How did it get to the end of May so soon?

I can't believe that we are now almost at the end of May already.

Seed potatoes waiting to be planteed

It feels like I have done almost nothing on the plot, there are plenty of beds that need topping up with compost, half of my seed potatoes are still waiting to get planted out and the majority of the seeds I had planned to grow this year are way past their optimal time for sowing.  I was going to lift the strawberries and replant them through weed fabric, but that should have been done whilst they were still mostly dormant back in March.



Finally up and ready for use

We weren't even able to inspect the bees on time, so they swarmed and we lost half of them as we couldn't collect the swarm.

There have been some high points recently as well - the greenhouse that I got from FreeCycle is finally up and fastened securely to the flags that make up its base and being well used.

Jack's Patch on April 26th

My grandson Jack has come to the plot with me a few times and has got his own bed for planting in right next to the seating area where he can be looked after.  He is only just two, so his helping involves jumping in muddy puddles and throwing compost and soil over himself at every opportunity, but it does lift my heart to see him having such a good time outdoors.

Shallots, Little Gens and Spinach planted

I am hoping that by having his own growing space and encouraging him to plant what he wants he may be more inclined to taste fruit and veg he might otherwise not try.  I can live in hope, anyway.

The first early potatoes that I put in on Easter Monday have finally shown their heads and are looking to be strong plants, so I hope that I can get a decent crop from them when they are ready for harvest which should be around my birthday, the first week of July.

It remains to be seen if their somewhat delayed start will mean that they are not ready for a few weeks after this - I will wait for them to flower and the foliage to wilt before tipping them out.

I'm sure that Jack will give me a helping hand and will appropriate most of them to take home to his mum for dinner.



Tomatoes, Celeriac, Chillis, Pumpkins, Courgettes,Shallots

I have rescued the shallots from the old polytunnel where they have been sat since October last year and pretty much neglected.

A couple of the tomatoes I started at the beginning of March have also survived and have been potted on along with some little gems, spinach and celeriac, and I bought a small pack of cauliflower plugs from Aldi which are doing well in the cold frame.
I have also sown far too many courgetes and pumpkins (in the plastic cups to the right of the picture) , but I wanted to make sure that I had at least one pumpkin for Jack's Patch.  As of this morning I have three pumpkins and eight courgettes :)

Water, Water, Everywhere .......

We spent some time at the plot tonight trying to figure out the best way to deal with the sodden ground that covers most of the back half of the allotment.

The plot is bordered by cinder paths, so yesterday afternoon I dug a test pit through one to see if we could persuade the water to start to flow in that direction.  The pit was about 18 inches deep.

Test Pit

This was what we saw there tonight.

This was good news as it meant that it would be possible to persuade the water to flow away from the plot.

We started off with a few shallow channels in the mud to encourage the water on the surface to flow.

This was followed by a deeper, wider channel which soon became filled with run-off.

We were unable to follow up on our discoveries as the boundary fence near to the corner of my plot is due to be replaced, and so any drainage channels that we dig would be likely to be destroyed when the contractor brings in his equipment.

On the plus side, we are going to ask if they will dig the channels for us with their equipment whilst they are there.  If you don't ask ....

Whilst we were there I took the opportunity to plant a few more specimens from home - three tomatoes and two chillis.


Two of the tomatoes are already producing fruit - I was able to harvest three red and three yellow cherry tomatoes from them.

Tomatoes and Chillis

The chillis and third tomato have come from the bedroom windowsill - I know it is probably far too late in the season to be planting these out, but as the only other option for these plants was the compost heap I am going to give them a fighting chance.



Rhubarb

I also planted up the rhubarb that Diane gave us a couple of weeks back.  It was planted into a hole that had at least six inches of manure in the bottom, and was finished off by another spade-full on top.  This is only a temporary home until we can get the water problem sorted,




Now for a quick spin round bed 1.

The lettuce are really doing well now, despite them looking rather sick when they were first planted out.  The Kale and PSB are also doing well, as are the Brussels, with the exception of one plant.  This little one looks healthy, but is only about half the size of the others - I wonder why?



Leaf Beet, Cabbage and Turnip



Flowering French Beans



The Leaf Beet, Chard and Savoy Cabbage are all coming on strongly, as are the French Beans which are now flowering.  The leaves on some of the peas continue to look a little yellow, but they now have four pods.

The majority of the seeds that Will sowed nine days ago have now come up - all the turnips and most of the pak choi, but strangely enough not all of the spinach have (apart from the ones he spilled and didn't pick up).  It may be that he planted them a bit too deep perhaps?

One bad note - the pigeons have decimated the plants that I had waiting to go in - I forgot to cover them up again when I left on Sunday, and they have eaten about 90% of the seedlings.

Windowsill Update - Part 5

It's been two weeks since the last update, and the windowsill is looking distinctly bare nowadays.

I planted both the borlitti and mange tout into my garden last weekend as they were getting a bt out of control - the borlotti was over four feet tall and the mange tout was ranging all over the windowsill in search of something to climb up.

