tiny bit of green from one of the Paris Market carrots.

One of the pepper plants in the blow away has got a flower on it.  Apparently they self-pollenate, so I may have at least one fruit this year.

Flowering Pepper

Also in the blow away is my single aubergine plant which is getting quite tall now, and looks like it has recovered from the slug attack a couple of weeks back.  Apart from the pumpkins I think that this is the plant I am most looking forwards to see growing.

Aubergine - Recovered after slug attack

Maybe I can do this gardening stuff after all!

One new thing I tried yesterday was to mulch round the leeks in my raised bed with grass clipplings.  It is supposed to keep water in the soil - not that we have had any problems with shortage of water recently! and also to deter slugs and snails as it dries and becomes a barrier.

Part-mulched raised bed

We will see.

Getting Closer .....

Had an email from the allotment Secretary last night to let me know that the existing plot holder has not been in touch and so has until Wednesday July 4 to come and claim anything that she wants from her allotment, after which it becomes mine.

I think it is unlikely that she will turn up, so I stand to inherit a dalek composter, a wheelbarrow, and a small tool store (which may or may not have tools inside).  There is also a small tree - don't know what kind but hopefully there will be a label - and I have been told that there is some rhubarb on the plot somewhere.  Oh - and a sea of grass and weeds about three feet deep across the entire plot.



The whole allotment before it was handed over by the council.  My plot will be the square to the top, right of the road.



My original plan was to strim the weeds and then rotivate the entire plot, then cover in weed suppressing membrane until I had chance to get working on each section which I would uncover as and when needed.

This decision mainly came from watching a series of videos from a guy who took on a plot last autumn, rotivated intensely and got a nice looking plot, but his latest video has shown that he is suffering from a huge amount of weed regrowth, just as folks on the Grapevine Forum had told me would happen.

You can watch his allotment diary here :

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL84138F977456FA48&feature=plcp 

I think he makes great videos which are informative and easy to watch.

After seeing his problems I think I will strim, then cover with weed fabric and not rotivate - at least until I have been able to get most of the perennial weeds dug out of each patch first anyway.

I am only getting 3/4 of the plot as another lady on the waiting list just wanted a quarter plot.  One of my quarters will be used mainly for growing fruit - shared between my wife and stepdad, whilst I will have the remainder for veg.

I am now leaning towards making my first beds using the Square Foot Gardening method. (you can Google it easily - there are loads of examples online)



This uses beds of 4'x4' which are further subdivided into 16 1 foot squares, the idea being that in each square you can plant either 1, 4, 9 or 16 individual seeds depending upon how far apart each plant needs to be. 



Exmple of Square Foot Gardening planting



The beds don't need to be raised, which helps cut down on costs, but this all depends upon the condition of the underlying soil - if it is really poor or full of clay I may have to go to the raised beds after all.

Each bed is surrounded by a path so the growing space need never be stood on and compacted, all parts of the bed can be reached from the edge.

The ground does not need to be regularly dug or fertilised as this should be done naturally as you harvest each square's crop, and with the plants being so close together they should help to suppress weeds as well, which cuts down on the maintenance needed.  I intend to go organic, and this seems to suit this system pretty well.



What I hope my beds will look like soon



It sounds pretty good to a novice, so I will give it a try with a couple of beds and let you know how I get on.

Has the Growing Season Finally Started?



The first of the peas I sowed straight into the bed eight days ago is just starting to show through the compost.

I had begun to think that they might have been taken by marauding mice (even though we have four cats in the house - they are all inherrently lazy!) so last Sunday I carefully removed the top inch or so of soil over them.

Thankfully they were still there, and were starting to sprout, so I replaced the soil, watered heavily and went back to waiting impatiently until tonight when the first tiny green shoot was visible.



The first pea shoots make an appearance


I am expecting great things from these legumes and can't wait for them to start to grow up the trellis, not just for the harvest but to also give our patio a bit of privacy.



One thing in the garden that I am over the moon with is my dwarf apple trees - for the past two years I have had plenty of blossom, but not a single one has set.





Very young apples forming



 This year I moved the trees down the garden as my wife thought that the pollinating insects might be missing them where they had been sat close by the front door - looks like that may have been a good call as we appear to have several potential apples forming, but even now I have not even had a single flower on my Conference Pear.

Non-Flowering Pear

Maybe next year?

