There's not been a lot to blog about recently.
It's been cold and frosty, then wet and windy and it looks like we are going back to cold and frosty for the weekend.
The onions on the plot have pretty much stopped growing now, the garlic is putting out loads of roots but no shoots from the other end (I only found this out becasue the pigeons have pulled up a couple of cloves - they must have mistaken them for worms).
The winter cabbages are beginning to heart up nicely and the first should be ready for harvest by Christmas.
No sprouts as yet, but the purple kale is looking wonderful.
The tallest of the perpetual spinach is suffering with the frost - I may have to cut it back hard as it is flopping all over the chard, which is doing remarkably well despite the hard frosts we have had.
The remaining two Pak Choi have survibed the frosts well and are looking good.
The rhubarb has finally admitted defeat and is dying back - this should be fine where it is until January when I will transplant it into the rhubarb bed near to the pond.
At home I have a couple of Romanesco Caulis forming nice curds, but a couple of the others look like they will be going to seed instead - not a problem as I will try to harvest the seed for next year.
My Cavolo Nero have recovered from being ravaged by caterpillars in the Autum and are producing lots of nice-looking leaves and are almost ready to start picking from.
All four apples on my trees were still on as of last weekend, and I was debating as to whether I should leave them or pick them - high winds have made that decision a bit unneccessary for the green apples as both were blown off, but the reds are still hanging on.
Until I can get the drainage problems at the plot sorted out I cannot build any fruit beds so the bare rooted strawberries that I bought have had to be sat in water for far longer than I was anticipating - I hope that they survive.
I had them in the kitchen to start with but I had to move them off the worksurface so they ended up on the boxroom windowsill where I thought they would do well with whatever little daylight they could get, but I have noticed tonight that the fresh green leaves that appeared whilsat they were in the kitchen have started to fade and go brittle - maybe the cold from the glass has been too much?
I have now moved them away from the window in the hope that they will hang on until I can get them into a prepared raised bed at the allotment.
Showing posts with label Romanesco. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Romanesco. Show all posts
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.
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.
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.
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!
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 |
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.
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.
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 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 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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)