The Frantic Gardeners’ Blog

I like the idea of square foot gardening, and liked the book, and our beds in leeds were 4 foot by 10 foot and often roughly square foot planted. But i can’t be doing with all the mixing and stuff of his special compost, and tend to use soil. I am not sure you can plant quite so close in soil and still get healthy strong plants, so i tend to plant a sort of hibrid square foot/ my own way

Anyway, DH was v keen to have a proper go at square foot planting and was grumpy some time ago because i planted ‘his’ bed with salads, chard and peas [oops!]. SO, being a most excellent wife , I made him another square bed to square foot in. However, this bed has been ignored for about 2 months, and i started to drop significant hints that this bed would be co-opted. So today, he planted it up with some mixed lettuces [i had sown] , some dwarf beans [i had sown] and some rainbow chard [admittedly he had sown, but i pricked out ]

I planted out the rest of the cucurbits, hoed, weeded and popped more straw mulch down, this time around the sweetcorn.

All of this was done in between massive downpours of torrential rain.

I must get my photos onto flickr so i can add some here, as it has been far to long since i posted a pic, and I have taken loads! We did have some rain in the night. Not a huge amount, but at least some. Haven’t watered outside today as hoping for some more tonight. However, the sunflowers do have a bit of a droop to the lower leaves.

Sowing

OK, i am seriously worried about a lack of pumpkins and butternut squash as we love them. So, I can’t wait for the last sowing to germinate [no sign yet] and bought fresh seed and sowed 4 of each. Hopefully this will mean all will germinate and I will have too many.

Maintenance

I pruned the grape vine in the conservatory. It is thought it was planted when the conservatory was added to the house, approx 1850, so we try and care for it well! the main ‘trunk’ comes out the side of the wall and into the ground outside. It was v rampant when we bought the house, and in no particularly trained fashion, tho had about 50 bunches of grapes. We had to replace the conservatory last year due to falling down issues so pruned it back very hard and then built the conservatory around it. last year we allowed two fresh shoots of the main ‘trunk’ become the permanent horizantal cordons, and are spur pruning. However, we need to cut back the huge old loop, so are not actually letting much develop this year, just enough to keep the plant healthy, and will prune the big loop off in the winter and hopefully get the verticals up next year. There are lots of bunches of flowers currently.

DH got the bean fence set up, and i will plant the climbing beans next week as we would be v unlucky to get a frost - always seems a bit risky tho! [coming from living in Leeds I think it takes quite a while to adjust to the difference a few weeks makes, as well as soil type and rainfall]

i felt a bit bad about taking over DH’s bed, so have made him a square foot bed, just need to add compost to it - think we might have enough in our earliest compost bin.

just being a bit more frantic than normal I have fitted in work, playing and doing stuff [lots] with kids, some sowing and potting on, but no time or energy left for blogging!! [or tweeting which I was going to try and do well this year! maybe slow and steady ] so what have we been doing?

Sowing

Garlic has gone straight out into the veg bed, way too late really but will keep hopeful Various salad potatoes and earlies have been chitting, and now we need to plant them out - maybe this weekend.

today i have sown marigold, dwarf french bean, mangetout oregon sugar pod,  pak choi [purple] and DD2 has sown her gourds.

previously [march 13 ] i have sown some jaguar peas into half gutters to see how that works and also some cauli purple queen, romanescu brocolli and normal white cauli. DD1 sowed all her flowers - mostly stocks but some zinnia, stocks, sweet peas and rudbeckia too. all now germinated .

germinating

we are doing well with germinating so far this year. just waiting for the eryngiums still, but everything else done rather well. was v relieved that the peppers made it

Potting on

i have potted on DD2s sunflowers today, and they automatically look happier. I also potted on the tomatoes gardeners delight - probably a bit to soon as their roots not huge, but because i had 2 per module.

the nights are still pretty chilly here [into the minus anyway] and some of the days pretty hot, so there is lots of running and opening up greenhouse and then running and closing [just remembered the tops, so better go back out!] and have taken lots of things out of the propagator today that are teeny tiny, as they only get to stay in if not germinated or particularly tender.

Maintenance

well, we have been working hard in the garden, clearing from the veg bed and the greenhouse 2 years of accumulated rubbish and weeds so that we can start again. A HUGE bonfire was had, and we have lots of compost from continuing to compost through the last 2 years, but not used it!

DH has set up the greenhouse with the propagator there as well, as the conservatory has been renovated, and no longer suitable for the mess of potting on ;)  . The previous shelves have been renovated a bit too, so i have a potting and sowing area in there for now, though when we get far more things I will have to lose it . contemplating bubble wrap, and also capillary matting and autowatering.

Planning

we have planned out the veg bed a bit, and the bit nearest the house will have 4 beds which are to be permanent, and one each for us. The girls are really excited, and bought mostly flower seeds, though DD2 has also chosen some woodland strawberries.