New Sowings

With the hope of the allotment looming close I suddenly realised that once I have managed to clear the plot (or perhaps just part of it) I have nothing ready to plant.

Rather than waiting until early July to get started I decided to use my blowaway to propogate some seedlings that I will be able to transplant once I have space cleared.

I chose to plant the following :

Peas - Kelvedon Wonder
Spring Onion - White Lisbon,
Carrot - Paris Market
Basil - Minette
Pumpkin - Jack o' Lantern
Pumpkin - Mammoth

I planted plenty of the first four, but only one each of the pumpkins because if they germinate they will need a huge amount of space, and I want to grow more than a single plant to a bed this year.

We are now officially at DefCon One!

War has now officially been declared between me and the slugs and snails in the garden.

It started off small, as these things tend to do.

There were losses on both sides, but more of a skirmish than a war at that point. A few leaves here and there in exchange for a couple of hundred enforced salty swimming lessons.

Then one morning everything changed

.

Two whole brassica seedlings were completely stripped overnight, along with major damage to an aubergine and a pepper. The aubergine is going to be OK, but it is still touch and go for the pepper.

In response to this unprovoked escalation I have been forced to bring out the biological weaponry in the form of Nemaslug, and tonight I spent a happy hour dosing every inch of the front garden I could get to, and also around the blow-away in the back.

Only time will tell if this all-out retributive strike will be successful, but just in case I have placed all surviving brassicas into their own personal fall-out shelters made from 2L pop bottles.

Pop Bottle Cloches

If you don't hear from me again it means that I will have seriously underestimated the slug and snails' defensive capability!

Wish me luck!

Ninja slugs??

I knew it was too soon to celebrate geting rid of the slugs and snails in the garden.

I had been out collecting slugs and snails the night before as usual, and struggled to find any at all, even when carefully folding back leaves to check, and looking down the back of the potato sack that is next to the fence where I can usually find a few nice specimens to be given enforced swiming lessons in a bucket of salty water.

I went out the next morning to do my usual round of the beds before work to find that two of my romanescue broccoli had been munched, one almost completely, along with a large part of the foliage in one of my potato bags and odd bits of the kale.



 

                              

Munched!!






I even found a giant snail on the inside of the door to my blow-away greenhouse where it had nearly reached the peppers and aubergine on the top shelf - at least my plan of putting them high up has prevented them coming to more harm.

I am at a loss as to where these have come from - for the past couple of weeks I have been patrolling the garden at dusk and after every shower to collect and kill any snail and slug I can see - the death count must be in the high hundreds by now.

When I started harvesting them I was getting some really impressive specimens up to six inches long, but recently I have been hard pressed to find anything over an inch, but suddenly all the big boys are back, and they are hungry!  They must be Ninja Slugs - hiding until I have gone past then leaping out onto my brassicas.



Looking on line as to how other gardeners control their slug population I came across a product called Nemaslug, which is a naturally occurring microscopic worm which infects the slug, causing it to bury itself and die. You get a pack of inert powder that contains millions of these worms which you mix with water and simply water the entire garden with it  These things then actually go looking for the slugs in the soil, which appealed to my sense of justice - if the slugs and snails go looking for my veggies then why should I not have a small army of microscopic worms on my side to do the same to them.

I promptly ordered a pack big enough to cover 40 square metres - my front garden just happens to be about 35 square metres so I will even have enough left to treat around the blowaway in the back too, if I am careful.

The product wasn't cheap - including postage it was just over a tenner, but as it is supposed to give six weeks protection per application I think that will be a reasonable outlay for no more eaten seedlings

Pop  Bottle Mini Cloches

As a short-term measure I have used 2L pop bottles as improvised cloches to protect the remaining obviously tasty romanescues - I have also cloched up the casualties, just in case they survive.

If they don't, I have a couple of spare plants in the blow-away to replace them.

The Nemaslug arrived on Saturday, but I didn't have time to apply it then so it looks like that will be a job for today.  I never thought I would be involved in biological warfare, but needs must.  At least it is totally natural, which makes me feel a bit better about it all.

On a happier note, it looks like I may get some apples on my dwarf trees this year.  Both trees flowered well, and it looks like there are signs of the fruit starting to swell.  Not sure what to call the bit that is swelling, I shall have to look it up later, unless anyoone out there knows what it is?

