We're off!

A sunny day at last after a long, cold winter. My parsley has overwintered really well and the broad beans, sown in a plastic storage box in January have been in the ground for over a week.

I have peas in the garden too. Growing under fleece, I took a first cut for salad as I planted them out. I'm hoping for several cuts from them and there are more to sow for later in the year.

November Carrots

I harvested my first pot of Flakkee Gigante carrots today. It was very successful. A good crop even if they were rather odd shapes! There's one here for the strange vegetable show. But it weighed eight and a half ounces!

Two pounds of carrots  from a ten inch pot is not bad in my book.

Veggie meal

We had a meal tonight which included 10 vegetables from the garden! Stuffed courgette with salad and potatoes. The courgette was no 1 stuffed using tomatoes and poblano pepper. The salad included pea shoots, radishes, radish pods, chives, garlic chive flowers, strawberries and my Nicola potatoes, which were very good.

Potato harvest

I harvested the potato crop on 26th August. I was very pleased with the result. I gave them no real care and they were in the worst corner of the garden, using the mound from the old haybale which had been full of tree roots. Five pounds from ten seed potatoes may not seem much but for that unproductive patch it's worth repeating.

First apple harvest

Stormy weather and apples looking like they will be windfalls soon, so I picked the harvest off my James Grieve tree.

Seventeen good apples this year. Apple crumble tonight with the four that have small blemishes and the rest into store, wrapped in paper towels and contained in a paper carrier bag. They are in the summer house assuming it's not going to be very hot any more!

The Lord Derby apples were picked a few days later. Its first harvest was 4 apples and one left for the wasps. (They had already started.) The four apples made a good apple pie to go with sausages for an evening meal.

Update: By 26th August the James Grieves were not looking like they store very well so they became a part of this year's chutney. It's apple and blackberry chutney this year with blackberries from the garden and apples from ours and David's gardens. It is already being eaten, going well with cheese sandwiches!

Wallflowers

Seed collected from plants, sown on 10th July, pricked out and potted up today.

Garlic harvests - first courgette

The elephant garlic was ready in mid June so I harvested my 4 bulbs. All good. They are hanging up to cure in the old greenhouse.

The two garlic cloves planted last winter solstice grew well and looked ready to harvest on June 30th. Each had a good firm bulb but they were less than an inch across. Maybe it's not a good variety for my conditions. Still they are curing with the elephant garlic now and will be used in the kitchen. The scapes have been saved for use in the kitchen too.

I might try another variety next winter.

First courgette was picked today, good size from Verde d'Italia in the bed.

First tomatoes

I ate two tomatoes from the garden with my lunch today. Both came from Rapunzels. One from the outdoor bed and one from the growhouse.

Rapunzels look much weaker plants than my others but they are maturing tomatoes much earlier. Gardeners Delight has some green ones, Principe B has a green one or two. Costa F is a really strong looking plant but has only just flowered so no sign of tomatoes yet.

Will I beat the blight this year?

Nicola

A change of tack this year. Not satisfied with the return from pots or bags of potatoes, I decided to put some in the ground. I'm using the patch near the greenhouse where the remnants of the haybale and a mess of roots are slowly rotting away. Ten Nicola seed potatoes have been planted here. They will not get much attention. I'll be interested to see what I get.

I bought some summer bulbs today as well. Two lilies, eight gladioli and some liatris. The lilies will go in a pot. The others into the pink garden behind the frog. I'm trying to fill it out a bit.

Carrots away.

The tomatoes and lettuce have germinated in the conservatory; the leeks and onions are spending their day out in the sun. I sowed two potfuls of Gigante Flakee 2 carrots today. I mixed 50/50 fresh sieved garden compost and last year's spent compost with some blood, fish and bone to add a bit of go. A good sunny day with brimstones, commas and peacocks flying around me. (Carrots up on 30 March)

Both apple tree areas have been mulched with fresh garden compost now. The wood ants were a bit annoyed!

My anemones grown from last year's seed have been opened to the air now. They are progressing well.

Early leek sowing

I sowed a 5 inch pot with a fairly thick spread of King Richard leeks today. Jack's compost used and a good spray on top. The compost was warm after a couple of days in the conservatory and so was the water. The pot is in a plastic crate "greenhouse" to keep it moist. (First seedlings up on Jan 28th)

The onions are well up now. About 3 cells with none, mostly 2 or three, some with more, may need to thin.

VERY hard frosts this last week. 

Seed tests.

I watched a YouTube video from "Home Grown Veg" yesterday on testing old seed for viability. It prompted me to copy him and do a test on all the outdated seeds I might be using this year. The seeds under test are in a plastic VHS case with a paper towel lining, alll given a good spray of fresh water.

