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.

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 :)