The Frantic Gardeners’ Blog

its still under black membrane wraps, but the peas [celebration not hopeless endeavour] neeeeed to go out, as do the caulis and brocolli [so that i can then do a second sowing! I desperately need some more cardboard boxes, and some timeto do a spot of weeding! it is MUCH easier to do sowing and potting on with children than sorting and weeding. even if the sowing is ‘unusual’ and somethings don’t recover from the potting on!

the greenhouse also needs a bit of a sorting out, as i have potted on some of the toms again, and the yard long beans need to think about climbing up some permanent sticks! only 4 peppers, ah well.

oh, and the propagatory totally backed up! the artichokes have been potted on, as have some of the sunflowers.

for germination - we have had 100% of all the squash family [including the butternut squash from supermarket!] and the runners and celebration [but a solitary endeavour - will try sowing direct]. runners will soon need to go out [protected] and the squashes potted up.

for sowing, today i sowed the first lot of climbing bean blauhilde and cobra in roottrainers, the runner bean sunsomethingorother - to look up! I also sowed the sweetcorn - butterscotch and a supersweet.

I did get to pot up the yard long beans. still giving them a little bit of bottom heat [in the last bit before unheated greenhouse!] Also potted on toms for the first time. a bit early, but usually i am weeks late, so thought it might make a change! looked at the artichokes, and thought they also needed potting on, but my 5 seconds was over. hopefully do them tomorrow. as being a bit soft on the toms and yard beans, no room in the inn for runners and french beans, so will do them perhaps at le weekend.

BTW, for the record, we have a conservatory on the back of the house, south facing, containing a victorian grape that is massive! in summer, it is totally shaded by the vine, but at this time of year the vine leaves are still small and light good. it could be heated, as has radiators, but we object to sending all that heat out as has greenhouse glass windows [with holes] due to position it doesn’t tend to frost like a greenhouse can, but can still get v chilly in jan/feb. in it we have a home made propagator [big chipboard and wood box, lined with polythene, soil warming cable to a thermostat on the outside and elec. filled with sand, and a coldframe on the top. things tend to start in there. if v fragile [or vwintry] some get propagator lids over the trays within the propagator proper - as it were! i have some non-thermostat electric tray propagators as well, that we used a lot in previous house. these tend to be for overflows if too many seeds, or for those that have germinated, still need some warmth and i need propagator proper space. at the moment, these are providing a bit of bottom heat for yard beans and toms. [not for long!]

how wonderful is that! Unfortunately DD2 also ate several more greener ones. We have changed the envir0mesh to proper fruit netting raised up to give little fingers more trouble! Also had some more podded peas and mangetout - eaten raw in the garden.

I am pleased to announce most of the sweetcorn are in. I should have grown more - might try and pop in a few late ones! Some of the cucurbits also in, and the onions well weeded.

Chris potted up the last toms and they are now in final position so ready to romp! We also sprayed with organic stuff the buildup of blackfly on the cherries, and assorted aphids on the apples.

The roses round the veg bed are looking nice as well, and the elderberry in full flower.

In the children’s plot, noticed DD1’s round carrots are also up. we don’t seem to have a problem with carrot fly - famous last words!

I potted up the final cucurbits, aubergines and peppers. SB then helped pot up some final toms to take to people. BB returned and also sowed some seeds - calendula and sunflowers.

found chris had put bricks holding environmesh directly on top of my florence fennel, and I have no more seeds. humph!

well, it is only radishes, but it’s the first harvest of sown this year veg [we still have some broccoli and leeks from last year]. They are only grown as a line marker for other seeds - in this case carrots, as the girls, particularly BB walk over bare earth and emergent seedlings.

Under cover

today I potted up most of the cucurbits and about half of the toms. most of those left won’t get potted up - they haven’t made the final cut. I’ll take them to colleagues at work, and if anyone thinks they may survive the journey to legoland I’ll be happy to take them. peppers need potting up soon too, but the aubergines that survived Chris’s neglect don’t yet.

Chris worked hard to finish clearing out the greenhouse, and is going to revamp the staging in time to empty our conservatory before we need to semi dismantle it to fi it.

