The Frantic Gardeners’ Blog

garden stuff - my broad beans in modules need to go in the ground - as do the onion sets [late I know!] and potatoes [ditto]. SOme of the peas are ready to harden off. one of the modules is teaming with spider babies - tiny and yellow and black - prob deadly!! They run up and down the web presumably left by parent and then hide in 2 lumps under some leaves. The courgette have germinated, but not the other cucurbits yet. one sweetcorn germinated!! kirsty’s peas germinated. Must pot up toms.

garden stuff - my broad beans in modules need to go in the ground - as do the onion sets [late I know!] and potatoes [ditto]. SOme of the peas are ready to harden off. one of the modules is teaming with spider babies - tiny and yellow and black - prob deadly!! They run up and down the web presumably left by parent and then hide in 2 lumps under some leaves. The courgette have germinated, but not the other cucurbits yet. one sweetcorn germinated!! kirsty’s peas germinated. Must pot up toms.

well, I guess not really since we are camping, but aaargh, must get everything planted.

found some very sad a leggy mangetout languishing in coldframe - so have buried them deep and watered well, and with fingers crossed! Also was the leeks I had lost, so have done that. The two sisters are finally three!

I have sown some more peas and planted french beans, as well as sowing some of those direct. will go out now and try and plant final brassicas although getting dark.
I have some sweet peas and asparagus peas I’d like to plant out, and the globe artichokes [but I haven’t decided where to put those!] - but they will now have to wait until I get back, and hopefully not too leggy.
then I guess a mad sowing of salads and last things when we come back.

oh, and weeding at some point!

in the fruit bed, the apple minarettes have fruitlets and the strawberries flowers. There are 2 fruitlets only on the nectarine though. The minarettes are covered in aphids, although we have loads of predators in the garden being organic. I will get some soap solution and spray them - again when we get back. It might be because the are close to an ivy wall, and this seems to be the perfect pest habitat. Hmmm - I think that might be another job to do on our return!

So me and both daughters planted the runners up the wigwams, and also sowed a few more for luck!

We watered everything in well [so its been raining all evening!]

Chris potted up some of the toms.

we’re getting there! [OK, we are way behind! but it was a lovely day, and we were having fun together]

why is it that weeds grow so well and so fast???

well, yes, I know, its cos they are best adapted to our particular soil and microclimate, whereas our crops aren’t, and need some care and attention. And yes, i know that nettles are techniaclly edible, but TBH, I think I’ll wait until I have a food crisis to eat them, and instead use them to make feeds for the plants.

chris has done sterling work, and re-cleared half the veg patch [photos tomorrow] aidded by the fact that alot of it was under cardboard for most of this year, so nothing had too good a toehold. even so, it was a hard and long task - he deserves a beer!

into part of this I have nearly finished planting out the sweetcorn. All the pumpkins are out, most of the festival squash are out. Remeber the billion butternut squashes my daughter sowed? well they got left out at our party when I gave over half away, and ibetween floods and cold, are all dead - sigh! however, a few seem to have sprung up with the peppers, so i will tease some of those out and see if they catch up nicely. just the courgettes then. oh, these are being planted 3-sisters style - though will have to quickly sow some french beans to go with them
Well, all the peas and beans tomorrow and potatoes! Then, we will be planted out, and just the sowing of lots more peas and beans [particularly beans], whatever we have time for a second of and salad crops to do. Oh and the potting up.

Oh why oh why did I let us get so far behind???

All the plantings could do with a drench of foliar feed, but its dark now, so will do that first thing.

Where is that work life balance when you need it?

The weeds have romped away, and today we have both made huge inroads in them.

The strawberry plants all got planted asap! and the brassicas are all in - however, haven’t made any later sowings. [well, wehn you’re not getting your planting done, you do have t break until thats sorted!]

plan tomorrow to finally put potatoes in [arrgh, yes I know!] and also the sweetcorn and squashes, beans and peas that are all leggy, and hope they do OK. well, the sweetcorn and squash should be fine.

toms, peppers and aubergines all need to go into final pots.

when this is done, will finally sow some of the ’sequential sowings’ that I’m not too late for.

So far, harvested asparagus [yum!] and radishes. The broad beans are tall and handsome, with lovely flowers, but nary a pod ready yet.

I should have managed to do more today really!

I did, however, get the mangetout into the ground, with a very Heath-Robinson affair for them to grow up! Also, we have the first 3 spears of asparagus appearing!

mostly I dod lots of weeding and hoeing outside. One of the Minarettes has done absolutely nothing, so I will be asking Ken Muir for refund/replacement . All but one of the others has flowers though.

In the greenhouse i did lots of watering, got some seeds ready to sow [but didn’t] and got some toms ready to pot up [but didn’t]. Must do better! i have done a lot of playing with the girls though. I have enjoyed playing with the mosaic tool on flickr tool this evening!

well, the caulifower and sweetcorn and asparagus pea are just starting to germinate, and the broccolli has been up for a while now.

The artichokes - only 2 out of the original 6 seeds germinated - are now unceremoniously out of the propagator, as they look like small plants. So they begin the hardening off process, with the conservatory.

We gathered some asparagus seed from the clearing last years fronds, and sowed a complete trayfull - lets see how that does. The asparagus came with the house, and barely cropped last year, so will need a new lease of life. We have let it be this year and given it a feed to see…

chris managed to put in another of the fruit trees today - Merryweather Damson. Again a minarette.

The sun was shining so we were out into the garden to plant and sow. Obviously planting and sowing with just me trying to keep an eye on 2 girls, jollying one along, and preventing the other from random unplamting and eating was not always straightforward. particularly as SB took it rather badly when her planted broad beans were unplanted and trodden on. We did manage to get into a rhythm, with me and BB ?sowing? broad beans [imperial green longpod] at one end of a row, and SB planting them [jubilee hysore]at another. Sb wanted me to help her though, and was put out that if I did, BB would surely rampage. The sooner we have the wendy house for independent pottering about in the better! [it is going in the veg patch.

like a ray of sunshine, Chris came out with coffee, but more importantly cake. We all sat and picnicked, and even BB must have agreed that cake was more tasty than compost.
SB and I sowed a row of mixed carrots [nantes frubund] and radish [scarlet globe]. This being so much fun, we sowed another. We usually have bog all luck with carrots - but that was in Leeds, so lets see how we do here! [I miss Leeds!]

i then hoed approx 1/4 of the veg area, and popped in half of the onion sets [names!] other half to go. I started cleating the asparagus bed of weeds too, but was happy to pass that over the Chris, as SB getting ravenous.

I went off and did some seed sowing indoors for the propagator. Lots of things, as getting to peak sowing! Mussleburgh leeds, spring onions, Pea [misty and rondo], artichoke green globe, second sowing of mangetout [oregon], and a tray of salad leaves [mixed]. SB seeing what I was doing sowed some sunflower [russian giant]

After lunch we went ouside and planted 2 more of the fruit trees. Lovely weather. SB running about and climbing and trampolining. Its good to get out into the fresh air.