Monday, April 18, 2011
Make hay while the sun shines
OK maybe not hay, but a good bit of sowing and weeding does wonders! I did get a wee bit carried away but the weather was so perfect, sunny but cool, not a cloud in the sky.
I staked the peas that are now about 20cm high and coming on well. I earthed up the early potatoes, which have excellent growth on them.
Then for sowing, I put in some beetroot, lettuce and broccoli seedlings that had been sown a few weeks ago, sowed some radish, beetroot and lettuce, in nice neat squares.
I then attacked the bed where the peas are, because it was seriously overgrown down one end, and after digging it all over, I sowed 2 rows of French beans (Fin de bagnols and Kingswax yellow beans) and finally, under cloches, an Atlantic Giant pumpkin, a Turks Turban pumpkin and a yellow pattypan squash, Sunbeam. I will try and successively sow the beans this year, they always come too many together! So a small patch each fortnight!
It looks much better, there is only one quarter left to be cultivated, and the edges tidied a bit.
I headed off to the pony club in the afternoon, where I filled 3 bin bags full of stable waste (in which there was rather a lot of very smelly poo!!!!) and carted them off, 2 were used to mulch the first half of the potato bed (the others haven't come up yet so I need to wait a week or so!), the peas, and broad beans. I think I need about another 4 or 5 bags, because I would like to mulch everything this year, even the onions. That makes less work watering.
I have a week's holiday beginning of May so I will be able to do then the hard graft of digging over the tomato patch, planting and staking all the tomatoes, aubergines, peppers, courgettes. I spent some time too on Sunday pricking out the last of the tomato seedlings, I now have about 15 plants, which is great, just the right number, even though they are fairly banal varieties: Gardener's delight, Moneymaker, Tigerella and Marmande for the most part, although 3 of the Evergreen green and one of the yellow Beefsteak tomatoes did come up - that will be a fun novelty! I also have 6 aubergine plants in good health and about 6 or 7 peppers, which I guess will be enough.
I staked the peas that are now about 20cm high and coming on well. I earthed up the early potatoes, which have excellent growth on them.
Then for sowing, I put in some beetroot, lettuce and broccoli seedlings that had been sown a few weeks ago, sowed some radish, beetroot and lettuce, in nice neat squares.
I then attacked the bed where the peas are, because it was seriously overgrown down one end, and after digging it all over, I sowed 2 rows of French beans (Fin de bagnols and Kingswax yellow beans) and finally, under cloches, an Atlantic Giant pumpkin, a Turks Turban pumpkin and a yellow pattypan squash, Sunbeam. I will try and successively sow the beans this year, they always come too many together! So a small patch each fortnight!
It looks much better, there is only one quarter left to be cultivated, and the edges tidied a bit.
I headed off to the pony club in the afternoon, where I filled 3 bin bags full of stable waste (in which there was rather a lot of very smelly poo!!!!) and carted them off, 2 were used to mulch the first half of the potato bed (the others haven't come up yet so I need to wait a week or so!), the peas, and broad beans. I think I need about another 4 or 5 bags, because I would like to mulch everything this year, even the onions. That makes less work watering.
I have a week's holiday beginning of May so I will be able to do then the hard graft of digging over the tomato patch, planting and staking all the tomatoes, aubergines, peppers, courgettes. I spent some time too on Sunday pricking out the last of the tomato seedlings, I now have about 15 plants, which is great, just the right number, even though they are fairly banal varieties: Gardener's delight, Moneymaker, Tigerella and Marmande for the most part, although 3 of the Evergreen green and one of the yellow Beefsteak tomatoes did come up - that will be a fun novelty! I also have 6 aubergine plants in good health and about 6 or 7 peppers, which I guess will be enough.
Labels: beans, beetroot, broccoli, mulch, peas, sow, spring
# posted by antipodesgirl @ 10:49 AM 
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