Suburban Veg Plot

Let love blossom...

2012-02-10T10:04:00.003Z

Next week sees the staging of the 2-day RHS London Plant and Design Show and as one of the days coincides with Valentine's Day, the RHS are putting on an evening speed dating event among the exhibits at Lawrence Hall. Thirty participants will be meeting and mingling around the displays to see if Cupid's arrow is set to strike. There's still time to sign up (details here) and entry is covered by the main event ticket (so free, if you're an RHS member). Will you meet a hunk by the heucharas? a vamp by the verbenas? a geek near a galanthus? or a wallflower hiding among the...um....wallflowers?

Itchy fingers

2012-01-31T14:31:00.002Z

I just knew I wouldn't be able to resist sowing at least some seeds in January. I tried distracting myself with horticultural revision, I tried sitting on my hands, but to no avail. I could literally hear the seeds crying out from their packets (in the seed tin, in the cupboard - they're quite loud these seeds...).
I justified it to myself by deciding only to sow seeds that take ages to germinate, like lemon drop chillies, or those that are really hardy, like leeks. But then blew that by including tomatoes and sweet peppers as well.
I explained to my other half that I'd definitely started to sow seeds as early as January last year - and then looked at my nerdy gardening diary book and saw that it was actually the middle of Feb before I'd done anything. Well at least I can say I've improved on last year...
Anyway, it may be too early, and I may live to regret this rash seed sowing, but it's just lovely to see the propagators sitting in their usual places on the heated kitchen floor. It feels like the growing year is within reach.
Anyone else want to 'fess up to any premature sowing?

January greenery

2012-01-23T19:04:00.003Z

Given the mild weather we've had the last 2 or 3 months (ignoring the 3 days of freezing temps just last week) it's not surprising that some crops are much further on they they usually would be this time of year. The Aquadulce Claudia and Sutton broad beans, which were sown in late October germinated rather rapidly. Usually they get a bit of a growth check in Dec/Jan with a freezy spell and occasionally a blanket of snow. But not this year, at least not yet. These photos were taken in early Jan - some of the bean plants are already 40-50cm tall and flopping about. I really need to get out and create my usual 'boxing ring' style support with twine and pruned branches from elsewhere in the garden. I'll just add that to my to-do list...

Sharing the blogging love

2012-01-06T11:06:00.001Z

I was delighted recently to be given this blog award by Caro at Urban Veg Patch. The Suburban Veg Plot blog was originally started just for my own interest and veg garden records rather than to gain any wider readership (yes, I am relatively shy in real life!). However, as I've started to read and enjoy gardening and chicken blogs by others, it's nice to know that in some small way people out there are getting some pleasure and/or amusement from mine. So, thank you Caro and I'm very happy to accept!

Acceptance of the award is conditional on the following:

Copy and paste the award on your blog
Thank the giver and link back to them
Choose five blogs (with less than 200 followers) that you'd like to pass the award on to and leave a comment for them on their blog.

So, my 5 chosen blogs to pass this award on to are:

My Little Garden

Digging For Victory

Self-Sufficient Dreams

Life with the Ex-Batts

Veggiegobbler

These blogs cover the full range of growing exotics in Malaysia, growing veg according to 1940s advice, making plans for a smallholding dream, ex-batt chicken antics and veggie growing Down Under. Some of them I've been reading longer than others but all have given me a smile and a chuckle along the way.

There's a new sheriff in town...

2012-01-02T12:16:00.001Z

Meet Georgie. Her shortcomings in the neck feather department are more than made up for by her size and attitude.

New year, new books, new chickens, new hope

2012-01-01T12:21:00.001Z

Hello January 1st with your dark sky and wintery rain. My garden has taken on its usual slippy slidey muddy winter form courtesy of the London clay below. But the fruit trees are filled with chaffinches and house sparrows feeding frenziedly on the various fatball feeders I have hung out for them. And signs of spring are already out there - rich red buds are swelling on an ornamental quince.

