Iddy Biddy Tomato

Doesn't it look cute, this is my first tomato growing and it's in the bottle house, can't wait to taste it.

We put the bees in the hive on Saturday morning, nice and early before they came too active, I had a quick look at the four hives on Sunday, just from the side, I didn't venture into them and they were all doing nicely, lots of bees flying in and out, looking good.

However this morning when I had a quick look, the swarm I collected on Thursday I'm a little concerned about, the bees were going in and out but none had any pollen in their baskets on their legs... as long as they were taking pollen into the hive things were going ok, or so that's what I was taught.  Anyone got any idea's or can reassure me.

A day without rain, so I went off to the allotment to play

I can't remember a whole day without any rain (well certainly not on a weekend) for months, so I took advantage and went to the allotment.  So much to plant, lots of catching up to do.  I packed the car with tomato plants, leeks, runner beans and french beans, plastic bottles, canes, drill & accessories, poor Diesel, there was very little room left for him, we arrive for just after 1pm.

First job, fill the gaps around the back door on the bottle house with bottles (obviously), done....after that I wanted to fill in the triangle above the front door to the bottle house, done.... next on the agenda, plant out the tomatoes inside the bottle house, done.... next on the list, plant out the leeks... bit of a stumbling block here, had my dibber ready but the soil was rock hard so I decided to dig over the bed to loosen up the soil, but every time I lifted a clump of soil all you could hear was a squelch, the top was crusty dry but underneath very sticky and wet, I didn't know if this was a good idea to plant out the leeks, so I've turned over the whole bed and left it to dry out, try this one again next weekend.  So my next job was to plant the runner beans and the french beans, done... moving along, hoe the strawberry bed and put mulch mats underneath the plants to keep the fruit off the soil, another one ticked off the list... time was getting on now, I hoed around the Jerusalem artichokes in the bed at the front of the chickens... back to the bottle house, I made a start on one of the back panels, filling it, got about half done when I ran out of bottles... more washing and cutting over the coming week should see this just about completed.   I was beginning to waiver, I had wanted to lift the garlic and shallots, but I've left this for another day.  We left at 10pm completely shattered, but with still so much to do.

I have tomatoes in my bottle house....

Introducing the Bees

Nothing much more to update you on since my last post, though I have sowed quite a few different pumpkin, squash and courgette plants. Thursday evening is usually my night at the allotment and then at the weekend when I get the opportunity.  As well as doing more squash etc. I've also potted on some of the tomato plants, they are getting so BIG, they must grow inches every day, this lovely weather is doing them the world of good.

I posted a video a few issues ago, giving you a tour around the plot and I am hoping to do this on a monthly basis, but you know how these things pan out, good intentions and all that, but please do keep coming back to have a look.  Hopefully the video works, I think there was a problem with it initially but I have uploaded it onto YouTube and it seems to be working better now.  Anyway, would appreciate it if you could let me know just a yes or no would suffice and then I'll be able to keep at it until it's working properly if things aren't going to plan.

I've just been looking at a video of how plants were in the greenhouse just a couple of weeks ago, wow things are moving along really nicely.  I've been hardening off a few brassica plants, so I might get them planted out at the weekend.

If you did watch the last video, I had to leave you dangling on a piece of string at the end as I had every intention of showing you the bees, but when I got there it was too cold for them and there were very few flying around the hive.  I did however take a quick video of them the other morning...

Lovely Weather

Welcome Rooko, thanks for popping by and sticking around.

Well what can we say 'Glorious'.... that's what it's been over the past week, temperatures in the 20's, great stuff.  The tomatoes, aubergine, pepper and chilli plants are all growing very nicely, I'm sure they have doubled, nearly tripled in size due to the warm temperatures, just what they needed as they were looking really sorry for themselves.

On Thursday evening and again on Sunday I finished off clearing and digging over the bottle grow-house.  I have made a start on creating the planting beds in there.  I will have 4 beds 7ft x 2ft to plant out the toms etc.., I have built 2 so far, hopefully the other two will be completed this Thursday evening.  These beds are made from scaffold boards so will be nice and deep.  I'll try to rotate as best as I can, will probably have to dig out and replace soil in a few years time.  There will be a pebble path running down the middle so I can wet it down on a morning, something that is advised in greenhouses, so I suppose it's something I should be trying to do in the grow-house.

I've got some annual leave booked in for next week, so hopefully I'll be able to make a start on the curcubiteae area.  But I'm not putting any money on that, it always rains when I'm on leave.....

Couple of picture of the inside of the bottle grow-house.  Two beds complete.

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!

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!

Glorious Glorious Glorious! - Oh and the Spuds are In!

