We had a look at our previous sowings, and a few broad beans have germinated, and we have a very thick row of radish seedlings - hopefully marking some carrot ones to follow! We also harvested loads of early sprouting brocolli - yum.
we reconvened to sow peppers, tomatoes and sunflowers. Watered in very well!!
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!
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!
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!
? 
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.
? 
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.
So all the minarettes are safely planted, bring the spring on!! So in total we have 2 cherries, one self fertile pear, 4 plums/gages/damson and 3 apples.
lots of ornamental cherries flowering in the garden too. A paucity of daffodils, so this autum we will be out there with the bulbs.
In the Propagatory [Chris laughs at this term, so it is now officially adopted for the SPRING USE OF THE CONSERVATORY] i did some moving things around to free up propagator space. i sowed the last of the asparagus peas, and SB sowed the butternut squash and red pepper seeds we got from our Aztec Dinner evening. BB pulled out half the sunflowers unfortunately, replanted and may survive…
tomorrow I aim to clear a flower bed at some point, and maybe second sow some more brassicas.
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.