Pot and Plot | Vegetable and Flower Growing

Spring has Sprung

February 14, 2010 by joysimpson

At long last we have had a respite from the bitter winds and so with a smidgin of sunshine it has felt positively warm today. This made me venture out to find my propagator in the garage and start sowing seeds.

Hurrah!

I have sown celaric because it needs so long to grow to a decent size, tomatoes Marmande and St Pierre, aubergine Long Purple, courgettes Jemmer and Green Bush and Marconi peppers. I know that I will be looking closely every day until I see them coming up.

I also started to chit my potatoes. International Kidney – or Jerseys as I call them, Charlotte as I love their waxy texture and King Edwards. The King Edwards are always a bit hit and miss in my dry sandy soil if they don’t get enough water. I have had good crops the last two summers as it has been so wet. I bought far too many tubers so I am going to try something I haven’t done before. I’m going to pot some up in bags and leave them in the polytunnel and see if I do get any earlier crops.

This afternoon I cleared a bed that was full of ivy and nettles so that I could transplant some beautiful roses. They are an old english variety of deep purple and are in the wrong place at them moment.

However, what I need know is a cup of tea and a lie down!

Posted in Garden, Vegetables | Tagged potatoes, roses, seeds, sowing | Leave a Comment »

Sunshine and Critters

January 23, 2010 by joysimpson

A little bit of sunshine today was all I needed to take me down to the allotment to weed the asparagus beds.

I found last year that if I weeded them early in the year and gave them a sprinkling of 6X they grew very strongly. I have repeated this to see if it will happen again.

I have an early, middle and late variety and so picked for about 8 weeks last year. The later variety are Connovers Colossal and they really did live upto their name.

The posts are to stake the ferns at around October half-term. This is when the south westerly winds start to blow and because the ferns are usually about 8ft tall they act like sails, filling with the wind and blowing all over the place.

For the last two years we have had asparagus beetle – a very tricksy little critter. When it sees the shadow of your hand approaching to get it, it rolls around the stem or drops to the floor where you can’t see it. As we are organic growers, the only way to deal with them is by hand collection and squashing! We did get them under control as we had very few grubs and I am hoping that the cold weather this winter has killed off any hiding in the old stems.

I inspected the peas in the polytunnel and so far no mouse activity. Next weekend is when I start to sow seed using a propagator on the kitchen windowsill. First things in will be tomato seed. I can’t wait.

What are you looking forward to in the next few weeks?

Posted in Allotment, Vegetables | Tagged asparagus | Leave a Comment »

I’m Learning! Grow an RSS feed.

January 17, 2010 by joysimpson

I am not new to blogging as I blog for the team that I work for, but I am new to allotment and gardening blogs and one of the things that I am learning is that very few have RSS feeds of any description. This means that I have to visit each blog in turn rather than having all the posts turn up in my google reader or on bloglines.

I haven’t got time to visit each blog regularly and see what new posts there are. Can someone please explain why you don’t use feeds? It would be much easier for your readers. Or this one anyway!

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged blogs, feeds, rss | 2 Comments »

January Jobs

January 16, 2010 by joysimpson

I hate the middle to end of January as I am usually fed up by now with not really being able to get outside and do anything. Even my free-draining sandy soil is too wet to dig. This is when my polytunnel starts to come into its own. Just one hour in there sowing can restore my sanity.

When I went in what little stuff that I had was not doing too badly. The spring cabbages are a little droopy but they will recover and there are some winter lettuces that have sat there since October and will be great. The rogue parsley and red mustard are of course doing quite well.

I did sow beetroot, rainbow chard, mizuna and peas in the tunnel. I expect the peas will have been dug up tomorrow by the mice. I have tried all sorts of coverings and protections but nothing seems to work. I am afraid it might have to be the traps this year if I end up sowing them more than twice.

I don’t like the ideas of soaking them in smelly stuff so has anyone got any other ideas that I could try?

Posted in Allotment, Vegetables | Tagged beetroot, cabbage, mice, polytunnel, rainbow chard | 1 Comment »

What to do when you can’t garden

January 9, 2010 by joysimpson

Why you build a mountain out of your frozen birdbath water of course!

Posted in Garden | Tagged birdbath, snow, winter | Leave a Comment »

They Sum Me Up!

January 8, 2010 by joysimpson

These poor globe artichoke plants really sum me up as a gardener. I sowed them very late, October, and then put them outside towards the middle of December since when they have alternatively frozen and thawed. I have the bed that I want to put them in to but have inadvertently put broad beans in. This means that these plants will have to wait until the beans are harvested before they can go in. If only I was organised! The only good thing if they survive is that they will think that they have had their first winter, which they will have had, and so will produce great globes in their first year.

They are replacements for my current bed of about 6 globe artichokes that have been in for about 5 years and are now getting a bit tired. They will however have to do one more year until these young plants are in and growing. Next year!

I’m looking forward to something like this. To grow them properly have a look at Allotment Blog.

Posted in Allotment, Vegetables | Tagged globe artichokes | Leave a Comment »

Who has been walking in my snow?

January 6, 2010 by joysimpson

Not me!

Posted in Garden | Tagged snow | Leave a Comment »

The Secret to Growing Masses of Sweet Potatoes

January 4, 2010 by joysimpson

Well not a secret as I am sure many of you already know how to do this but it is the first year that I have really had any success. I have always grown them in my polytunnel. I would think that it is a struggle with them outside over the last two summers. Tiny Farm Blog says that they grow well in sandy soil – good because that is most definitely what I have although I disagree about not watering them. I too grew Beauregard from slips which were provided by Thompson and Morgan sent out in May and planted at the end of June. When growing they look a little like bindweed with long shoots sent sprawling over the soil. The picture below shows the last 3 plants worth of tubers.

So what are the secrets?

Good soil – I always manure before I plant them

Plenty of water

This year there was a warm autumn that went on for some time

And every time I watered I alternated the type of feed, first weak tomato feed followed by weak worm liquid from my allotment neighbour Andrew’s worms.

The two things different this year were a warm autumn and the feeding regime.

This winter I shall be mostly eating sweet potatoes! How about you?

Posted in Allotment | Tagged sweet potatoes | Leave a Comment »

Welcome

January 3, 2010 by joysimpson

This blog is one of my new year’s resolutions. I have blogged for some time in relation to my work and thought that in order to offer some kind of balance to my work/home life that I should start blogging about my garden and allotments. I have always kept a paper based journal about the time I spend gardening but realised that I can do it just as well online.

At the moment my garden and allotment are covered in frost , even down here in the south west of England, and are not really workable. But I am snuggled up at home reading The Ivington Diaries by Monty Don. He manages to capture his love and real need for the garden as part of his well-being. He talks about his thousands of photos of the garden and how he likes to look through them and I realised that I have taken hardly any even though I have been trying things out for eight years here and down at the allotment.

So here goes – only it’s too cold today!

Posted in Garden | Tagged frost, Garden | 2 Comments »