Rhubarb & Custard

Lifted the upturned black bin from over the Rhubarb to find this wonderful sight. After all this early hot sun I wondered if it was cooked already!

Ice Cream I think, not custard this weekend.

Clocks Spring forward!

The last two weeks have been so warm that I have been able to dig almost every afternoon, if only for an hour. This had made a huge difference. The soil is lovely to dig, you turn it and it crumbles. the only down side is the amount of bind weed root that I found, but then I have been removing it; Every bit of white root is a little bit less! I have removed several carry bags full. I am determined to at least to try and keep it in check by disturbing it, pulling and painting it with something horrible.

We WILL have a productive plot this year.

I have been busy sowing seeds in the last day or two.
Primo cabbage, mini cucumber Cucino F1 and mini peppers. I have plaed them on the kitchen windowsill in their little propagators and wait with eager anticipation. The mini cues were expensive at £3.99 for 5 seeds from T & M so lets hope they germinate! I plan to have these growing in my new greenhouse along with the mini peppers. Watch this space.

I look forward to some lighter evenings from now on.

Speedy shoots

My Early Peas are growing fast in the north facing propagator.

First seed sowing

Another warm sunny day. Spent a couple of hours up the plot and sowed a row of each of the following Beetroot Boltardy, Perpetual Spinach and Speedy Salad.

Tidied up a bit too, putting all the ‘rubbish’ at one end of the plot ready to take to the dump. A lot of digging needs to be done before the ground gets too hard. Another day!

A sunny Monday afternoon

The last couple of days of sunshine have enticed me up to the plot for some more tidying and digging. There is a lot to be done and I don’t want to get too far behind.

I spent a couple of hours up the plot after work and planted onion sets, covering them with the thicker fleece to keep the night time frost off them. I hope the daytime sunshine will get them away quickly to catch up with other peoples!

I also cleared the area bordered by the box hedge, removing last year’s shallots that were never dug up. I shall use this area for sowing Spinach when it gets warmer.

The soil is easy to dig and it’s reasonably easy to get the bindweed out of it. A wren flitted about singing from the fence and a woodpecker ‘laughed’ as it flew across the plot.

At home here I potted the sprouting Early Peas and put them in a propagator in the dining room.

Tidying, pruning, feeding and sowing

Cleared the bind weed and  pruned, feed and mulched the Blackcurrent and Redcurrent bushes this week. They are now 3 years old this month so with some feeding should produce a good crop of fruit.
The rhubarb is showing pink shoots so I covered it with a black bin.

I started my first digging, ready to plant out my onion sets and garlic. I’m a bit late but better late than never. A walk round the site reassured me that I am not alone in having neglected my plot! Some holes in the perimeter fence indicated that rabbits can still get in too.

At home in the shed I peeked at my sweetpeas, but no show yet despite the sunny day in the week. I MUST be patient…that is my mantra for February.

Bought some Cara pots to chit. Also put some Early Peas in a bag of moist compost on the kitchen windowsill to start them off.

Sweet Pea sowing

2011 SEASON BEGINS

I’m ashamed to say we grew nothing last year 2010, due to working too much! No time or energy left at the end of the day or at weekends. I certainly missed it, and knowing so many people are waiting for plots it was very wicked of us to waste it.

So a new start to a new season with every intention of using our plot this year!

Sowed 20 pots, 4 seeds in each pot (£1 worth) with mixed sweetpea seed from the pound shop. Weather is overcast and cool but we have seen some very warm days during the week and bulbs in the garden are growing at a rate of knots.

Change the clocks!

It’s that time already

As you can see from the gap in reporting, other projects have taken priority over my plot this year!

However, to summarise the year I would say it has been quite a good one. Great success with growing peas this year which I shall do again next; also climbing French Beans for the first time. Usual varieties or Cara and Charlotte potatoes haven’t let me down either. Onions were good too. Strawberries were very good this year.

At present the white cabbages are lovely, as are the calabrese plants, so shall be harvesting them soon along with a few Leeks I have growing. My wallflower seedlings are looking like good sturdy plants now, ready to bring in the early insects next Spring. Must look after the wildlife!

Unusually this year, the courgettes and cucumbers were poor; but then I put that down to lack of rain and my neglect!

So now it is time to mulch, mulch, mulch and let the worms do the work for me.

Blight! You win some, you loose some…

Sadly I had to remove all my tomato plants today. The warm damp conditions this summer have brought the dreaded blight and they were collapsing. I’m not surprised but just upset about throwing so many little toms away, they were fruiting so well.

Last year I escaped the blight and had a good crop, 2007 were blighted too. So I guess I shall just have to accept defeat and continue to grow them at home, where they seem  less susceptible.

I bagged up the plants and fruit and removed from the site to prevent contamination.

On a happier note, I picked my first cucumber and have started digging my Cara potatoes. The French beans are still producing a good crop and I harvested my first Primo White Cabbage. So along with the red onions I dug earlier and my huge Autumn onions, the veg. dept. at the supermarket is definitely not seeing much of me!

Like with all gardening; you win some, you loose some!

Good companions

I just had to take this photo, the combination of red and green is gorgeous.

So far the beans are doing really well. I will certainly grow them again next year. Good ol’ Wilko seeds.

I am now digging the last row of my salad potatoes too. Sad. As always, a good crop and so easy to scrape the skins off for cooking.