One plant had loads of flowers, but it looks like very few have set, whilst the other variety only had about half a dozen but virtually all have set.  I left pollination to the bees again this year, but next I think I will have to try some manual pollination with a small paintbrush to see if I can improve the setting rate.

The dwarf pear, however, still hasn't even had a single flower, and not even any signs of trying to.

Never mind - time to go and rain some watery death from the skies on my slugs,

Bloody Cats!!

I was a bit annoyed when I went out this morning to check on yesterday's plantings.

I was looking for any slug damage, and thankfully there wasn't any, but one of our cats had decided that the newly dug and planted raised bed was a good place for a toilet, and had gone between the rows of leeks :(

Nothing was dug up, but I had gone to the trouble of carefully planting the leeks in deep holes and not back filling with soil, but simply filling the hole with water, as recommended by all my gardening books.  Now about half of the plants have been buried  and knocked sideways by soil thrown about by the cat's scratching.

By carefully removing the excess soil (and poo) I have managed to get most of the plants stood up straight again, but a lot do not have their specially prepared growing tunnel any more - I wonder if that will stop them fattening up?  I will have to ask on The Grapevine.

There is really only one plant I an a bit woried about, but it was the runt of the planting and if it dies off I still have a couple of spares that I wasn't able to plant due to running out of space.

Tonight it is time to finish off planting the young plants I got from the garden centre yesterday.



Curly Kale to the left, Romanesco Broccoli to the right

I have got half a dozen of Curly Kale and Romanesco Broccoli in the front raised bed.  I always called the Romanesco a cauliflower before, but good old Google seems to be split 50:50 between broccoli and cauli.  Still, it said broccoli on the label from the garden centre, so that's what they are.

I also managed to get a couple of rows of peas in tight against the back trellis.  The plan is for them to be trained up the trellis and away from the slow developing brassicas.  Then again, that was the plan with the sweet peas I put in a couple of weeks ago, but they don't seem to want to do much so far. (they are starting to climb the canes to the left of the picture above)

There are also a couple of peppers and an aubergine for a growbag in the back garden, and a Horseradish - never grown one before, so that should be interesting.


Horseradish Plant

I will also have to rig something up over the raised bed to stop our boys using it as a litter tray again tonight - wish me luck!

Just got back in from planting - looks like I was celebrating no slug/snail damage too soon - they have taken great chunks out of my aubergine and one of the peppers.  I shall have to keep them on my tool store roof for a day or so to see if they recover before planting them out in the grow bag.

I also had a look at my tomato experiment - to be honest it isn't looking good right now.  It has only been a day since I planted it up, but it has already tried to double back on itslelf to try and head for the sun.

I will let it grow a bit larger - maybe the weight of any fruit will straighten it out a bit.  (assuming I actually get some fruit, that is)

I move towards the Dark Side

As I was sat in front of the TV last night, planning out what I could plant for the rest of the year I was hit by the realisation that, once again, I had officially Left It Too Late to get any kind of decent crop for summer, or even autumn.

The visions I had of luxurious beds of home grown veg just outside the door, ready for me to harvest whenever I felt like it disappeared, and I decided that if I was to get anything planted for this year's harvest I would have to either borrow the Doctor's Tardis and go back a couple of months or do the unthinkable.

As I am unfortunately not on speaking terms with said Doctor, I had to revert to plan B and surrender to the Dark Side.
 
I went to the local Garden Centre to buy some established plants.

An hour or so later I was back home with trays full of green goodness and wasted no time in planting up the recently emptied raised bed.

The bed filled with new plantings - Oh, the shame

From right to left there is Rainbow Chard, three rows of leeks and a row of Cavolo Nero.

I also picked up some thyme to replace the one that didn't survive the winter and some tarragon which I potted up with some rosemary. 

There was also a couple of Catmint plants for our four boys - if you have never seen cats near catmint before it is fun to watch as it gets them totally stoned.  In previous years the plants have lasted less than a week as when high the cats have a tendency to roll around over the plant, but this year I have put them in a tall tub to see if they will survive for a bit longer

Having a couple of tomato plants left over I decided to try a new way (to me anyway) of growing tomatoes.

Upside Down Tomato Planter

This is an upside-down tomato planter - the idea is that you put a single tomato plant in the bottom of the bag, held in place by a foam collar and fill the bag with compost.  As the plant grows it is supposed to hang down while the roots grow upwards into the compost.  This is said to keep the plant free from slugs and snails and allows the fruit to develop unhindered by bent stems etc.  Time will tell.

