Pushing up the daisies

I am still going on with the pricking out. Today I transferred about 20 tomato plants - there are still a fair few to do. Ideally I want to plant out about 5 rows of 6 plants, so I need about 30 plants. As I have about 6 varieties (Marmande beefsteak, Totem, Moneymaker, Pannovy and Harzfeuer salads, gardener's delight cocktail tomatoes and large yellow beefsteaks), there should be a few of each and the spares I give to friends.
The corn has come up, now just have to make sure the household feline doesn't snack on it, and I am still waiting for the courgettes and melons to come up. At the end of the week, I will start sowing the pumpkins, last home strait!!

Labels: corn, seedlings, spring, tomatoes

What a rude word...
Anyway I spent ages last night doing this, transferring all the aubergine and pepper seedlings from trays into bigger modules, so they can grow bigger. Haven't done the tomatoes yet and I think I might need to go get some of my home made compost to do the job! It will be a big one, I have dozens of seedlings, many of which I give away (I usually plant about 30 tomatoes in season).
I also started the sowing of the tender plants:

• green Diamant courgettes and yellow Parador courgettes.
• About 20 sweetcorn plants, now up on the fridge to avoid consumption by the household feline,
• several melons (yes yes I know, it's hard to do, but as I have lots of manure, I am gonna give it a go, with some fleech over them), green Gallia and orange Charentais melons.

Just got to do the pumpkins now, but as they are so invasive so quickly, I will do them next week methinks.

Labels: aubergine, corn, courgette, melon, peppers, pricking_out, spring

I am quite pleased with the allotment just now, I hope I can keep up the same regularity over the summer, as it is relatively clean and tidy and regular visits will help keep it that way.
I got a lovely crop of strawberries on the weekend. about a kilo. And there is about the same amount waiting to be picked, I shall pop down in the morning and do that. So I think I will be making more jam and freezing some fruit too.
This morning I went down to water as we have had 2 quite hot sunny days, and as I hoed around a bit, I realised that underneath the ground is actually quite cool and fresh. So everything is thriving.
I will soon have a crop of peas and the second pea sowing is just peeking up its head. The onions are doing well and I have the first flower on the courgettes! I am so pleased as I was very late with them this year but they have gotten off to a good start. The beans are poking through, the only thing that seems to have let me down is the sweetcorn. Which got storm damaged it seems. I wonder if it is too late to re-sow some??
I came away this morning with 3 lovely artichokes, big ones, about the size of a large orange. I am looking forward to those! We all love them.

Labels: corn, courgette, spring, strawberry

It was a big week in the garden. My allotment neighbours helped me do various tasks so now my paths are clear and tidy and the allotment is looking really fab (photos to follow soon).

Planting:
I have managed to plant the aubergines and the first tomatoes, but many of my first plants have been destroyed after a series of desctructive thunderstorms, so I have had to replant some. I am currently waiting to replant some young courgette plants, to replace the first ones that got washed away!
I also sowed some new peas, as the first sowing is now nearly ready for harvesting, those sweet tender pods are starting to form. they are Kelvedon Wonders which seem to have lots of flowers and buds although they are quite low to teh ground, a bit of a pain to pick.
I made a last ditch effort to get some carrots going, following a meighbour's advice of mixing a large quantity of sand with the soil, mixing carrot and radish seed for easy thinning and watering well (considering the rain we have had, no worries there!).
The 3 sisters bed has been planted, with sweetcorn, drying beans and pumpkins. Let's hope that the recent storms have not done too much damage to the young plants... I planted sweetcorn plants and also sowed a few seeds directly at the same time, hopefully something at least will take. On the pic below, taken a week after planting, it doesn't look like much, but the beans are just starting to peep up

Progress:
The potatoes are doing fabulously well, lots of foliage and I have been treating them with Bordeaux mixture, so hopefully this muggy wet weather will not cause blight.
On the pic below, the earlies are nearest the onions. They are a variety called "Anoe", I am only just trying them so I don't know what they will be like. They were planted on 2 March so I expect they should be ready to dig up soon. Maybe I should try one this weekend and see what's under it??
After that there are charlottes then Fontana variety, for lates.

