Of Mice and …….

I went to the allotment last night to do a bit more work; I weeded the bed for the Sprouts which I’ll get planted out over the weekend. I then decided I’d get on and start to sort things in the area for the Courgette, Squash, and Marrow and Pumpkin patch. I’d already started to weed out some of the area, but had come to a standstill when I got to the stacks of bricks that I’d had stored there since late last year. So after carrying well over 200 bricks to various corners of the plot it came down to the wooden sheeting that they’d been stood on. I lifted it up, to assess how the weeds were underneath and to guess how much work will need doing, when there they were, a little family of mice. Mother (I presume) and two babies. I lowered the wood as I didn’t want to scare the mother away from the babies; she’d already started to scurry off. So now my conundrum is which hat am I wearing? Do I move the wood and disturb the family, possibly causing the mother to abandon her babies (my vegetable hat - must plant out those courgettes etc. soon) or leave the wood where it is, checking in at regular intervals, and allow mother and babies to reside there until they are ready to move on by themselves (my animal loving hat).

Harvest Monday!

I just love the thought of pottering around the garden and thinking, mmm I’ll have some potatoes, some lettuce; some broad beans a couple of turnips and a bit of carrot to go with my tea and then being able to pick it straight from your garden. So that is exactly what I did yesterday and I thoroughly enjoyed every last bit of it. If you'd like to share your harvest for the week, join in over at Daphne's and show everyone what you’ve been growing.

I didn’t get to the plot on Saturday but Sunday was glorious so Caleb and I spent all afternoon there, he played with the other children and I did the work, usual story. I earthed up the potatoes, planted out some Cabbages and Cauliflower, a few more Sweetcorn - Mini Pop. I acquired some scaffolding netting and some builder’s Hessian so I’m going to make some cages for the Brassicas, the caterpillars are steadily munching their way through the turnip leaves so I’m going to have to put up some sort of defence.

I had 5 plants which I thought were Cabbage - Greyhound (I’d put in a label saying this) but as they grew, they didn’t look like Cabbages, it’s puzzled me as to what they were so I’ve not planted them yet. Whilst looking through one of my books, I noticed a picture of the leaves on a Celeriac; these were the same leaves on my little plants. So now I’m wondering if I’ve got my plants mixed up and those that I thought were Celeriac, (whose leaves had been scoffed last week) were actually some sort of Brassica (probably why the leaves had been scoffed!). So now I’m going to plant out the 5 plants tonight where I’d planted the other plants; here’s hoping they are Celeriac.

Sweetcorn Planted

I went to the allotment again last night to plant the Sweetcorn, I am growing two varieties: Applause and Incredible. These are sweet and super-sweet varieties so I have planted them in separate beds but these are positioned next to each other, I’m hoping that I’ve not done this wrong. As I understood it, you can’t plant standard varieties anywhere near sweet or super-sweet varieties as there is the chance of cross pollination making the corn taste bitter, but I think that sweet and super-sweet varieties planted near each other will be ok, if not, then it’s a lesson learned for next year. I also planted some Mini-Pop variety so I can have baby corn in salads and stir-fry.

I finished weeding the Brassica bed where I am going to plant out the Calabrese and Turnip so I can get these in the ground over the weekend, along with Cabbages and Cauli in the second Brassica bed. I’ll finish off the third bed and here will go the Sprouts and PSB, as these will be in over winter I’ve kept them together for ease of preparing beds for next years rotation.

Something has been EATING my Vegetables!

I went to the allotment last night to plant up some beans and do some watering as it’s been very hot and dry here the past few days. All seemed well until I passed the end of the bed where I had planted out the Celeriac on Sunday and noticed that something was missing, it was my Celeriac plants, all that was left of them were spines. Something had made a nice tasty meal out of them all, all nine plants that I planted on Sunday. As it’s too late to sow and plant anymore, I’m now going to have to wait for another year to see what Celeriac tastes like, well home grown Celeriac, I could easily go and buy one from the shop to taste it, but that is not how I want to do it. And if things couldn’t get any worse, I turned to find that who or whatever had been tucking into my Kohl Rabi as well. All is not lost with the Kohl Rabi; I do have some small seedlings which I can plant out so hopefully I will be able to try that for the first time this year.

Kohl Rabi Eaten

All the Celeriac Eaten!

On a more positive note, I planted up more Broad beans, and whilst doing so I noticed that I had some pods growing, so now I’m waiting most excitedly for when they’ll be large enough for me to start picking them to eat. I love Broad Beans; they have to be one of my most favourite vegetables. The bees loved them also, there was a very large bumble bee flying around and doing his stuff with the flowers. I also planted out some Runner Beans and some Borlotti Beans, did a bit more weeding and finally spent a good 45 minutes watering everything with the hose.

GYO Magazine has teamed up with QVC!

Tune in to QVC this evening (15th June) at 6pm to see the GYO editor, Lucy Halsall live on air, Sky Digital: channel 640, Freeview: channel 16, Virgin TV: channel 740, Freesat: channel 800. Lucy will be featured with Will Sibley who has over 38 years of growing fruit and vegetables and now he’s brought his knowledge to QVC. There’s something for everyone from beginners to expert gardeners.

Last night I cooked a good portion of my freshly dug ‘Rocket’ potatoes. I can say after devouring these, they were truly scrumptious; I can’t wait to empty out other tubs in the coming weeks. Don’t you find there is a certain gleeful feeling about eating your own produce? I’ve planted up 3 varieties of 1st earlies; Rocket, Pentland Javlin and Vales Emerald so I’ll be able to compare the different tastes and keep myself self sufficient in new potatoes for the next few weeks. Then I’ll move on to the 2nd earlies, lol.

