The Frantic Gardeners’ Blog

Today I was supposed to plant out mangetout and peas, and also the potatoes.

Never mind - such things are what frantic gardening is all about!

Anyway, with my eldest daughter, we sowed some carrots into eggpots. we decided we weren’t sure whether we would recognise any carrot seedlings over weeds in the garden, so by doing this, we could potentially then identify any carrots in the weed row! i potted up half the toms into last but one size pot, and half the peppers into next size pot.

Finished hoeing the onions mind you, but that was it! Pleased to notice the minarette pear, the damson and a plum all had some flowers on them - just a few!

I like this - a kind of blog in short! Got from here.

frantic gardener blog

Originally uploaded by Scrumbledelicious.

how those weeds grow!

Under cover

only a minimum of sowing today - the replacement courgettes [gold rush], mixed lettuce and sweet fennel. Lots of watering in the propagatory and the greenhouse. Such a hot day that the temp in the conservatory reached above our scale [50C] help!! all windows/doors opened. It will get cooler in there when the grape vine leaves come out.

the runner beans and sweet peas have germinated, but not the climbing french beans.

Fruit

Our fruit trees have all come to life with leaf buds - no flowers, but that was expected for their first year. The grape vine has leaves and shoots all over the place. We can spot some not alive branches to be cut out. The training is not traditional - well the vine is> 100 years old. I’ve been looking up grape vine pruning and training, so we will try and get things going a bit. We’re not entirely sure what kind of grape we have - it has seeds, its green, and it gets sweeter the longer it is left on the vine, and was OK at Xmas. Our patio nectarine in a pot has some flowers. Lets see how it does.

The Veg Plot

Weeds continue to grow apace! I hoed the broad beans, garlic and half the onions. Chris and I between us dug over and weeded the area for the mangetout peas whilst BB slept and SB did some maths. The carrot lines are so runover with weeds that TBH, I can hardly see what is there, even the radish isn’t helping.

the asparagus hasn’t made an appearance yet though, and i haven’t managed to plant the potatoes- must do that!!

Weeds here are a MUCH huger problem that in our Leeds raised beds. hundreds germinate all over the place. The ground must be one massive weed seed collection. We are contemplating our mulching and growing through paper options for those things that are suitable.

The rest!

Well, we finally did some sorting of the pond, so that looks much better. Grass needs a cut and the flower borders are weed borders!

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Calculate your ecological footprint
CATEGORY GLOBAL HECTARES

FOOD 0.7

MOBILITY 0.4

SHELTER 1.8

GOODS/SERVICES 1.2

TOTAL FOOTPRINT 4.1

IN COMPARISON, THE AVERAGE ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT IN YOUR COUNTRY IS 5.3 GLOBAL HECTARES PER PERSON. WORLDWIDE, THERE EXIST 1.8 BIOLOGICALLY PRODUCTIVE GLOBAL HECTARES PER PERSON.

IF EVERYONE LIVED LIKE YOU, WE WOULD NEED 2.3 PLANETS.

Last year, my result was 1.8 planets, so we are getting worse not better. our food has improved, as we buy from farmers markets and local farm store as much as poss, and also grow our own. the car usage up as I live further from work, and use it more days. The shelter also up - as Leeds house more modest.
Chris would do better, using the car less. Our house is somewhat larger than our needs.

our propagatory has turned into a jungle. the weeds are a jungle outside, and the shallots and onion sets have been disturbed again!

the florence fennel has all germinated, the sweetcorn experiment have all germinated - so since no difference in method, the previous poor germination must have been down to old seed. And talking of old seed, I guess that is why the courgettes didn’t germinate. However, have a this year packet to sow.

All the other cucurbits - include the 24 cells with 5 in each - daughter plantings! have all done well.

More asparagus popping up, and a great surprise, but also a couple more artichoke have germinated - maybe I was a bit inpatient! The runners have also germinated, but not the french beans or the sweet peas.

Thats the update really. lots of watering has gone on.

but my beans were deperate to sow beans! SO we sowed some climbing bean blue lake, and some runner bean enorma, amd also some sweet peas.

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The sweetcorn experiment has shown that 8 have chitted in the paper and water pot, and 1 is putting up its head in the loo roll tubes. the chitted ones have now been introduced to soil in roottrainers.

We have good germination on the cucurbits: pumpkins and the festival squash, but no sign of courgettes as yet. Most of the varying pea types from last showing ar erupting through, as are the brassicas. No sign yet of the florence fennel though.

The grape vine is really getting going as well. There are a few branches with nothing sprouting as yet, so we will keep an eye on those and earmark them for pruning.

Other than that, yet more weeding in the veg beds, and some sawing up of branches from the pruned fig. unfotunately there was a fair bit of trampling of broad beans by the herd of little beans that are our children - sigh! raised beds were such an advantage there.

but when? Also urgent is the salad to prick out!
SB wanted to sow some seeds, so she has sown the extra early sprouting brocolli ‘rudolph’ today, and BB sowed some spare butternut squash - well, rammed them into soil probably a better description!

The baought seeds of squash festival are germinating - and a good germination rate showing there. All the different pea trays have evidence of earth eruptions, good news for germination there too.

The potted on aubergines are looking good, and soon time to pot on peppers.

The grape vine is coming on a pace, with lots of sign of new life.

we have’renovated’ a very straggly fig - only gently. with anymore pruning, i am wondering whether it is possible to porpagate it, so will have to look into it. I have the feeling it is supposed to be ‘air propagation’ which always sounds a bit fiddly to me.

SB and I set up a sweetcorn experiment, we are ‘chitting’ half and sowing half. they are all going into the propagator under roughly identical conditions!, and we will see which gives us the best result.

The previosuly announced asparagus germination was a hoax - not sure what they are, but SB helped me, so could be a stray. however, there are some definite asparagus germinations occuring now - as these look like mini spears.

one of the pumpkin Mars has germinated - winning the speediest cucurbit award [it is in the electric mini propagator rather than our home made one], and some of the sweetcorn minipop are also germinating.

Did a fair bit of hoeing of weeds, watering in the greenhouse, and replanting pulled out onion sets - sigh!

Have re-read lots of the square foot gardener - which is how we started, but the raised beds, and now moving to an ‘allotment style’ plot have got me row sowing! I think, when we get the girls area sorted, i will arrange it as 2 square foot beds with the markers on for then - well, primarily SB to start with - as it really seems a great way to grow.

Firslty I potted up the plug plants that came today. They’re lavender, and came with a seed order from T and M. When I say, I, I actually mean my elder daughter for most of them. She did it very nicely too.

I then potted on a few of the tomatoes, and fiddled with the positioning of things within and wtihout the propagator. The pea and brassica previous sowings have now gone to the unheated greenhouse to start hardening off.

So for sowing, there was peas Misty and oregon sugarpod, first sowing of florence fennel victoria, a repeat sowing of brocolli ‘wok broc’ , romanescu and cauliflower autumn giant, and mixed lettuce.

We are full to the gunnels again.

our 150 year old grape vine has started sprouting. so hopefully a good crop this year. This winter was the first time we have ever pruned a grape vine, so we are pleased to see signs of life!

IMG 1429We have ordered some strawberries from T and M - a 36 pack collection.

one of the articles is about a home educator? . Always nice to see home education not written in capital letters or with shocked exlamation marks.