I'll be checking them over the next three weeks to see what the results are.

Here are the seeds and my recording sheet:

Sowing onions

40 cells of Tropea Rossa Lunga (last year's seeds) sowed in Jack's Compost. 3/4 to a cell for multiple planting. Left in the conservatory to germinate. (First germinations visible on 15th January)

Solstice sowing

Well, the solstice was yesterday morning so we are on the up now! I decided to grow some garlic. I took 2 good cloves from a supermarket bulb today and planted them in small peatpots. They are sitting out uncovered and I await results?
(They were planted out into the plastic bed in late January or early February.)

Autumn sowing

On November 17th I prepared my centre vegetable bed. It's 30 x 27 inches. I dug it over, incorporating weeds, dosed it with some blood, fish and bone, added a layer of 2015 leaf mould and topped it with garden compost.

Then I sowed 30 broad bean seeds, The Sutton. I finished the job by covering it with netting to keep out the squirrels, voles and mice who tend to visit this area. Now to see when they germinate. (First three up on Dec 18th.)

I must remember to give the plants plenty of support early this time.

New gardening year again...

...always begins when I plant my elephant garlics. The four "rounds" that I lifted in July went into the plastic bed in the first week of October. The plot was cleaned out after the dwarf beans and a handful of BFB added at the garlic end before planting. The area was topdressed with sieved garden compost too.   (3 came up on 8th December.)

I have nice seedlings of godetia and saved hollyhocks coming along and some anemones from saved seed too. The foxgloves, hesperis and honesty have been planted out at the equinox and are looking good in their beds.

I have prepared a new bed to become my herb garden. It had thyme in already. Lots more to go in.
(Lovage, sage, marjoram, oregano, lemon balm, mint, chives and garlic chives in a few days later.)

Apple trees and greengage have all been mulched with 2014 leafmould and the apple tree bed has been dressed with my spent potato pot composts.

First Sarpos

My ten-inch pots with a single Sarpo Mira seed potato have yellowing foliage and don't look like there's much more in them so I decided to drop one of them today and see what was inside.  The roots were very strong with a lot of potatoes looking very healthy. Perhaps they would have done a bit more. But still it gave 600g of good potatoes, more than the average of my Pentland Javelin pots. So I have high hopes for the other two pots and even higher hopes for the 30 litre bags to come later.

The pot was planted up on 31st March,  118 days ago.

The empty pot has been replanted with six leeks using the same compost rejuvenated with some blood, fish and bone.

Update: The other two 10 inch pots gave 610g each. So a good average for a small pot.

The first 30l sack was turned out on 12 August. Only 840g with a lot of scab so not very successful. The haulms were dying but the potatoes were very immature. 2nd sack gave 1092g with some good big ones! 3rd - 703g !  4th - 944g 5th 578g in one big one!

Xtra!  A sprouted "shop potato" was grown in a clay pot with unimproved garden soil and a handful of blood, fish & bone. Harvested on Oct 19th it gave 880g of good size and quality potatoes. I won't be paying for seed potatoes any more!

The fridge saved pentland javelins planted in July have been harvested. They gave a fair crop of very good quality.

First tomato

I had my first tomato in a cheese sandwich for my lunch yesterday! Gardeners Delight is well ahead of all the others in ripening terms. They seem to flower much earlier than any of the other varieties I am growing.

Pentland Javelin revealed

It was time to see how my ten-inch pots of Pentland Javelin were doing today. The foliage had begun to yellow (and been eaten by something too) so the potatoes were not going to grow any more.

 

So I cut off the greens and turned up the pot.  First views looked promising.

Then I noticed the extras. I was not expecting an ants nest in there!

But the potatoes were not affected. A fairly reasonable crop of 441g. That's near enough to a pound for me.

The compost is now back in the pot with a sprinkle of blood, fish and bone and another Pentland Javelin seed potato. This one was in the fridge from January till June 6th. It was then put in a yoghurt pot with some compost. It had about 3-inch sprouts when it went into the big pot today. I'm hoping this should give a crop in November. Wait and see!

Next pots - 410g, 620g, 360g (Average - 457.5g, a pound!)
Each pot was replanted with the saved seed potatoes.

September 30th.
First two "late planted" pots gave 445g between them of good quality new potatoes.

Some biennials showing

On Friday. Some foxgloves have germinated and some daucus carota. (The honesty were up by Sunday.)

My godetia have suddenly been eaten - about a foot tall and no leaves. Rabbits??