The Frantic Gardeners’ Blog

wow! this month we have had 1/3 of the annual rain. It has absolutely poured it down - which has been v good for the watering. Today, the weather has changed, just like a switch has been thrown. It is boiling/sweltering/hot hot hot!! And today was the day that I had set for completely weeding the veg plot, watering it if required and then mulching. hmmm!! I did have help from DD1 in the end and we took out a bottle of iced water to keep us going.

Planted out

spare alpine strawberries went in the gap just emptied by rocket

tomatoes grown from potting the side shoots - gone between the artichokes.

maintenance

weeded everything hoed, pulled and hopefully got the majority. then placed straw all over the top of the beds and plan to put membrane down on the ‘paths’ as we have a holiday soon v keen to minimise the jungle on our return!

sideshooted the toms.

DH put trellis on wall so can plant out clematis and honeysuckle that are desperate.

girls beds of flowers are really looking fabulous, and they are both v happy with them. DD2 not seen any strawbs yet - should come next year…

harvested

ooh, i like this time of year lots of our meals have been made with 3/4 of the ingredients direct from the garden.

broad beans - the first sown nearly all finished now, but second sowing of red epicure starting - funny to have pink beans!

rocket - all the last rocket had bolted, so we pulled it all out so can eat some leaves and the rest for compost. next year plant less!!

pak choi - all the first sowing now harvested, again some had bolted, but cut the flower stalk off and ate the rest - mmm i love pak choi

summer sprouting brocolli - harvested 4 large heads this week [2 meals for a family of 4] have other brassicas to come [despite the panic earlier in the year, it is def not club root]. this has been such a hit with the family, that next year should grow more.

tomatoes - the sungold has been first to be ready, and the most prolific. shame only 5 seeds to a packet. DH’s speriment as to whether ring pot in growbag or in big pot seems to be clear for healthy look as growbag option. however, nodifference in harvest as yet. or taste.

courgettes - the ones in the ground harvesting merrily. lots of courgettes in our lunch and tea menu currently as well. the 2 in pots are not as good, will see if they will crop longer as will put in greenhouse once weather starts to draw in.

potatoes - just about to start a harvest i think the girls in bags are ready [emerald and rocket].

peas and mangetout - tailing off in the mangetout, should have done a further successional sowing [remember for next year ]  however peas in between 2 crops as it were, so loads of pods to fill out.

french beans - pretty much between crops, v few left now on the pots in the greenhouse, tho will see if they flower and crop some more, some beans on the first of the climbing beans [cobra] v tiny yet, and the second dwarf beans are flowering. since we will shortly be having a holiday, happy for the break to be whilst we are away

strawberries - just a few as this is the first year, but loads of raspberries

Pests and Wildlife

we saw a hedgehog rootling around by the compost bins

less happy a sighting is some caterpillars on the brassicas. they have bee hidden under environmesh, the damage not huge, but obv at somepoint one has got in . we have had large and small before, think these might be from a small. good inspection by dd2 failed to find any. i prob should repeat the process…

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.

so not so much time to even garden frantically. a quick water is really all managing, but most do a weeding shortly! today spent a couple of hours on essential maintenance, tho could get called into work at a moment’s notice, so can’t do anything too big or get too messy!

Sown

the rest of the twinkle peas in situ. think none germinated before due to parched soil. so soil where sown is as mud, and will try and keep topped up with water!

Germinated

the second emergency sowing of pumpkins are germinating too. should have a lot in the veg bed then! The climbing bean blauhilde have germinated. when a bit bigger will plant out

awaiting the climbing bean cobra and the direct sown runnerbean…

Planted out

the rainbow chard, into bed 4. look v nice there. there are a few that didnt fit, so maybe DH will place in his square foot bed.

Harvesting

the rocket and a few salad leaves. the peapods on the first twinkle sown looking big, so hopefully not long, we have some green tomatoes and some green strawberries. i think the goosegogs nearly worth a try. the broad beans are some way off tho.

Maintenance

Need to keep those pesky rabbits off the veg! so have gone round the outside with chicken wire with 2 ad hoc ‘doors’. Wouldnt keep anything really determined out, but hoping that it will work for our domestic rabbits, as they have loads of other interesting places in the garden they can go [and lots of dandelions to nibble!]

Problems

1/2 our pak choi look really brilliant, 1/4 have died and the other 1/4 look pathetic. on uprooting one, there were hardly any roots. is this a pest? or just unfortunate??

something has been nibbling our pea leaves again, and it isn’t rabbits.