Can you believe the weather we’ve had over the last few days, it has been glorious to say the least, not the kind of weather you want to be digging in, but needs must and digging is what I have done. Eventually I have planted the Rudolph, Blue Danube and Golden Wonder potatoes; I must say that it’s a weight of my shoulders that these are finally in the ground. I’ve got a couple of ‘sample’ potatoes (Pink Fir Apple, Markies, Nicola and Cara) which I will plant over the next couple of days and definitely by the weekend, I’m not overly worried about getting these in as they aren’t my main choices, just tasters really so I’ll put them in little areas of soil that have already been dug over and weeded but are ear-marked for flowers or other types but not where potatoes will be planted over the next couple of years so as not to risk spreading disease etc. It’s been 10 weeks since I planted the first tub of my 1st earlies so I had a little feel around in the compost, I can’t feel any potatoes yet so I’m a little worried, is disaster looming? There is plenty of foliage but no flowers so I may give it a couple more weeks before emptying out the first tub.

My tomatoes are fast outgrowing their 5 inch pots so I’ll be potting them on into slightly bigger pots shortly, I’m not sure if they will get into the bottle house this summer or not, but as they are varieties suitable for either outdoor or indoor growing I’ll not worry myself about it too much, same said for the cucumber, aubergine and chilli plants, some of which I can grow on in the ‘plastic’ and ‘walk-in’ greenhouses if I need to.

I’ve planted out some broad beans and lettuces, sown four varieties of carrots and have Turnip (Snowball & Purple Top), Kohl Rabi and seed onions ready for planting out. My French, Borlotti, Flangelot and Runner beans are all making appearances peeking though the compost in their 3 inch pots, they look lovely.

Having spent all Thursday, Friday, Saturday and most of Sunday (until the heavens opened) at the plot and having all that lovely weather I have been able to observe the position of the sun during the course of the day. Most of the plot gets the sun all of the day except where my shed is, which is what I’d hoped when I re-sited it in its corner, the only disappointing bit is the flower area I’m wanting to plant up in front of the shed sits in the shade most of the day also, getting the sun from around 3pm on the afternoon so I’ll have to find some shade loving plants to go there. The good news is the area where the wildlife section is going to go gets the sun for most of the day, shaded a little on the morning but in full sun for most of the time, so I’ll be able to plant lots of sun loving, bright coloured big nectar rich plants there. I’ll also have to build a shade ‘shelter’ for the chucks when their run has been built so they can hide from the sun when they want to as they will be housed in that area also.

On a final note, we’ve been granted permission to plant an orchard on our little community bit, so that is something to look forward to, lots of fruit trees and we are also looking into having some beehives put there.

Fence Posts, Plastic Bottles and the WEATHER!

So the big question is.... will the weather hold off this weekend so that I can start on one of the two big projects i'm so eagerly waiting to get off the ground. Well I'm off to buy the fence posts this evening for my bottle house, it's a mammoth project, somewhere in my dreams this bottle house will measure 16 ft long by 4 ft wide. Its going to be home to my Tomatoes, Cucumbers, Peppers (Chilli and Sweet) and also i'm going to have a go at growing a Melon. I've got several large black plastic bags in my spare room full of 2 litre bottles and Mrs C has kindly got another 2 bags waiting for me, so with 4 days off work, I think the time is right to start.

I still haven't figured out how i'm going to secure the posts into the ground, I have 2 of those metal square block things that fence posts fit into, these will be for the middle 2 posts, but the 4 corner posts, well i'm going to wing it.

Wish me luck!

How Could I Forget - My Chickens!

Gosh, I don’t know how I’ve done it, but yesterday I forgot to mention the most important happening of the weekend - I’ve ordered 4 chickens. When I say I’ve ordered them, I’ve put in a request to a friend who has a small holding (1 acre) to rear me some chicks, she will look after them until they are at ‘point of lay’, which is roughly about 18 - 20 weeks old, and at which point I’ll have returned from my holiday and it’ll be all systems go, eggtastic!

Quick update on the sowing - I’ve started to pre-chit some parsnips, done the old wet paper towel trick; we’ll see how they get on. I also sowed 3 of each of the tomato varieties: Gardener Pearl, Roma, Red Cherry and an Italian big beefy one I can’t for the life of me think what it’s called now, I’ve put them in little peat pots so I don’t need to prick them out and pot on, I’ll just pop the peat pot into the next size up which will probably be a 3” pot and carry on from there. Did this with a couple of plants last year and it seemed to work out ok, so I’ll give it another go.