Hello Christmas reads with your inviting covers and promise of homegrown bounty. There seems to be a smallholding theme developing... maybe I'll be needing to modify the title of my blog in 2012 if certain discussions come to fruition? My Gardeners' World subscription was renewed by my lovely in-laws so I'll be taking in all Monty's and Carol's ideas again this year. And the Versailles book? Well, it came with an invitation for a weekend visit to see the gardens for myself! I can already feel the parterre envy stirring deep within.

Hello new chickens with your pale combs and scantily clad wings. You three seem to have settled in
well since we brought you home on Dec 29th, but if you could just stop bullying the two chickens we already had, then life would be even more lovely. We re-homed you from a battery farm so that you could enjoy a carefree and free-range life, but that means you have to do the same for Chicken Licken and Ruby who have spent the last 2 days having their homelife turned upside down.

Hello EU barren cage ban. Though some European countries have failed to meet the Jan 1st 2012 deadline for removing all barren cages from their egg production industry, I am proud to know that the British egg industry is now barren cage free. Intensively produced eggs in the UK will still come from chickens kept caged, but the enriched cages do at least allow the birds to exhibit some natural behaviours such as stretching wings, perching and laying eggs in darkness. The British Hen Welfare Trust has been very busy in the past few months re-homing as many ex-battery chickens as possible in the approach to the ban - in order to prevent them being sent to slaughter. Only this morning I came across this lovely story of a rescue. If you can spare anything, please make a donation (details in the post itself), if you have room to offer a home to some ex-batts, please go to the BHWT website, and if you buy eggs, make sure they're British. We can hope that the momentum behind this campaign continues to improve the welfare of animals within our food industries.

My best wishes to you all for 2012 - may it bring you happiness, laughter and joy.

Reflections on a growing year

2011-12-27T17:13:00.001Z

It's always interesting to look back on a year of growing to reflect on what worked well and what didn't in the suburban veg plot. I use this to draw lessons about what I sowed or planted, to decide if a variety didn't grow well because of something I did, or something I didn't do. It helps me decide on the next year's plans - whether I try again with a different technique or cultivation practice or just cut my losses, swap the seeds and use the space for something else.
So, lessons learned in the suburban veg plot in 2011:

Celeriac does not grow well in my garden. It's difficult to germinate, requires lots of tlc during the early stages and then doesn't repay me in kind. Celeriac has no place in the suburban veg plot of 2012.
Leek moth is prevelant in Hertfordshire. However, I'm not being beaten by something that small, so I will keep trimming the affected leeks to the ground and flipping a virtual finger to Acrolepiopsis assectella.
Sugar snap peas do not freeze well. Not unless you actually like soggy pods in your stir-fry. Grow them and cook them; don't try to save them.
Butternut squash is just like those men my mother warned me about. They look impressive when they first show up, promise you the world if you tend to their every need and then leave you with nothing at the end of the day. Oxygen thieves.
You can never grow too many chilli plants. I have yet to find a dish that is not enhanced by the addition of a bit of chilli. Roll on chilli sowing February!

An untypical gardening year

2011-12-14T09:21:00.001Z

What a strange winter we're having. I've just harvested the last chillies from my Lemon Drop and Bulgarian Carrot plants. They've been inside for only 2 weeks - just to ripen the last few fruits. Prior to that it was still warm enough in the greenhouse for them to thrive.
I've tried overwintering chillies previous years but they do tend to suffer from aphids and don't seem all that far ahead of those grown from seed in Feb.
So, it's into the composter for the last five plants. And only 6 more weeks before I'll be starting to sow new ones!
What unseasonal edibles are you still harvesting?

Ember Gate on Etsy - open for business

2011-12-02T17:24:00.001Z

I haven't posted on my blog for more than 3 weeks. I feel very guilty, but I do have a valid excuse. I've been beavering away in the background on the launch of my garden-related Etsy shop - Ember Gate. And it's finally open! Vintage garden tools and other horticultural and planting wares - I choose only things that I'd buy for myself. Only 7 items listed so far (see thumbnails in the sidebar to the right), but I'll add more over the weekend. I have a dining room full of galvanised watering cans, enamel buckets, sickles, pruning saws, dolly tubs, dock lifters and slashers so I need to get them listed and sold before Christmas otherwise we'll be having Christmas dinner on our knees in front of the tv...

