First Signs of Life

After planting up my first leeks and beans just over a week ago I thought I would share their progress.

Broad and Runner Beans - 10 days after sowing

No signs at all from the Runner Bean Sonesta (on the left), but three strong plants from Runner Bean Enorma and eight out of twelve of the Broad Bean Aquadulce are coming through.

These have been kept on my kitchen table which is out of direct sunlight and watered from the bottom.


One thing I have noticed is a couple of very spindly shoots also sprouting alongside the beans, obviously sonething that is coming from the potting compost.

As fast as they come up I have been removing them, but I am a bit disappointed that the compost isn't as sterile as it should be.

I also planted up 48 leeks at the same time as the beans, but so far only one shoot is showing.

A little bit disappointing, but the shoot that is showing looks to be quite a strong one.

If they all come up  like that then they should be soon ready for planting out at the plot.

Sowing the first seeds of 2013

Well, last night I finally took the plunge and sowed my first seeds of 2013.

I had been putting this moment off for some time now for a few reasons.

Firstly, at the moment there is very little room free to put seeds at home as my son and his girlfriend are staying with us until they can find a new house, so we have a lot of their furniture squeezed into every available spare space.

Secondly, although several of my reference books suggest New Year's Day as the prime time for planting leeks, I had concerns that the level of natural light that would be available to any seedlings wouldn't be enough to prevent them going weak and leggy.

As these leeks are being grown as part of a fun online competition I want to make sure to give them the best possible start, so I decided to delay sowing until now in the hope that a later date would give stronger seedlings.

I planted 48 Leek 'Mammoth' into two trays of individual modules.  Once again I strayed from traditional methods which recommends sowing thinly into a tray and only thinning into modules once the seeds are a few inches tall.

I decided to plant direct into modules, one seed per module to give the leeks the best possible chance to develop without any competition for water and nutrients and also no disruption to the root system until I am able to plant them out in their final positions.  The main disadvantage with my chosen method is that if any seeds fail to germinate then I have wasted the space, but there will be nothing to prevent me from sowing another seed in the empty module, so I am hopeful that I have made a good decision here.

I also decided to plant up a few beans, again to try and give them a good start.

I sowed 8 Broad Bean Aquadulce Claudia, 8 Runner Bean Enorma and 4 Runner Bean Sonesta.  All the beans were sowed into individual 2 1/4 inch pots.

I watered them from the bottom by standing them in the sink filled with a couple of inches of water for a few minutes.  Looking at them tonight I noticed that a couple of the Broad Beans had risen to the surface of the compost.  Now it is too soon for them to be germinating and so I pushed them back under the surface.

I would have sowed more but I was limited to space to store them on the kitchen table.

As soon as the weather improves enough I will transfer these trays into the blow away and sow a second batch of leaks plus a few more varieties of beans and peas.

First Week Back on the Plot

Last weekend I went to my local pound shop and picked up a few choice goodies for the allotment.

I got four bags of seed potatoes, 2 x Pentland Javelin (first earlies) and 2 x (second earlies), each with 8 tubers of each.

I also got two nets of onion sets, one Sturon and one Stuttgarter, both of which look to have about thirty bulbs in.

There were several packets of seeds including sweetcorn, chillis, mizuna, coriander, several peas and beans, little gem lettuce, cherry tomatoes and a pack of sunflowers.  I was also fortunate to pick up several fruit bushes from Aldi at £2.50 for three.

I managed to get a couple of different packs of grow at home mushrooms so I can compare how they both perform.

This year I have decided to keep detailed records on how well I do, financially, with my allotment.  The cost of anything I spend to use on the allotment is offset against the equivalent price I would have had to spend to purchase any produce that I can harvest.

At this point in time I have spent £34 in total, but I have harvested a few bits of the overwintering veg (including the cabbage pictured to the right) which would have cost me £4.75 if I had bought it, so my net cost is is £29.25.

