Overdrive

I finally felt like working on the plot, it's been a while since I've had the urge to get digging and do things there so I was a bit worried that my enthusiasm had worn off, but today the weather wasn't bad, it had dried off enough to consider planting things outside and the temperature seemed warm enough to start the indoor planting too, so off I trogged for a few hours to potter about.

The onions are coming along well, I hoed between them again and then planted some Red Baron that my Mother gave me (she didn't need a whole bag for her garden vegetable plot) and 3 cloves of elephant garlic that my Dad got me from Homebase in the empty end of that bed, as so:



The nicely dug over bed in front of the onions in the photo now has Aran Pilot potatoes in it. We really liked these last year so I'm looking forward to them coming up.

Even though I was expecting it I still found it slightly depressing that as I dug just under the surface waiting to launch itself back into the world was the horrible marestail. The stuff is everywhere and I spent so much time pulling it up and hoeing it down last year that it's not nice to realise that I'm going to be doing that again all this year too, horrible stuff... Besides that the underground weeds didn't seem so bad. I came across very few couch grass roots so hopefully I've battled that back a bit.

I discovered that the Rhubarb Chard from last year has come back up for another go so next to it (in the bed with the rhubarb that still has leeks in it too) I planted the Bright Lights Rainbow Chard from Thompson and Morgan. At the end of that bed I stuck in the first row of Spinach which is Matador from the Organic Catalogue, I will be putting 2 more rows of that in at the end of the next 2 months.



The cabbages are coming along well now and I think that in a fortnight I will probably cut the first one. I can't remember for the life of me at the moment what they varieties are though, I'm sure I must have blogged it when I planted them so I will have to go back and have a look!



Can anyone tell me what to do with the cabbages in the picture that don't seem to be forming hearts? Do I take them out and use them as cabbage greens or give them a bit longer to have a go at making a fully formed cabbage? About a third of them are like the ones in the photo, I don't know if it is the weather or something I've done that's made them this way....

The Kale is still coming along great guns, and I really like it which is good news as I couldn't ever remember eating it when I bought it!



I got these plants from Robinsons while we were at the Tatton Park show last year. You strip the crown of the plant of most of the leaves and then a fortnight later they look like that again, magic! Apparently I can go on picking until May/June at which point the plants will have to come out as the runner beans will need that space!

I went around and filled in the end of 2 beds with Pastiche Sunflowers from Thompson and Morgan for a combination of cut flowers, some colour on the plot, the fun of growing sunflowers and for their seeds, not bad that you can get that much from a free packet of seeds!

The empty end of the cabbage bed now contains Marner Early Red cabbage from the Organic Catalogue.

The bed in front of the rhubarb bed in the big photo now has Yukon Gold potatoes in it. I use a lot of American recipe books and loads of them call specifically for Yukon Gold so I thought I'd see what the fuss was about. I still have 3 more lots of spuds to put in, I started getting them in the ground today purely because I need them grown and out of the ground so I can use it for other things later on! It's going to be cramped this year with everything I have planned so things will end up being all over the place I'm sure, but as long as it grows it doesn't really matter!

In the shed I now have trays of Black Beauty Aubergine (hopefully it will do better than last year now I've put it in earlier), Calbrese Pacifica from the Organic Catalogue and Gypsy F1 Hybrid Cauliflower from Thompson and Morgan, the first of 2 kinds of cauli I want to try.

So, all in all a pretty productive time at the plot, still a lot to sort out and more to go in when I figure out where to put it (parsnips mainly as I want them done before I leave the plot, found one from last year today, it grew a new top!). Still got the beds to dig as well but the husband has said he'll help as there's an end in sight and he knows that once these are done there's no more digging to be done!

At home things are coming along well, no sign of the aubergines yet but the Burpless (love that word!) Cucumbers came out of the soil literally overnight and now look like this



And see here?



You have to look close, but that's my mixed salad leaves making an appearance, wonder if there's any more snow coming??

And We're Off!

I finally did some planting and tidying up this weekend, and I feel much better for it!

Friday I went to B&Q, Homebase and our local independent Garden Centre which is called Taskers and was amazed to see that black bins cost £8.99 each... Forsomethingg that I'm going to leave behind when I go I'm not prepared to pay that much so I'm going to ask the Secretary if he can find me another water butt off an empty plot like he did my last one, there is one on the plot behind mine that is all full of weed as it's obviously been sitting there full for so long so maybe they can empty that and I can have it. I was going to get some flower seeds from B&Q but the service was so terrible that Little One and I left and I didn't find any seeds I wanted in the other 2 places. I did get a bargain £2.99 dirty washing basket from Taskers to put the compost stuff in. I'd not been to the plot in 3 weeks due to being away, being ill and then snow so we had rather an avalanche of stuff out the back and I was worrying about rats so now we have a nice container to put it in rather than having it in an open bucket.