Right said Ted - time for home

2011-11-09T21:47:00.000Z

I came down for breakfast to be greeted by this sight:

Ted was stuck halfway into a box and was looking more than a little uncomfortable. I carefully helped him back out and sat him down.

When I asked Ted what he was up to, he replied that he and Bobble had had a lovely stay at the Suburban Veg Plot but thought that Jane might be missing them now and that they'd better go back home to Wales. Sad though it was, I agreed with him and so after a cup of tea and some honey on toast, Ted and Bobble climbed into the packing box and we headed off to the post office.

Ted asked me to thank everyone who's followed their adventures on here and posted comments on their activities. He hopes you'll all check in on Jane's blog to see where he goes next - or even invite them over to stay with you!

Ted on tour

2011-11-06T08:00:00.000Z

As Ted's and Bobble's time at the Suburban Veg Plot approached its end, Ted asked if we could have a night out to round off the week. I eventually relented, but said it had to be something quiet and local - maybe a quick drink and spot of dinner. Bears need their boundaries and a firm hand is always best.

Which is how we ended up at a gig at the O2 Academy in Islington.

Ted, being a bit of a music hound, scrambled straight up on stage during the Zoey van Goey sound check despite a distinct lack of access all areas laminates around his neck.

As the gig began, no-one at first seemed to spot Ted hidden at the back of the stage, watching the band closely like some kind of ursine R&R scout. But his moment of glory was yet to come.

And later, when sneaking into the 'after party', he revealed himself to be a complete groupie by flirting shamelessly with Kim from Zoey van Goey.

Definitely time to go home now Ted - and no, she's not coming with you.

Rain stopped play

2011-11-05T10:28:00.000Z

Oh dear Ted, the weather has taken a turn for the worse and is displaying the mild and precipitous maritime climate conditions more typical of our middle latitude location, particularly for this specific cycle of our seasonal calendar.

Yes, I know you want to go and play with the chickens again (despite Ruby getting a bit too close for comfort yesterday) but a soggy bear is not a happy bear. I fear that Eau De Wet Ted is not a scent that would travel well, especially encased in bubble wrap.

Ted meets the chickens

2011-11-04T19:18:00.000Z

In a rare moment of sunshine, Ted headed out enthusiastically to meet the chickens. He claims to have a strong spiritual connection with the animal kingdom. Ruby came over first for a tentative investigation – she's never met a bear before.

What's that Ted? You want to go back inside right now?

Ted's green fingers

2011-11-01T21:34:00.002Z

After the excitement of a day in the city, Ted and Bobble decided to spend today at the veg plot. Like any good gardener, Ted spent a bit of time in quiet contemplation of the land before he started work.

Ted felt confident that his newly acquired knowledge (last Friday's episode of Gardeners' World) would come in very handy. Having seen Monty turning over the soil in preparation for the winter, he was eager to give it a go himself. Bobble looked on in a self-appointed supervisory capacity: Come on Ted, put your back into it!

After spending 5 hours digging over the entire plot with the world's smallest trowel, they headed into the greenhouse to have a nosy around. Yes Bobble, the chilli plant is very tall but I really don't think there's a giant living at the top of it.

Ted, meanwhile, was entranced by the sweet pea seedlings. He said he could see them growing but I think it was more likely the hallucinatory effects of low blood sugar and exhaustion. Come on you two, time for a cup of tea and some honey on toast.

Ted and the City

2011-10-31T19:24:00.001Z

Monday morning means back to work for most people and today was no different for Ted and Bobble.

It was straight in at the deep end at the office - the markets were going crazy! Ted was hoping to get on the right side of some Footsie futures.