This isn't a problem as I fully expect the majority of my costs to be incurred in the first part of the year, but when the main harvesting begins at the start of summer I hope that I get into a surplus quite quickly.

 The fruit bushes from Aldi were 3 x Red Goosebery Hinnomaki, 5 x Raspberry Tulameen (this should have been only 3, but there were five separate canes in the pack), 3 x Blackberry Thornlass Evergreen and 3 x Redcurrant Jonkheer Van Tets.

As the area designated for fruit bushes is still very waterlogged I have planted them into a temporary home in one of the raised beds along with the blackcurrant 'twigs' that Diane gave to me before Christmas.

When we had the heavy snow a couple of weeks back the netting over my brassicas in bed 1 was pretty much destroyed, so I needed to remake the entire frame and re-hang the netting. 








This time I covered the entire bed rather than just the bottom half as unfortunately the pigeons had got in and rather shredded the remaining two savoy cabbages.

These had been doing rather well when compared to the savoys in the other raised bed, so I am quite diasppointed as I had a bed with stepdad Ken about whose cabbages would grow the biggest - mine in a 'lasagne' bed, his in a traditional double dug bed.

Up until now mine were doing best - I just hope that now they are covered they will be able to recover as the weather starts to get better.

The Jumbo Garlic bought at the supermarket is really looking good, with shoots a good five inches tall, but the garlic purchased from a supplier has yet to show at all.

Not really sure why, but it's all a learning curve still.






The leeks which I brought from home very late last year have survived the snow and are doing well, and are now about 8 inches tall.




The bed full of onion sets is starting to look pretty good, with virtually all of them now showing strongly.

The two bags of onion sets I have just bought will be going into the ground later, after the chance of frost has passed.



I am going to my first ever seed swap tomorrow at the Peveril of the Peak pub in Manchester, so I am hoping to return loaded down with plenty of new and unusual seeds.

D-Day

Today is the day I get my allotment!

Had lots of emails back and forth with the allotment secretary last night.

I have now been offered the full plot instead of the three quarters I was going to take - apparently the lady who was going to have the other quarter has been offered space on another plot.

I had a chat with my stepdad (who is my allotment partner) and my wife (who is having a quarter for soft fruit) and they both said to go for it, so this afternoon I will be signing up for the full plot.

I just hope that I am not taking on more than I can handle here.

The secretary also told me that the plot has been recently strimmed - I am not sure if that is good or bad right now as I would have liked to have walked the plot first just in case there were any plants mixed in with the weeds that could be saved as I had been told by a neighbouring plotholder that there was some rhubarb in there somewhere. It would also have shown me where the nasty perennial weeds were.

On the other hand, it has saved me a day's work, and I can get straight on with creating my first couple of beds, depending upon what the ground is like.  It has rained so much here recently that I am concerned that the soil will be so wet that I really can't dig it. or if there is a lot of clay in the ground as my stepdad thinks, there will be standing water all over the plot.



Seedlings ready for planting 



More seedlings!



Last night I totally emptied the blow away to do a thorough check for slugs and snails hiding on the underside of the various pots and planting trays in there.

It was only when I laid all the trays out on the hot tub lid I realised just how many seedlings I actually have ready for planting out - and remember, I also have more on the table in the front garden.

The haul in the blow away that is ready to plant out is:

67 onions - not sure if these are ready as they are only tiny as yet.

15 Winter Cauliflowers

15 Winter Cabbage

15 Purple Curly Kale

15 Brussel Sprouts

15 Purple Sprouting Broccoli

1 Tomato

6 Peas

1 Capsicum Pepper

2 Pumpkins

4 Courgettes



Even more seedlings!

Left over from planting the front garden

1 Swiss Chard

3 Leeks

2 Cavolo Nero

2 Curly Kale

1 Romanesco Broccoli

Not big enough to plant out yet are

9 Lettuce

3 Kohn Rabi

11 Courgettes

I have also got loads and loads of seeds ready to go in.

I just hope I can keep everything under control!

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 :)