Had another look at my potato plans last night also, I was going to put the 2nd earlies into tubs as I’m doing with the 1st earlies, but again the seed potatoes seem to be multiplying, I don’t know where they are all coming from, but they will go in the ground as I haven’t enough of the potato tubs.

A Great Weekend - Shovelling Shit

Wasn’t it lovely over the weekend, well lovely compared to the previous goodness knows how many weekends gone by. On Saturday I managed to build a walk-in plastic greenhouse a bargain at £19.99 from B&M; do you have one of those shops anywhere near you? There brilliant and so cheap. So I’ve built that and put in my Broad Beans, I’d potted them on into bigger pots, getting them accustomed to the outside world ready for when I plant them up at the plot. I sowed some Toms, Chilli and Sweet Peppers and Tomatillos (just 2 of each variety - 4 varieties of toms and 2 of each of the sweet and chilli peppers) just to see how they get going. I sowed some marigolds, and nasturtiums for the beneficial planting area.

On Sunday the weather was not as good as Saturday, but I went over the allotment, it was still rather flooded after the rain on Friday, just as it was starting to dry out we had continuous rain all Friday which meant the plot was re-flooded in parts. A delivery of horse muck had been dumped so I spent an hour shovelling shit, it was WONDERFUL!!!

On Sunday evening my Mother telephoned me to ask if I knew anyone who was interested in some chicks. Her partners’ son’s daughter’s school had incubated some eggs and they had hatched. I’m pondering taking a couple on, they’d be ready in a couple of weeks; I’ll keep you informed as to what I decide. Wouldn’t that be nice though a couple of little chicks?

Plans for the Weekend

I’ve got plans galore that I want to get done over the weekend, how many will come to fruition only the man in the sky knows, him and his little weather pixie anyway, but nonetheless this is what is on the agenda:
· Get the 2nd earlies chitted (this should be easy, not weather reliant).
· Sow some leeks, tomato (in heated propagator), melon, peas, lettuce, chillies (again not weather reliant)
· Cover small bed (4ft x 4ft) in back yard with fleece (well old net curtains) so soil starts to warm up for carrots/parsnips to be sown in a couple of weeks.
· Get electric lead for propagator (must do this before item 2)
· Tidy up back yard so that raised beds and greenhouse (small plastic ones) can be put into place ready for hardening off and more planting.
· Buy some garden canes and collect plastic bottles from Mrs ‘C’ (she is saving 2 litre bottles for me for my bottle house).
· Get down to the allotment, see what can be dug, and dig, dig, dig. If not possible to dig, i.e. ground frozen and waterlogged, and then it will be build, build build.
· Wash out pots and seed trays.
· Oh yeah, last but not least eat and sleep (again not weather reliant, lol)

A couple of dates for your diaries, if you don’t already know about them. Gardener’s world is back on 5th March BBC2 at 8pm and also Alys Fowler will be presenting The Edible Garden, this is due to start on Tuesday 16th March BBC2 at 8pm.

Light(ish) Nights

Isn’t it wonderful now the nights are starting to get a bit lighter, there will soon be a whole hour after work that I’ll be able to get bits n pieces done at the allotment. I’m lucky that it’s only 5 minutes drive from my work, so it’s easy to pop over to do a few bits before it gets dark. Over winter this has not been feasible, but with the nights getting lighter for longer I’ll be able to get over and do bits. Another added bonus is British Summertime Begins in just 4 weeks, just think of that extra hour!

I’m planning to get over to the lottie over the weekend, didn’t manage last weekend, what with one thing and another, but I would like to get across for a couple of hours at least on Sunday. The only stumbling block is yes you’ve guessed it, its forecast snow showers here in Middlesbrough. Hopefully though this prediction won’t come true and it will be glorious weather, yes I know cloud cuckoo land.

I ordered some Gardman (Pack of 2) Reusable Potato Planters / Tubs online to plant some of the earlies in, as the potato area isn’t sorted yet. You can see from the photo below, the area just at the bottom of the picture covered in weeds, this is where the potato beds are going to go.

Once I’d ordered the planters they only took a couple of days to arrive, very fast turnaround. I’m very pleased with them, they seem more robust than some of the designs available, and they have little pouches on the sides which will be useful to fumble about and see how things are progressing.

On the seed front, the chitting spuds are chitting quite nicely, the Rocket in particular are doing very well. The Cabbage (Greyhound) is doing well, Cauliflower (AYR) are starting to come through, so are the Khol Rabi. No sign of the Onions, Celeriac, Peppers or Cucumber yet but nearly all Broad Beans are through. I’ll going to have look through my seeds at the weekend and sow some more things. I may try some tomatoes, I’ve been given a heated propagator so I’m going to keep them snug in there and see how they go.