Despite being a junior intern, Ted somehow managed to get a desk with an enviable view. Hold my calls please Miss Jones, Bobble and I are heading off for ~~lunch and a gossip~~ a meeting.

On the way back to the train station, Ted was intrigued by the activity going on around St Paul's Cathedral. Having listened to all the issues, Ted is still considering his position on the situation.

Garden revision

2011-10-30T21:40:00.000Z

Ted and Bobble were a bit tired today - both from their Royal Mail journey here and from their efforts with the fruit harvest yesterday - so they had a chilled out Sunday afternoon on the sofa after a big lie in.
I told Ted that we'd be doing some more gardening this week and he looked a bit apprehensive. What's that Ted? You want to do a bit of research before we hit the veg plot? Not a problem!

Pear storage

2011-10-30T15:13:00.000Z

Now that the pears have been harvested and the pear tree pruned (in accordance with instructions in my trusty DK/RHS Pruning and Training book) it's time to try out my new pear storage trays. Purchased via eBay from a farm in Peterborough, the trays are very rustic and authentic but needed only a quick spray down with the jet washer before being ready to be put into use.

I spread the harvest out quite thinly over the trays, and wrapped the pears in one level in newspaper to see if that makes any difference to their rate of ripening. The trays have been put in a spare bedroom that we use very rarely so with no heating in there and the blind kept closed, it should be perfect storage conditions.

Not the prettiest of pears, I'll grant you. But hopefully a tasty one for Pear Tarte Tatin come Christmas!

Welcome Ted and Bobble

2011-10-29T17:18:00.000+01:00

So, Ted and Bobble have arrived safely at the Suburban Veg Plot. Unfortunately though, they did have to spend last night in the local sorting office as they wouldn't fit through the letterbox...

Hello Ted and Bobble! I hope the bubble wrap kept you warm last night. And what a lovely sparkly t-shirt you're sporting Ted. I'm not sure my Irish husband likes it as much as I do though...

Ted and Bobble were barely out of their box when we set them to work outside. First on the weekend 'to do' list was harvesting the Winter Nelis pears. As Ted isn't very tall, he wasn't much help at getting the pears off the tree but he was very good at piling them carefully in the trug. Bobble was a bit useless on both counts to be honest.

Ted, not being one to shy away from danger, decided that if someone helped him up into the pear tree, he could give us a hand with the pruning. Mind yourself with that pruning saw Ted – it's very sharp and looks to be quite close to your face!

Gosh, thought Ted, if this is what we've managed in only one day here who knows what we'll be up to the rest of the week.

Awaiting the visitors

2011-10-25T08:35:00.002+01:00

The Suburban Veg Plot will shortly be playing host to Ted and Bobble. If you haven't yet come across these names in the blogosphere, then head over to the Daisy Donut blog here for a briefing. And while you're there, make a donation via Jane's lovely blog to her admirable fundraising efforts for Macmillan Cancer Support. Hopefully Ted and Bobble aren't too tired out from their recent holiday in Menorca as we've lots of things planned for their time here.

ID parade

2011-10-08T12:32:00.000+01:00

I recently took advantage of a Fruit Identification Day at RHS Wisley in Surrey. Laden with samples from my apple and pear trees, I headed off to meet Jim Arbury, renowned fruit specialist for the RHS. He started with the easy ones first - my long smooth pears were quickly identified as Conference and the apples as Golden Delicious.The latter has produced a very poor harvest this year. In fact, to my inexperienced eyes, the whole tree has been looking a trifle below par all season. We did a bit of pruning last winter, but I'm fairly confident that hasn't caused its current woes. Early in the year it developed powdery mildew on much of the new growth. This could be explained by the early season hot/dry weather, causing water stress to the tree making it susceptible to infection. Then many of the blossoms were hit by the late frosts in May and resulted in only a handful of apples making it through to harvest time.

