Pentland Javelin

I bought 10 seed potatoes yesterday. (£1.99). Five are set up to chit in the conservatory at the moment and the other five are in the fridge to save for a "second crop" planting, probably in July. I'm following the experiment from "Home Grown Veg" on YouTube.

Lord Derby takes a trip

I moved my Lord Derby apple tree on Monday. The last couple of leaves were hanging on but we have had a couple of good frosts now so I thought it was a good time. it has moved to a hole in the lawn. I gave it most of a bag of Jack's Magic compost to help it along. There was a good fibrous root system but I had to break the longest deep roots. I'll wait to see how it does next year. I'll leave pruning till January.

Elephants are up

My elephant garlic bulbs had come up by Sunday (15 November). I noticed the shoots about an inch tall on Monday. The single shallot I planted has been up for a week or so. It has a nice group of leaves growing. There is no sign of any of the little bulbils growing yet except for one of the leek bulbils planted on 14th August. All the offsets of leeks are coming on and I get more to put in each time I pull a leek!
(20 Nov. The first of the garlic bulbils has sent up a shoot.)

Preparations

Today I prepared a bed for next season's squashes. I broke up the one year old haybale within a cage. Mixed in were some of the old squash plants, some used compost from pots and some grass clippings. A layer of composted horse manure went over this. Finally a thick layer of "rough" garden compost. The whole was covered with black plastic sheets to keep the worst of the winter weather off. In the spring I will top it off with some good medium (Maybe leaf mould and sieved garden compost?) The squashes must not go out so early next year. Perhaps a couple of bean plants can join them?

Beans and peas

I sowed 3 rows of 7 broad beans today in the large bed, between the leeks and garlic. I've got about 7 beans left to sow in "holes" in the spring. I watered them in with peppermint flavoured water to deter mouse predation.  Then I sowed some sweet peas in loo rolls set in pots, 1 in roll, 1 in pot for most of the ten pots. Some of the seed were this year's saved seeds, some were last year's from Higgledy. These have all gone into the cold frame.

Note: 2nd November. The first broad beans are showing. Some of the sweet peas have been up for a few days now.

The new gardening year begins

Today I took down the bean sticks, tilled the area, added growmore and some spare seed compost. I then planted my elephant garlic cloves, 1 round and 1 shallot!
Around these I planted out some salad greens which have been growing well in the conservatory. It will be interesting to see how they do. On 11 October I added some pak choy to this bed which has also been raised in the conservatory.

Bulbils

The two elephant garlic bulbs I harvested in July had 24 little bulbils attached around their bases. On Thursday I sowed these bulbils into small pots. I didn't know whether to remove their hard outer coatings or not so I removed half of them and left the other half complete with coats. I will be able to tell from the results I get which technique works best.

Two of my leeks had bolted to flower a couple of weeks ago so I harvested them, using the scapes and the leek bodies in a ratatouille. But these had two small bulbils too. I planted them into small pots and sunk them in the ground to see if they came to anything. Reports later!

Over the next few months I planted many offsets from the bases of leeks as I pulled them for use. If these grow my leeks look like a perpetual crop!