I think I’ll have to pot on some of my Tomatoes this evening they are outgrowing their 5 litre pots, I’ll put them into some 9 or 10 litre pots, and these will be their final pots. A few of the plants are now producing flowers so I’ll wait with baited breathe for small toms to start forming. I need to sow some more Cauli, Turnip and Beetroot; mainly for winter storage, sow some more lettuce and radish and spring onions, salad season is upon us!

Harvest Monday

Well I had to do it, the suspense was killing me, I pulled the first tub of Rocket potatoes at the weekend and was thankful to see some lovely sized spuds weighing in at 2lb 3oz. This is my first harvest of the year. As you can see from the picture there were a few decent sized ones and some little ones.

Went to the allotment of Friday evening and started to weed and dig over the overgrown area where the ‘Onion’ group of beds are going to go. Here is where I’ll put in the Squash, Courgette, Leeks and Marrow; the Onions are already in a bed which I built a few months back. Saturday was glorious; I was at the plot from 9.30 am right through till about 5 pm, clearing more of the area, weeding other beds and laying some more paving around various beds. Sunday was awful, it rained non-stop, but I got some planting (Lettuce, Celeriac and Celery) done on the afternoon during the lighter spells.

Brian, an elderly plotter on the main allotment area has some ducks and hens on his plot, one of the hens had become broody so he put a few duck eggs in for her to sit on, well the other day she hatched them, so me and Caleb went to see them, they were so cute, all yellow and fluffy and only a couple of days old.

Wahey, It's Stopped Raining!

Well the constant rain since Sunday has stopped, I think i've seen every version of rain there is, but that fine hazzy rain is the worst, and I think you get the wettest with that one. Anyway, i'm going to take advantage of the break in rain (it's forcast to return on Sunday) and pull up some of those dandilion weeds and the thistles that seem to be growing this year with a vengence.

Sweetcorn and Beans to get planted up over the weekend, maybe put out one or two of the bigger Courgette and Squash plants. Other than that, it's dig, dig, dig to get some more ground cleared and beds made.

Catch Up

Apologies for not posting anything lately, it’s been quite hectic and I’ve not managed to find the time to post a blog, but anyway here we are and here is what’s been happening. Plenty of weeding done but this has come to a halt as the weather is awful, downpours of heavy rain for the past four days so it’s very wet, but it saves watering those potatoes!

So all the potatoes are now in the ground, I even managed to get the ‘sample’ spuds in eventually, hopefully they will all grow to produce some lovely tasty potatoes. I’m wondering whether to empty out one of the containers growing the 1st earlies Rocket, still no flowers and still nothing to find whilst rummaging. I think I may have to bite the bullet and empty one to see what is going on if anything. The seaweed/comfrey trials have started; one row of Rudolph was planted on a bed of seaweed and rotted manure, earthed up and watered in with a seaweed drink. I then planted another row of Rudolph on a bed of comfrey leaves and rotted manure and this was watered in with a comfrey drink. Each row had the same amount of potatoes planted and each potato was roughly the same size. To date the seaweed potatoes are the first to start making an appearance, a couple of leaves are beginning to poke through the soil. You can see in the picture below, my 2nd earlies are coming along nicely, the bed in the background is where the early maincrop are planted, the row at the left of the picture is the seaweed potatoes and the row next to that on its right are the comfrey potatoes. There is a row of Blue Danube to the far right and also a mixed row of Blue Danube and Rudolph. I’ve planted up the late maincrop Golden wonder in the area where the wildlife patch will go, things were just getting too tight to have the final bed weeded for them and I’d dug the wildlife area over last summer so all I had to do was pull out the fresh weeds and plant the potatoes, and I thought that the manure would enrich the soil ready for when the flowers/pond can go in when they are pulled up in the autumn. I’ll not get round to planting out the wildlife flowers this year, well possibly in the autumn I can put in the pond and a few plants but I think the majority of the plants will be put in next spring.

The tomatoes are coming along nicely, quite a few are now potted up in 5 litre tubs, these will have one final move to 9 litre tubs when they are ready, I might plant some in the ground at the allotment, if the bottle house isn’t completed in time, if it is, I’ll put some in grow bags or a ring culture in there. My aubergine plant got scorched and wilted beyond recovery one very hot afternoon, so I’ve had to resort to buying a plant from the garden centre. The cucumber plants didn’t germinate so I’ve planted a couple more; these are just starting to peek through the compost. Chilli Peppers and Sweet Peppers are looking good also.

My two over-wintering cauliflowers have produced nice little curds, I’m waiting anxiously until I can pick these, there is a nice cauli and potato recipe in one of my magazines which I’m wanting to use them on along with some of my 1st earlies. Plenty of cabbages, broccoli (green and purple), cauli and sprouts ready to plant out, which I’ll do once this blasted, rain stops.

I’ve made some bean frames (see below) ready to have the Runner and French beans planted against, these are in the process of hardening off at the moment. I’m going to make a wigwam of canes for the Borlotti and Flangelot beans to climb. The Squash, Pumpkin and Courgette plants are putting on growth, these will need planting out shortly, and I’m going to plant some with the beans, some with the Sweetcorn and hopefully some on their own, the Sweetcorn is also hardening off ready to be planted out hopefully over the weekend, when the weather is forecasted to warm/dry up.

Caleb and I went on a course this weekend just gone - Beginners Guide to Chicken Keeping. It was really good; we got to learn about their habits, food, shelter etc. and we even went into a large coop/run and handled them. Caleb though they were brilliant, so now he can’t wait for the chickens to arrive, I’ll have to hurry up and get their coop and run built, job number 624, lol.

Rounding off with a picture for you, have you seen the size of the root on this thistle which I dug out the other day!