Conference pears

My second pear variety caused Jim a little further deliberation as reference books were consulted and samples were cut open. He soon identified it as a late pear - which sounds about right given that they've always been hard, even when they're falling off the tree. A few more comparisons later and we had a name - Winter Nelis. A variety with its origins in Belgium in the early 1800s, it's a small squat fruit, heavy with russet and not particularly attractive (a pear only a mother could love). But armed with Jim's advice, I shall be harvesting them at the end of October, putting them into storage and then enjoying beautifully ripe pears at Christmas.
Now, can anyone lend me a dozen apple storage trays??

Blueberry tubs

2011-09-28T12:04:00.000+01:00

Back in February I mentioned my two blueberry bushes. One was a very thoughful gift from a good friend and the second one I bought as a companion for the first. Although both are termed self-fertile, the received wisdom is that 2 bushes will give you a larger crop than a single one.

Having decided to keep them containerised in order to better manage their acidic soil requirements - I needed to find them appropriate containers. In the meantime, they were repotted into flower buckets from our local supermarket (the yellow one with the big M; other supermarkets are of course available...)

As I'm a fan of all things vintage when it comes to garden tools, household items and books, I pondered on the idea of suitable containers for a while before deciding to track down some dolly tubs. For those of you too young to have heard of these, dolly tubs were the washing machines of the Victorian era. Galvanised steel or zinc tubs would be filled with water on washday and a wooden dolly peg was used to agitate the clothes in the water until clean (or at least cleaner than they started out). Often at the end of the day when all the clothes were washed, the children of the family would be popped into the tub one by one for their weekly bath!

Anyway, having acquired two of these lovely items from the fabulous shopping emporium that is eBay, I asked my very handy handyman to drill some drainage holes in the bottom before I added plenty of crocks and what seemed like a trailer full of ericaceous compost. I'm really pleased with how they look and it gives the plants plenty of root growing space.

We had a pretty good harvest from these two bushes during July, August and September - plenty of blueberry muffins were baked but sadly there weren't enough for making blueberry jam as well. Now the cooler weather has arrived the leaves have begun to change colour, displaying wonderful rich autumn hues.

September chilli fest

2011-09-26T18:42:00.000+01:00

I'll confess that I'm slightly pitying of anyone who doesn't like chillies. In my book, that's like saying 'I prefer my food to taste quite ordinary, I don't really like making it a bit more interesting'. Chillies don't have to be hot to make a difference in food, they can add fruitiness, spice or simply an unidentifiable tang that just adds a bit of pizzazz to everyday flavours. Tomato and mascarpone pasta sauce? Throw some chopped hot cayenne in there! Stir fry or pad thai? Whack a scotch bonnet in it! Courgette fritters? A couple of bulgarian carrot chillies will add some zing!
My chilli rollcall this year is as follows: Hot Cayenne, Peruvian Chinense, Scotch Bonnet, Razzmatazz, Numex Twilight, Lemondrop and Bulgarian Carrot. The latter 3 are new to me this year, the others I've grown at least once before.
Chillies have a long growing season, so most were sown back in February and March. I get the best results keeping them in the greenhouse and it means I can prolong the ripening through to October if I'm lucky.
Most of my harvest will be added to the freezer so we have an all year round supply. If I have a real bumper crop I may dry some to grind down for chilli powder or make a small batch of chilli jelly.

Scotch bonnets

New flowers on the Razzmatazz plant

Hot cayenne ripening in the sun

The changing colours of the Numex Twilight

Tomato tasting

2011-09-19T19:27:00.001+01:00

There are 3 types of tomato growing in my greenhouse. Which, some might say, is 3 types too many for someone who doesn't actually like eating them. But I love growing them.
And I find I can make things with them that I do like to eat - it's just whole and/or raw tomatoes that I don't like to eat. Sun dry them and it's a whole different story, make them into ketchup and I'm there.
Anyway, I'm growing Moneymaker, Roma and Gardener's Delight, which I realise are not varieties that set the gardening world on fire, but most of the seeds were freebies with gardening magazines so I stuck with them.
This year the Roma and Moneymaker plants have not grown particularly big, but their output in the last few weeks is more than making up for that. They're all still getting a weekly dose of liquid organic feed to keep them happy.