Sowing

Today i sowed the peppers - jalepeno, inferno and red grill, some from a mixed aubergine packet and physallis. These are obviously planned for the greenhouse. Later i will be sowing melons and tomatoes and that should fill it up! I also sowed some broad beans into a module, as that area of the veeg bed not quite ready yet. All are out into the propagator in the greenhouse, which is a home made job with coldframe on the top, and the individ trays get those seed tray lids on as well. It is the first year that the propagator is in the greenhouse, so i do hope it stays warm enough at night. Hmm, think tomorrow may add bubblewrap to make sure!

SO, nice to be back after a 2 year break.

Last year was mostly a write off in the garden, for one reason and another. 2009 was a bit ropey as well IIRC. 2010 will be much better

So a list to start:

1. Finish clearing the area at back of stable, greenhouse.

Finish cutting down the Fig.

Put down black sheet

Prune back the holly some more now berries gone.

2. Clear out greenhouse

Give it a good clean

Fix cracked/broken glass

Fix door

Fix roof openers (struts don’t hold them all open)

3. Put in some sort of elec supply to GH

4. Sort out large propogator onto it’s own stand

5. Sort out other staging - better trays for plants to stand on.

6. Clear:

Brambles etc. at back of greenhouse/vegplot fence.

Elder trees at end of veg plot

regrown back brambles etc. from wall side of veg plot

Clear rubbish from vegplot area, esp wall side

7.  Have bonfire and then black sheet rest of veg plot to stop weed regrowth

8. Construct 4 family beds at the top of veg plot (material? wood plastic?)

9. Put edge down on wall side of main ‘path’ to form bed, so strawberries at least can be planted there.

10. Tidy up/weed and  mulch sheet onto fruit bed whilst most weeds dead. Cover weedy strawberries and leave for this year.

Not much then

well, SB wants to try out goats milk first. but if she likes it, she thinks we probably have room for at least one if not 2 goats, we could milk them and get most of our own milk. Not quite enough for BB as she drinks so much. Of course we wouldn’t need a cow as well, just one animal type will do. and anyway, we don’t have room for a cow. and they would only give us blue milk, with all the fat still in, and we need green or red. hmm, yes, a goat would be good.

we don’t really want bees, although we have some, because they might sting. daddy could get the honey, but maybe we won’t bother as we don’t use enough.

chortle chortle chortle on my behalf! we are raising a smallholder. possibly a good career path.

For those planning to garden with toddlers, a word of advice - or several!

1. sow more than you need. When they help you pot on our plant out, there are a fair few casualties. Better just to be cheerful and have spares.

2. always have some pea or bean seeds for them to be busy planting anywhere if you have something a bit more delicate to do.

3. make sure your structures are really strong, and if something looks like a corridor, don’t plant along it, or excited feet will trample them down.

4. it is going to take way longer to do anything. for example I planted out 6 beans, and then DD2 required a hug for nearly an hour before being distracted by her trike. After 4 more beans, DD1 wanted to twine flowers in my hair.

5. Smile. growing is to instill a love for the land in them as well. me being uptight wont achieve that. I can always nip ou and fill in gaps. If its fiddly to sow and grow its best to wait until they are doing something else, or leave it out altogether

Yesterday was a fairly relaxed day. We spent lots of it in the garden, looking at the seeds sprouting, the flowers, and organising SB’s flower and veg beds by the playhouse. Hide and seek and lots of swinging! We need more of Merry’s cardboard boxes for the veg patch! I did some weeding though.
We also sowed some more seeds - our cucurbits [butternut squash, another squash, pumpkin and courgette], finished the packet of mangetout and also the fennel [which might not germinate as such an old packet! All the last lot of peas sown have germinated, and the spring onions. The broad beans are outside in open greenhouse to acclimatise before being planted.

Today, we have sowed the sweetcorn - including some bicolour from kirsty and some self supporting peas. i need to pot up the toms - anyone needing toms passing this way…

chris has done a grand job on sorting out this years propagatory - time to sow some seeds! bit late with peppers already - oops.

well, the peas did bite the dust while we were away - pretty much all of them - sigh! Weeds rampant [hmm, could be a heraldic badge for us] anyway, a stab at weeding and tidying up a bit. the apple trees are also all totally infested with a number of different aphid varieties - hosed them all off. They each have a couple of fruitlets. Also, the minarettes have had a good soaking, as this years trees and been a bit dry. One strawberry plant has died, the rest going strong and fruitlets appearing.

We are harvesting broadbeans and some wok brok at the mo [though not much of that] and made my husband laugh with my excitement at one asparagus pea! I am amazed at how well the lettuces are doing, as in leeds the slugs decimated them overnight.

It seems to me that our biggest problem here is weeds. They really are hugely rampant. you hoe and every millimeter sprouts again. instantly. never seen anything quite like it. not helped by us being frantic rather than leisurely gardeners.

I think over the winter we may bed down as it were, with manure and cardboard on top, only removing to plant. If we have the finances, i will plant through that gardening brown paper and mulch with whatever on top, to try and minimize things. if not, will just go for spaced row planting, as opposed to my equidistant, as will be FAR easier to hoe!