I started of on Saturday by cleaning up the potting bench in the back garden and emptying all the pots out into the wheelie bin, I hope to god they actually empty it today as it weighs a ton and a half, I was merrily working away quite forgetting that we would have to move the bin full of wet soil, DH seems to have managed it though so that's ok! I put away pots under the bench and stacked the others up nicely and who'd of thunk it, I can now actually *use* the bench rather than it being covered in crap and having to lean over 72 pots to get to it!

I did my first planting as well, outside in the old washing basket I planted Cottage Herbery's Own Salad Leaf Mix. I got these seeds at Tatton Park RHS Show, the stall was wonderful and I'm hoping that they will be at the Southport Flower Show (my Mum and I agreed that we actually preferred this show to Tatton Park so we're going there again this year for our outing) so I can get some more herbs. The seed packet says that the mix included Green cress, Parsley curled and French, trespinachch, Chervil, Cornsalad, Verte de Cambrai, American cress, wild rocket, salad rocket, mustarspinachch, red mustard, bulls blood beet, red salad bowl lettuce and red orach. I saw it growing and it looked fab! I put the whole packet in as the basket was so big and I'm determined to get my little boy eating salad this year (he's almost 3) so I want to make having a bowl of salad on the table a regular thing in our house so he will get used to it. I've got 2 more packets of mixed leaves that I will put in when the previous lot look worse for wear and hopefully it should see us through until winter.

I also planted Thompson and Morgan Baby Rosanna F1 Hybrid Aubergine which are suitable for pots so I'm growing them in the back yard, I planted 3 of those as I had split the packet with my sister. Then I planted 5 (again split the packet) Thompson and Morgan Burpless Tasty Green F1 Hybrid Cucumber which I'm also intending to grow in pots out the back (so I can go out and pick the whole salad in one go!). They are currently living on my kitchen windowsil with attractive plastic bags over the pots. I planted just 1 ceramic pot of each variety rather than individual little pots as I didn't have any to hand. I have a few more things to get going next month for the back yard but those 2 were the only ones calling for a March planting on the packet.

Yesterday we went down to the plot to take the compost, check things out and pick anything that was ready. I was a happy to see that everything seems to have done well despite the rain, rain and more rain we've had followed by snow and then more rain. My cabbages have actual cabbages in the centre now, some of them are about 4 inches across which is exciting! I pulled the largest leek, which actually wasn't that large when it was out of the ground, and got a huge bag full of Kale which I'd not had until I grew it but am really enjoying. I cooked some shop bought Kale at my Aunt and Uncles house when we went a few weeks back and it was nowhere near as nice as my own stuff which made me happy!

The shed is nice and tidy, the beds I'd weeded look fine, the onions are growing well and the rhubarb is coming up really well too. I am planning on going next week to dig another 2 square foot gardening beds and weed another bed ready for potatoes but I don't think I will be planting them for a few weeks yet as the ground is so wet. Anyone else in this area got an idea when they are going to put their spuds in? I've got 5 varieties to go in and I was intending to stick them in all at the same time as they should cover the whole season (early, main crop x 2, lates and salad).

I'm also itching to get stuff in the trays in the shed but it's still so cold that I don't think it will survive. I'm going to start checking the weatheforecastst and as soon as it looks like there's a turn I'll be covering the space again to get things ready to go in the ground! I'm excited about how little digging I need to do this year after last year's almost constant digging. I should be able to finish digging the plot in 4 sessions and that's amazing to me! I imagine that I'll still be doing it at the last minute though but that's just the way it goes with me!

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Nothing Planted

I was lying in bed this morning trying to work out what I would plant in trays in the shed today as I'm behind on getting stuff going and due to bad weather and a horrible cold I've not been to the allotment in a while and I want to catch up.

Unfortunately I hadn't planned for this:



The roads aren't clear enough to be driving anywhere and the snow is still coming down (lightly now but it's still there), plus the temperature in the shed won't be that good for encouraging growth....

The basket on top of the plant stand is my old wicker washing basket which has seen better days so is going to have mixed salad leaves planted in it. I put the soil from one of last year's grobags in it and am going to top it up with some new compost and then stick in some seeds. I had intended to do it yesterday but after I'd trimmed all the herbs back and thrown out the dead ones I was cold enough so I came in and never made it back out again.

So, I've nothing planted at all and no idea when I will get anything planted. I think that unless we have a warm totally dry fortnight the soil is just going to be too wet to put the potatoes in.

I'm desperately wishing that I'd gotten around to buying 2 cheap rubbish bins to use as water butts now as well, mine will have overflowed quite dramatically and I will need a couple more to get me through the summer with the courgettes and squash I intend to plant. I will put the bins (plus a bin with a locking lid for the compost to go down the plot instead of the open bucket we use) on my shopping list and try and get it sorted next week.