To Do:

1. plant out sweetcorn and the single pumpkin that is big

2. pot on all the new little pumpkins and squashes

3. get tomatoes supported.

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.

I love May. I love the smell of mayblossom and cow parsley, and then elderflowers to come. The rape flowers are fading now so the fields less fluorescently yellow! I love may. It reminds me of my youth, of infant school [surrounded by hawthorns] and my best beloved Nanny, who died 2 years ago, and whose birthday was May 1st.

Also, in May, if we have been organised, I can start to see the veg patch coming together, and the greenhouse starts to be in emptying phase ready for the final position of toms etc. We have been fairly organised this year.

Sowing

I am still sowing things! today it was some mixed lettuce and rocket into modules, to be planted out when big enough between brassicas for a catch crop.

Potting on

i have potted on all the tomatoes into their final pots - woohoo!! Also all the aubergines and half the peppers. Actually not all the tomatoes, as 3 will be going into a growbag and pot system [a DH trial to see which works best] . SO we have 15 tomato plants, 5 each of gardeners delight, sungold and golden sunrise. I have 6 aubergines [from a mixed pack, so will be looking forwad to seeing what they are!] currently 5 potted on and 1 spare, 5 pepper jalapeno, 5 pepper inferno and 6 pepper mixed grill. This is less tomato plants than normal, but we usually have had too many. More pepper plants than before tho. DD1 loves red peppers, so planted loads for her

Planting out

The second sowing of brassicas went out - some purple pak choi, white cauliflower and brocolli romanescu.  They went into my DH’s bed, and he grumbled a bit as he had planned to properly square foot things in it. sigh . a) he should have told me, b) what is he going to put in it? since i have done most of the sowing etc it would be helpful to know and c) with the girls 2 beds of flowers and his bed of square foot, by veg patch has had a quarter knocked out of it . Anyway, I apologised and next yea, with a bit of planning, he can have his to square foot [the brassicas are all at square foot distances tho…] and will try and persuade girls to be ‘in charge of some of the veg - eg carrots perhaps.

Maintenance

DH has dug over the area for the climbing bean fence, and so next weekend plan to plant out the beans - eek!

Jobs to do

1. put up bean fence

2. clean out pots and put in herbs/flowers for patio and in front of kitchen

3. order a couple of climbers and a chaenomeles for infront of the kitchen

4. rabbit proof our veg patch. they are our rabs, and i am soft hearted letting them run around the garden, but they are nibblers, and this cannot continue!

Our greenhouse is looking like a jungle and things are bursting out! The ornamental cherry is beautiful, and myself and the girls had a go at watercolour paintings of the flowers. We also got time for some gardening. Am getting a bit worried that there are lots of things in the greenhouse - particularly flowers! - and I am not sure where they are going to fit. The girls got ‘ a bit’ carried away.

Sowing

I still did some sowing tho as I realised I hadn’t sown any ‘normal’  brocolli [calabrese], nor had I sown any early purple sprouting. So I remedied this by sowing in modules. I also, for a bit of fun sowed some dried chickpeas. They do sprout, I have no idea if they crop, and didn’t want to pay a lot until i worked out how well they did for us - so these are a real trial. Also sown into modules and into the propagator to join the sweetcorn, french beans and watermelon currently in there.

Sown direct [eek, something i am still not comfortable with doing after all those years in Leeds] are 2 rows of carrots, a purple variety and a supersweet variety. the broad beans sown way back when have all germinated and are growing strongly.

Can’t locate any runner beans - odd that! so we won’t be growing any this year.

Potting Up

the dwarf gold french beans have been potted up, there are 8 in each of the girls painted buckets [with drainage holes] and with limanthes in the middle. i thought they might complain, as they have so many flowers to find a home for, but I don’t think they realise they have a problem yet!

In the same root trainers were the mangetout, so in the end i popped 8 of them in another bucket with a cane wigwam and if we hadn’t run out of compost, would have done that for all of them. I think I will do that for them all when we have some more compost.