Fruit bed

still a slight misnomer! this year it still has strawbs and minarette fruits, but also the legumes. The broad beans are doing well. No flowers yet, even though the ones in the fields on the way to work are in full flower. I guess the farmers were more organised than me - it being their livelihood! Something’s nibbling the peas though. not too dreadfully, will keep an eye on them. doesn’t look classical slug though. I also popped in some florence fennel today. Back to fruit, I think I might espalier a bit the minarettes - well, the bits that I should have pruned already! We have lost 3 of the original 8 - 1 never grew, 2 died last summer. Anyway, will maybe get some more, but some side branching like we did for an archway in Leeds sounds a good plan. I did some weeding of strawbs as well.

The girls plot.

they helped me weed a little bit, and the onions are sprouting. of all the sunflowers, only 3 have made it to planting - which is very disappointing! We gave everything a good water though. They also did a bit of encouraging with the other jobs.

Have been doing both really. the thoughts of being made redundant seem to have frozen me in many ways at the moment, so thought a bit of gardening therapy might be in order.

So, whilst i drink my medicinal glass of red wine, I’ll blog.

My elder girl and I planted out the remaining brassicas and florence fennel - at 5 she is getting the hang of planting out, though I usually say a brief prayer to Demeter that the plants aren’t too gentle minded. We also planted out 2 extremely tall sunflowers.

We took this opportunity to do a fair bit of weeding and hoeing - another prayer to Demeter that the onions will have some roots left!

finally we came in and gave all the aubergines and most of the peppers their last potting on. No prayers needed here as she is most skillful. they both have flowers, so will hopefully fruit at sometime. chris can do the final tomatoes.
Our cucurbits still all have male fowers only - sigh. Hopefully they will catch up soon. Some peas have germinated in the trench of doom - so will hopefully do better than their dessicated predecessors, and we may have a late pea harvest after all. The broad beans continue to be harvestable.
When we’ve weeded the other onion/garlic bed enough so they are visible, I am hoping that the garlic will nearly be ready to harvest.

This weekend we will try and do some more weeding etc. If time, I will look at packets to see if anything apart from salads worth sowing at this time - ? leeks??

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]

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!

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.

so not a lot of gardening. Work went crazy [and still is] and the little beans [our kids] weren’t so well, SB in particular.

Today though, I was sooooo stresdsed by the time i returned from work, only cuddles with the girls and contact with the soil [and soon a glass of red wine] would do.

So on the veg plot front, the planted broad beans seem to be doing well. the mangetout are pretty much acclimatised, but since we are expecting a cooler bit at the end of the week, perhaps I’ll plant them out at the weekend. the weeds have also got going. SO now I’m debating whether a quick weed as i can’t see any carrot seedlings, though may decimate the radishes [but they were only in the drill for it to show up more quickly…].

on the fruit plot, the buds are coming on nicely, but not all our minarettes are planted - we had better get our skates on!

So into the propagatory. I potted up the rest of the tomatoes today. The potted aubergines are coming on nicely, and the peppers [though they aren’t ready yet for potting on. Sweetcorn germination has been overall poor - roughly 1/4 only. Was older seed, and have some this years for sowing next. Maybe should try chitting it? but not sure - maybe do an ‘experiment’ with my daughter. Speaking of experiments, the sunflowers in the large home made propagator germinated more quickly and better than those in a cheap electric one. the sprink onions have germinated well, and the leeks are just starting. The second sowing of artichokes also not germinating well. HMM! The caulis all came up, and all the salad leaves have. soon think of pricking them out to grow on. I always grow sacrifical spares, but when the time comes, my heart isn’t hard enough to not just ‘let them have a go!’
Amazingly, some of the asparagus seeds collected from the garden are also germinating - I had thought that would be a dead loss.

Today I sowed the cucurbits - I know, a bit early, but the conservatory is doing such a good job as a propagatory that I think its worth a show. So I sowed courgette gold rush, Squash Festival, and pumpkin Mars. i also sowed a tray of rootrainers with sweetcorn minipop - you know the one you are supposed to microwave to get popcorn. Should be nice.

No camera on me today - wil try and remedy that!

i think we will definitely try the North American 3 sisters thing with beans, sweetcorn and squashes and see how it goes. Probably in what will be half of the fruit bed next year.