I think I should really have moved them earlier as a couple of the borlotti stems got bent while untangling ready to transplant, but they seem to have come through OK and are thriving outdoors,

I have got the borlotti growing up the trellis in my original narrow beds, and the mange tout are growing up canes in the 4' x 4' bed.

Of the plants left on the windowsill, the two 'Sweet Baby' tomatoes are now both over 6" high, both chilli 'Anaheim' are about 4" tall and showing plenty of leaf.

My two experiments, however, are not doing as well.

Of the 17 radish plants in a single tray that I separated most have withered and died.  There are six whose leaves have simply dried out completely and are nothing but a stem with crispy bits attached.

A further six have some greenery left, but aren't looking happy at all, and the remaining five aren't looking too bad at all, but still have some crispy leaves attached to them.  Three of the five were actually transplanted, so I'm not sure if it was the act of transplanting that disturbed the roots and caused the problem or not.

Either way, I'm not confident that any will survive much longer.

The spinach I planted in the tiny root cells that my veg plugs from Aldi came in is also having problems. 

I have had to water them, even though they were sat in a water retaining gel, which has caused some kind of algae bloom in the gel itself, the gel has dried up to about half its original volume and is completely filled with an amazing root system from the spinach.

Some of the spinach seedlings haven't rooted themselved properly and are lying on the surface, and many of the ones that are standing up straight are up to three inched tall, but have already started to bolt and set seed, probably as they are under stress in the mini-cloche.

I am going to plant these out either tonight or over the weekend to see if any can be salvaged, although I am not going to be holding my breath over them.  I think I will have to cut open the mini cells to plant them so I have some chance of not destroying the roots completely.

I think I will be underplanting my kale and Romanescue caulis which although they are growing well, don't need the full space as yet.

So, what have I learned from the windowsill this season?

Some successes with the tomato and chilli, I have strong plants which are nearly ready for planting on, even though they may be a little late in the season to do much.

Another success was the home-made light reflector that stopped the plants from leaning alarmingly towards the window - definitely using that again next year.

Lessons have been learnt with the beans and mange tout - next year I will plant them singly into pots and plant them out much earlier to avoid damaging the plants when doing so.

More lessons with the radish and spinach.  Neither seem to be happy on the windowsill, and radish certainly don't like having their roots disturbed.

Re-using the mini cells from the Aldi plug plants seemed like a good idea at the time,  but it has not gone quite to plan so I won't use them again.  The mini-cloches will probably be used but with seeds planted straight into compost in the base, without the cells or gel.

I may grow spinach on the windowsill again, but into larger pots with a couple of seeds in each to avoid the problems caused by the mini cells.

End of week catch up

In the past week since I last posted things have been moving on quite a bit, both at the allotment and at home, and I have had a major catastrophe too.

On Sunday afternoon I was relaxing in my hot tub after a few hard hours at the allotment when one of our cats knocked my mobile phone into the water.

Needless to say it was a complete write off, so I haven't been able to post up any more pictures since, which has kind of put me off writing anything.

So - what has been going on this week at home?

I have harvested a few more rhubarb stems which were stewed down with some sugar and a bit of water - very nice, but it really needed a bit more sugar.  All right - a lot more, to be honest.

The first few raspberries of the year have been eaten too - they didn't need any extra sweetener as they were gorgeous by themselves.  There is another handful ready too, looking forwards to picking those tomorrow.

I have also harvested a few Rainbow Chard leaves and steamed them with some cabbage given to me by a very generous allotment neighbour.  Not sure if I prefer them to spinach right now, but I will have plenty more opportunities to decide as the chard has really started to fill out and develop into really big plants.  I'm glad I decided to give them plenty of room when I planted them out six weeks ago!

The lettuce tub by the front door has also been raided quite a lot this week, but as they are starting to show signs of bolting we will be eating them as fast as we can before they turn bitter.

I have also picked up a young melon plant and stuck it into my largest pot - you never know, we might actually get some sun over the next few weeks to allow fruit to develop.  I am thinking of building up a frame for it to climb up - apparently this will encourage it to set more fruit along the length of the vine rather than just at the end as it would if I let it crawl along the floor.

The borlotti and mange tout on the windowsill desperately need planting out - the borlotti is now nearly four foot tall and looking for something to climb up, the mange tout has flopped over and is rapidly spreading along the windowsill.  I have a space picked out in the front garden in front of the trellis for them, so hopefully they will be able to handle the shock of being outdoors for the first time

The two tomato seedilngs in one pot have been separated into their own pots and are coming on well.  The chillis have now got four leaves each, and are slowly getting stronger.

The spinach grown in the gel is doing remarkably well, the only problem I forsee is trying to get the plants out of their cells without losing half of the root system which is now well established within the gel itself.  I am going to plant these inbetween the leeks in the raised bed - they should be picked and eaten long before I need to get at the leeks.

Not too sure about the radish at the moment - the majority of the first leaves have withered and died, but only a couple of the plants have well developed true leaves as yet.  It may be that I am going to lose a lot of these plants.  The plan is to plant them out below the brassicas in the bed in front of the trellis once they have all got good true leaves showing.