Broad beans will be ready very soon, there are many pods, and very little blackfly, I only discarded one plant top that had aphids. I planted these late this year, I didn't get time to overwinter them, but they seem to be ready to give an excellent crop despite that. I love to eat them young, with the skins on, in salads.
Onions and garlic may be the crop of the year. The stems are thick, foliage is healthy (some rust on the garlic, I bordeauxed them too), and they have been well weeded. No bolting yet, which I am delighted about. On the pic below, the garlic is in the foreground and the others behind it, a mixture of echalotes (round ones and Jermor, the elongated ones with a terrific flavour for salads), red onions and yellows, including Stuttgart and a French variety called jeune paille des vertus. You can see that it is relatively weed free for once.

The fruit is growing well, lots of flowers on the raspberries and tiny gooseberries are all over the bushes. We have been eating strawberries for a week now, a punnet every 2 or 3 days and they are sweet and full of flavour.

The artichokes this year are also marvellous, we have already eaten 2 meals of them (deliciously fresh) and the bush is still laden with tiny globes. It is a massive bush this year, about a square metre and a metre high too.

Sowings:
Apart from the carrots, I have also my leeks growing in tubs at home, and small plants of broccoli and Brussel sprouts. I sowed basil for the kitchen windowsill and started seedlings of red cabbage, just a few for the winter time.

Labels: artichoke, broad beans, corn, potato, pumpkin, spring, strawberry, tomatoes

I couldn't go down this weekend, as I was in Milan visiting a good friend. (good excuse I guess).
But last night I popped down to suss things out, and came home with a big bag of tomatoes, (the Harzfeuer from Lidl are delicious, I will definitely do those again), a cabbage, two ears of sweetcorn (Absolutely fantastic, so sweet and tender), a punnet of strawberries, some courgettes of course, and some rocket.
Noticed that:

• There are some melons on the vine! cool, maybe they will be ready when I get back from holidays,
• There is another baby pumpkin growing,
• The carrots, chard and beetroot are doing very well, I should be able to harvest some of that soon,
• The maincrop potato patch is getting really overgrown but I can't really weed it now, will just wait till it all dies back.
• I also pulled up some two foot high lettuces and the florence fennel that is bolting (last time I try, it's just a nuisance and no one wants to eat it except me).
• The second beans are growing well, I hope they don't set all their beans before I come back from holidays!!

It all needs a good weed before I go on Saturday but don't know how I will manage that...

Labels: corn, harvest, melon, summer, tomatoes

BIG Gardening weekend! it was a 5 day weekend for me so I broke my back in the garden as usual. But I feel quite vinidcated in all the work I got done. let's make a list:

Planted:

• about 35-40 tomatoes,
• 4 sweet peppers,
  
• 15 sweetcorn,
• one more courgette that was looking lonely at home,
  
• 6 chards,
  
• French marigolds all over the shop

The tomatoes being planted:
Sowed:

• 2 rows of yellow wax beans (the kids did those), Coco de Paimpol beans around the sweetcorn.

Weeded:

• lots of onions, garlic, broad beans, fruit bed

Harvested!!:

• our first artichokes, 2 big ones. The most delicious ever eaten...
• about a kilo of broad beans, the first I have ever eaten! hubby and I liked them, the kids went yuuukkk. Still I like them as plants so I will do them again next year. They were overwintered Aquadulce.
• 2 strawberries, the first of the year. and the kids ate the lot. still there are lots more on the way ;-)

Admired lovingly:

• the potatoes which have been earthed up and look fab. just a few more weeks....
• the rasperries and gooseberries - the goosegogs have their first fruit ripening
• the peas, ok a very small patch but they look strong and healthy (note to self - do them in the polytunnel again next year...)
• the various flowers etc that are springing up, including on the thyme, pretty pale lilac flowers

This is what the lottie looked like this week: except that now the tarp has been moved to the "WIll be beans area" and thetomatoes have been planted.

At home, I sowed some more basil (I just can't succeed with that) and Sweet William (I killed the first lot), transplanted some skinny leeks into richer pots, transplanted the broccoli into bigger pots. SO all is looking set up now for the season.
I would like to sow some more carrots and beets but I will probably get around to that next weekend, it won't take long.
happy happy happy gardener (with very sore muscles...)

Labels: artichoke, broad beans, broccoli, corn, courgette, harvest, peppers, spring, strawberry, tomatoes