The single Gardener's Delight plant has been fruiting prolifically, giving hubbie a regular supply of fresh tomatoes for his lunchtime sandwiches.

The Roma plum tomatoes have been harvested once ripened, skinned, stored in the freezer and then every week or so I've been making a batch of passata, which then goes back into the deep freeze for another day. I make a great tomato and mascarpone pasta sauce when the mood takes me.
And the Moneymakers have been harvested green and made into chutney - the kitchen looks like a catering establishment!

Seed saving

2011-08-14T19:15:00.002+01:00

There are many reasons why people choose to grow their own fruit and veg. Some for the fresh air and exercise, some to ensure they know exactly what they're eating and how it's been produced and some to reduce the environmental impact of food production on our environment. Many people choose to grow their own fruit and veg out of a desire to save money. Obviously, buying a packet of seeds is much cheaper than purchasing the end result veg from your local supermarket, but imagine if you could get the seeds for free as well?
I've slowly come around to the idea of seed saving around the veg plot. It seemed a bit of a hassle at first but you just need to start with the easy stuff.
My focus is usually on large seeds - peas, mange tout, broad beans, etc. The mange tout seeds are usually saved by accident rather than design - if I haven't picked frequently enough then there will be some plump pods hanging around. I take these off and leave them in the sunny greenhouse to dry out, crossing my fingers that the pea moth hasn't visited already. The last few broad bean pods go the same way once they've dried out a bit on the plant.

I've saved parsnip seeds for the first time this year from a parsnip I left to flower for the hoverflies. I left the resulting seed head for as long as I could outside - and then once the seeds started to drop off I cut it down and stored them in a paper bag.

And even flowers - I've been growing tagetes alongside my tomatoes for a couple of years now and noticed that as the tagetes died and dried, the centre of the flower was full of little needle-shaped seeds - looking like a tiny quiver full of arrows.
Nasturtium seeds are probably one of the easiest flower seeds to save as they're so big. I pull them off the plant once they've swelled up but often they'll simply fall to the soil and I collect them from there.

And I've been collecting seeds from the fried egg plant (Limnanthes douglasii) to plant again next spring. Once the flowers have died you can see the seeds (4 or 5) in the bottom of the calyx. Wait until they start to turn brown and then gently push them out.

The list is pretty endless in my garden - poppies, carrots, onion, leek, tomato, squash, aquilegia, sweet peas, sunflowers, chillies, melons, runner beans, sugar snaps...

What are your favourite seeds to save each year?

New kids on the block

2011-08-09T18:20:00.001+01:00

Following the recent demise of Myrtle, Chicken Licken was left bereft, though still laying a consistent egg a day 14-months post-battery farm. We were quickly onto the website of the British Hen Welfare Trust and found a rescue and rehoming day planned for the following weekend. Despite feeling slightly guilty that Myrtle's roosting bar was not yet cold, we headed off across Herts and Essex to bring home 2 new girls to keep Chicken Licken company. Welcome home Ruby and Scholes!
So far Chicken Licken has shown her dominance with some vicious pecks and feather tugging to the heads and necks of the newbies as well as trying to mount them like a cockerel. She was consigned to a night in a pet carrier on the kitchen floor on the first night as she refused to allow them into the coop with her. The second night, the same thing happened so we shut the newbies up in the coop and she had to sleep in the covered run outside. Finally on the third night, with only a few tussles and squabbling, all three settled down in the coop together. So, it's very exciting to be getting 3 eggs a day again (even if one of them is laid behind a fern plant) and the suburban veg plot is complete once more.