In the blow away it is like looking through a jungle, the plants are doing so well.

I am considering bringing some of the trays out and leaving them on some greenhouse staging just to give a bit of room to the others left behind.

I am very pleased with the pumpkins - both are getting quite big now, so I will have to look at potting them up into bigger containers as they really don't like being cramped.

One disappointment so far has been the onions.  They have been pricked out into individual modules for some time now, but there is virtually no signs of growth from any of them as yet.

With the weather having been so bad this week I haven't had much time to get down to the allotment, but I have had 8 tonnes of cow manure delivered in anticipation of some nice weather that will allow me to rotivate part of the plot and get it all mixed in.

I have spent an hour tonight moving the first of it off the path where it was dumped - 11 barrows-full and I have hardly dinted the pile!  I reckon there is about another 150-200 barrows-full to go, so at my curent speed it will take me 10-15 more hours!  I just hope that I will speed up as I get more used to the work.

Windowsill Update Part 3

Before I get pulled away to spend all my spare time preparing the new allotment I thought I would go round the plants on the windowsill and report on their progress.

I made myself a light reflector from some cardboard covered with tin foil.  The idea of this was to reflect the light coming through the window and try to stop the plants bending towards the sunlight outside.



Light Reflector

It has only been in place for one day so far, but my first impression is that there isn't much difference.

All the radish and spinach were still leaning quite markedly towards the window, but the tomato and both sets of beans are pretty straight. The spinach was right at the end of the reflector, which may have been a factor.

I will try it for a bit longer, and have moved the spinach to a more central location.

Now for a quick spin around the windowsill.

Everything was planted on Monday 25th of June so is 13 days old today.  The only exception is the spinach which was planted on Saturday 30th June and so is 8 days in.

Radish French Breakfast

The radish 'French Breakfast' are doing well, and are about three inches tall.  17 out of 18 seeds germinated.

I think I will have to transplant them as soon as the second set of leaves appear as quite a few seem to be very shallow rooted and are flopping about all over the place.

As I sowed two seeds at each station they will definitely need separating if I want decent bulbs to form.



Borlotti



The borlotti are the star of the windowsill.  100% germination. 

Their height ranges between 9 and 18 inches with lovely big, well defined leaves.

Once I get some room in the blow away I will have to get these hardened off ready for planting on the allotment.

Mange Tout 'Oregon Sugar Snap'

The mange tout are also doing well, with lots of leaf and plenty of tendrils starting to look for support to climb.

They are all around 9 inches tall and I had 100% germination.

Another candidate for hardening off and planting out as soon as possible.





Tomato 'Sweet Baby'

 


The tomato is finally starting to show the first set of true leaves, but at only just under 2 inches tall is going to be on the windowsill for some time to come.

2 out of 4 seeds have germinated, so quite a poor showing so far.

Chilli 'Anaheim'

 Finally some movement from the chillis!

I noticed one sedling showing through in one pot yesterday, and a second has shown today in a different pot.

Nothing from the third as yet, so that makes a disappointing 2 out of 6 germination rate so far.

Considering that the spinach has only been in for eight days I am quite pleased with the results.

The plants are an inch tall already, and look nice and healthy.

This was an experiment where I planted them in modules that I have sat in a water retaining gel to see how they would do without further watering.

Spinach 'Matador'

I did drip a little water on them yesterday as the compost they were sitting in was bone dry, but looking at the gel this morning I can see that the roots have already started to come down into it, in some cases very strongly.

I am now a bit concenrned that I may damage these root systems when I plant the seedlings on, but I will cross that bridge when I come to it.

I planted two spinach into each of 15 modules and have got a total of 20 germinations, with only three modules yet to show.  Not too bad for an experiment.

The one big disappointment on the windowill is the single pumpkin 'Mammoth' which has not yet shown at all.

The seed I planted outside in a pot in the blow away germinated after 12 days so I expected this one to be faster indoors.

I had a careful root around to check on the seed, and it is just starting to sprout so it may well catch up - time will tell.

Windowsill Update Part 2

After posting yesterday morning about the fourth borlotti not looking too healthy, this morning it is three inches tall and looking good - it just shows how much I have to learn here.

http://vegpatchkid.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/windowsill-update.html

Also, one of the spinach Matador that I sowed on Saturday has germinated after only three days - amazing!

Not sure if this is down to the gel that came with the 'mini-cloche' or not - I will have to plant some more in normal planters with just compost as a comparison.


I have several more of the modules that the ALDI plugs came in so I will try one of those on its own.

Still no movement from either the chillis or pumpkin, but the radish are now nearly three inches high, but none of them look like they are even attempting to form a second set of leaves yet.

The sugar snap peas are doing well, one looks almost ready to pot on as it is six inches tall already but I will wait until weekend.

I will have to do some more research on Google.

As I am running out of growing space here at home I am going to take a couple of pots into work and try to germinate a couple more courgettes as a backup in case something happens to my original seedlings.

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.