I’ve generally been quite busy recently, so haven’t had a lot of time to update the blog properly for a while. Though I that doesn’t mean I haven’t been busy up on the plot and in the greenhouse. In fact, I’ve been keeping a paper journal (mine is actually the veg grower’s one), which is a bit easier t0 take up to the plot and down to the greenhouse so keep track of what I’ve been planting when and where.
So, what’s been going on today?
Planted out the Senetti we bought recently into pots, the label claims they can be planted out from mid-March if cold grown, though I have no idea if that is how they have been grown! The nursery we got them from said don’t plant out until May, though they are in pots, so I’ll need to keep a look out for any late frosts which might attack them. The Senetti have large brightly coloured flowers and are supposed to re-flower after 4 weeks if you cut them back. We’ve bought them before a few years ago – in fact we saw them on Gardener’s World some time ago, with Monty Don planting them out.
A few cornflower plants got planted into the garden, they are still quite small so I’m not sure they’ll survive, but they were growing out the bottom of the tray in the greenhouse!
Moved the first sowing of sweet peas, Redbor Kale and one set of leeks out to the cold-frame to start acclimatising them.
So far three of the red onion squash have germinated and six comfrey seeds, all still too small to transplant though, but the squash seem to grow quite quickly so I’ll need to keep an eye on it over the next week.
Potted on the zucchino (ball courgettes), all eight seeds germianted, so sowing two per pot wasn’t needed!
Transplanted some of the Moneymaker tomato plants, though the rest aren’t really big enough to move yet. The rest of the chili/peppers sown at the same time aren’t yet ready for transplanting.
Still no sign of the cobra climbing french bean. I suspect the seeds might be a bit old now. Mars pumpkin and Hungarian wax chili haven’t shown any sign of movement yet nor the catmint … the cats will have to cope with the small plant they didn’t get the chance to eat last year!
Also soweds white lady runner bean, green sweet basil, edonis melon, prince dwark bean and eldorado melon – this is the second attempt at this variety after the first sowing germinated and then went yellow and died!
3 cucumber plants potted on + plum and beefsteak tomato plants bought last week. The celery is at last starting to sprout!
All the potting on was into ‘kayak’ growbag compost. Whilst tidying the herb pots in the garden, some of this compost got added to a pot, which caused a swarm of yellow flies to appear … beware if you use it outside! I added a layer of coir compost (from compressed bricks) onto the surface of the pots to mask the smell of the compost which seemed to do the trick.
And at the allotment…
Well, that was all at home in the greenhouse, up at the plot I chicken manured the corn plot and dug it over, also made a seed bed for salad crops. That was a lot of work as the soil where I wanted it to go is very clayey and lumpy. The larger lumps have been removed and dumped in the compost bin – hopefully the worms might have a got at breaking them up for me.
Into the seedbed has gone:
- lettuce lollo rossa
- radish sparkler 3
- radish French breakfast 3
- rocket
- chervil
- fennel (Florence)
Also cleared a bit at the bottom of the plot where the soil is much looser and planted some White Gem parsnip seeds.
All in all, I think a good days work!