It was about this time that the rain started quite heavily, so I abandoned the rest of the planting until tomorrow night after work - I have still got a trays of Curly Kale, Broccoli and the rest of the Cavolo Nero to plant in my other raised bed,


Curly Kale, Broccoli and a single Rainbow Chard waiting to be planted





Aubergine, two Peppers, a few remaining Leeks and Cavolo Nero



I also have an Aubergine, a Red Capiscum and a Yellow Capiscum for a growbag in the back garden.  Hopefully it will be a bit more sheltered there allowing them to thrive even in this northern climate.

I just hope that the new plants don't become tea for the local slug and snail population.  I had a little wander tonight around dusk, between the rain showers and there didn't seem to be any slugs or snails anywhere near the raised bed.

I found loads on one of my potatoes that was starting to look a bit worse for wear so I picked them off and 'disposed' of them - hopefully that will allow the potatoes to produce some strong foliage and get on with the important business of making lots of tubers for me :)

Best Laid Plans part 2



 OK.

Before

The raised bed has been dug, the potatoes are earthed, the bit of bindweed that I discovered the other day has been dealt with.  

 

 

After



The new raised bed was a joy to dig - no stones, not too many roots and lovely rich soil.  All I need now is a bit of dry weather to let me get out there and do some planting.



I mentioned bindweed earlier - last weekend when tidying away the lst of the broccoli I noticed a spindly climber wrapped around the stems of one of the larger broccoli plants.

Having unsuccessfully tried to grow runner beans in the same area last year I had hoped that this could be a surviving refugee, but thanks to my friends on The Grapevine I now know that this was not the case. www.growfruitandveg.co.uk/grapevine/forum.php 

The roots are very long and thin, and are prone to snapping if you just pull at them, but an entire new plant can regrow from a single small section of root, so make sure that you get it all.



Potatoes in their Grow Bag



I decided to take a couple of sticks of rhubarb as I wasn't sure how much they would weigh.

These monsters weighed in at just under a kilo, so I may have to grab another one to make my wine - I shall have to consult my recipe.

No planting today as the ground is just too wet - the forecast suggests that we should get some drier weather tomorrow so we will see.

Best Laid Plans ....

It's time to dig over my raised bed today - if it stops raining for long enough, that is!

I want to get a couple of rows of peas, chard and some spinach down.  I might even look at putting in a few sweetcorn, even though last year's attempt to grow the 'trinity' of sweetcorn, squash and beans failed miserably.

The potatoes in the growing bags need what will probably be their final earthing up as they are almost at the top, but the ones in the old washing basket (much better to recycle it than throw it away) will take a bit longer as the basket is much taller.

I am going to try planting some kale in containers this year - never tried it before so that should be interesting.

The monster

It is also time to harvest some rhubarb - the plant is becoming a bit of a monster, and I believe that harvesting will cause it to have a growth spurt - we will see about that :) 

I could do with a couple of kilos to make some rhubarb wine this weekend.

Possible Allotment??

I have just got back from viewing an allotment in South Chadderton, and after speaking to the chairperson(?) it is quite hopeful that I may have a chance at one when they come up for review in a couple of weeks as there are a few that have been left to run wild.

I have tried to grow veg in the garden at home for a few years with varying degrees of success - the blackcurrant bush is amazing - I regularly get several kilos of fruit off it, and the rhubarb has gone absolutely wild this year after doing absolutely nothing for the past two summers.

Another success story from last year was the broccoli - I planted purple sprouting and tenderstem and we have now got a couple of freezer bags full of the stuff, we have also had loads straight off the plant.

Not quite as good are my fruit trees - I have two dwarf apples and a dwarf pear - and despite loads of flowers last year not a single fruit set.  Hoping for better things this year - both apple trees flowered together and there are about five potential apples on one, but about thirty on the other.  There have been plenty of little bees around this year too, so hopefully .....

Another area I am pretty poor at is propogation from seed - I can normally get them to sprout, but after that most of my plants tend to wither pretty quick - I am hoping for advice from one of the other allotmenters who is retired now but who apparently used to have a huge allotment.

I will try to stick a few pics in here to show the progress in the garden, and also hopefully in the allotment too - maybe even a video if I can master the technology!