Planting out

DH has got all the strawberries in the ground - woohoo . Unfortunately he has taken all the area which i had earmarked for artichokes! I will have to rething there

I did plant out the brassicas. I was going to plant 3 across a 4 foot bed, but having updated myself on some of the square foot plantings, I have done 4. they do look v close together! If they look crowded, the successional ones will be planted 3 spaced. I only planted out 4 of each - white cauli, violet queen cauli and broc romanescu. They had all germinated, and I had 12 of each, but am trying to be a bit more sensible with growing to see what we actually eat, and sowing successionally a bit. The spare modules where each given a pot so that they can go in DD1s honesty box drive sale in aid of the local library.

Also into this bed went the purple pak choi [at approx 4 per square foot] and I sowed the 2 carrot rows as above. At the end of the bed went out the twinkle peas. I love the guttering thingies! made the peas a doddle to slide across. Should have done them far earlier tho, as the roots had made a bit of a mat at the bottom. hmmm. These weren’t quite the square foot spacings, as had been in the guttering. next time will try and do them, asI think i have planted too closely.

The whole of this bed was then covered with enviromesh. Our peas have been decimated before, and i saw one white butterfly! SO thought would start off v covered and will obv release peas from this when they start to flower. it also will protect them from our rabbits until we sort out how to stop them getting into the veg patch.

The weather has been absolutely gorgeous, and the plants have grown well. The broad beans are flowering, and those sown in situ have all germinated and are growing up. the garlic is growing well too.The apples and pear tree have been absoluted covered in flowers, so hoping for a good harvest in the Autumn.

Sowing

Today I have sown sweetcorn ‘lark’ , climbing bean cobra and blauhilde and dwarf gold bean all in roottrainers, hoping to be not to early and not too late so we can plant  out in about 4-6 weeks. [lets see!] . I have also sown pumpkin [T and M experimental] Courgettes parthenon and … and butternut squash in module, again hoping for 4-6 weeks and out. As a gamble i have sown some watermelon seeds into pots - you never know!! I also sowed a second sowing of pak choi, broccolli romanescu and white cauliflower. only 3 of each, as think i sowed too many the first time, and really should think about when we are going to eat them! Next year I would like to work out how many of each to sow at a time. A second sowing of peas too [twinkle]

Potting On

I have potted on 5 each of the different peppers [inferno, jalapeno, mixed grill] all 6 of the aubergines [mixed] , 2 of the multiple cape gooseberries, 4 of the 5 melons and 1 more of each tomato [sungold, gardeners delight and golden sunrise] to make 5 of each. Hoping this will be the right amount of everything! I also potted up the last of DD 2’s short sunflowers - a week has made a noticeable difference between them and those potted up before we went on holiday.

Into the coldframe

go the brassicas and pak choi, and the mangetout. plan to be into the ground on weds.

Maintenance/DH

DH has finished this eve the first of the marked beds - not quite raised as our soil drains so very freely! but a marked out zone, one each so that we can be putting our chosen plants in.

So, To Do:

Sowing:

locate the runner beans and sow! then see what other wierd and wonderfuls i have bought and if there might be space

Into the veg patch:

Strawberries into strawberry planter and along veg bed wall. artichoke also along veg bed wall

Potatoes - into bags and into the ground

beds 1 and 2 of the 4:

Brassicas - into bed and enviromesh around them

peas/mangetout - into bed and need supporting structure

carrots - into bed if there is space! otherwise consider sowing into pots?

beds 3 and 4:

get ready really, some of the girls plants could go out, tho quite small ? better to pot on further before planting out? never sure of optimal size. DD2’s sunflowers are ready, but not sure whether not too early?

into pots:

dwarf french beans

discuss with girls and DH all their flowers and herbs and where they are hoping to put them!

Maintenance

lots of weeding!!

and the weather is gorgeous. there are a few things i have forgotten to do tho, and so am behind. mostly the chitting potatoes that i forgot that are in the dining room. hmmm. hopefully they will catch up a bit. The brassicas also need a home, and DH bought some strawberries - apparently - which should have been planted. 90 of them!! The toms need potting up urgently too, and we are off away on holiday for a week. eek! SO the potatoes get left in the dining room, the girls heel in the strawberry plants as a temporary measure. I pot up tomatoes and give everything a good water and off we go!!

SO currently everything growing, even DD2 has 2 gourds that have germinated. when i return, i will need to go through greenhouse and take out those things that need an outside bed now, pot up everything that can’t go out, and try and find enough space to empty propagator of the peppers and aubergines so that i can sow the french beans, sweetcorn and cucurbits. will ask DH very nicely to continue to make the beds and also to say where he is thinking the strawbs will go!