Making comfrey tea

2011-08-04T18:06:00.002+01:00

Back in March 2010 I established a comfrey patch in the suburban veg plot. It established itself well (despite the variable summer) and I followed the advice not to cut from it in its first season to allow it to establish well. Come spring 2011, it reappeared as promised and grew strongly, taking advantage of the plentiful nutrients coming out the back of the compost heap. However, my access to said comfrey was not so easy as I imagined. Blocking my way to the comfrey from early spring was a bramble stem so thick and strong you could have swung around on it like Tarzan. Albeit it Tarzan wearing a pair of heavy duty thorn-proof gauntlets, but you know what I mean. And even once you got past the bramble, which, by the way, grew faster than a courgette on steroids, there was the virtually impenetrable barrier created by the basal shoots of the laurel hedge to contend with. Now, I do have the tools to deal with the vegetation, but then we got the are-ay-tea invasion. Eeeugh! With their long snakey tails and their beady eyes, they took up residence in the compost heap creating an entrance burrow at the rear, right through my comfrey patch. Anyway, now that we have a new - and more importantly rat-proof - composter, full access to the comfrey patch has been restored.

Aside from using comfrey leaves as a compost activator, a mulch and as a direct feed in the bottom of planting holes/trenches, it can be used to make a 'tea' liquid feed for any veg or fruit plant you grow. So, to make your comfrey tea - first harvest your comfrey. Leaves and stem can both be used. I would recommend the use of gloves for this as comfrey has small hairs on both leaves and stem that can irritate the skin.

There are various vessels you can employ for stewing comfrey tea. I've gone for the small but perfectly formed 2-pint milk container.
I'd definitely recommend a method that has the brew closed in, rather than left open - the smell is absolutely rank.
Stuff said container with as much comfrey as you can possibly cram in.

Fill container with water and replace the lid. Leave for 5-6 weeks to brew - date the bottle to help you keep track. The decomposition of the comfrey in the water may give off gases which could build up in the container. The beauty of the milk container is that the cap usually allows most of these to escape as it's not the tightest fit. If you use a squash or fizzy water bottle then these caps usually fit very tight and so you might need to release any built-up gases every week or so.

Your resulting tea needs diluting down with water before using on plants (1:10 tea to water is usually recommended). Once you've got the hang of this, you may never need to buy liquid plant feed again.

Another one bites the dust...

2011-07-31T17:34:00.001+01:00

Myrtle, leader of the Houdini sisters, stealer of blueberries and the peckiest chicken that ever lived. You came, you pecked at shoelaces, you laid eggs for eight months and lived the life of Riley for the remaining six. The garden looks emptier without you.

Garlic for beginners

2011-07-26T15:28:00.002+01:00

In November last year I planted 2 types of garlic: Chesnok Wight and Picardy Wight, both sourced from the lovely people at The Garlic Farm. Garlic cloves need well drained soil and a spell of cold weather to ensure the new bulbs form properly. And aside from that they're pretty low maintenance. A bit of watering here and there to get them through periods of dry weather - not that we've had too many of those since May - and that's about it. In June the hardneck garlic (Chesnok Wight) start to produce a flower head or scape, that should be snipped off to prevent the plant's energy going into the production of the flower rather than into the bulb.

In early July when the garlic foliage started to yellow and flop over, the new bulbs were lifted carefully with a fork, the roots shaken of soil and the bulbs dried in an airy location to prevent them going mouldy or rotting. I usually use the greenhouse - either hanging them up or laying them in wooden crates.

Once dry and papery, I rubbed off any remaining dirt and loose skin, trimmed the top foliage off and then stored in a cool dry place ready to be used! Hardneck varieties will last until January so should be used first; softneck garlic will store well until late spring next year.
And as ever, before using any bulbs, I'll be selecting the biggest and healthiest from each variety to break up and replant come November. That way my garlic production is self-sustaining from year to year. Now that's what I call self-sufficiency!

Pear blossom??

2011-07-24T20:07:00.001+01:00

So, it's not only me who's confused by the varied weather recently. We've had turbulent wind, chilly nights, torrential downpours, cool grey mornings, overcast afternoons and then suddenly, a return to the heatwave with blazing hot sun for the last 2 days.
This seem to have confused one of my pear trees - which has produced these lovely little blossoms at the end of one branch. The bees are loving them at least, but I suspect any resulting fruits will be doomed long before they're ripe.

I lead, Alys follows

2011-07-23T16:59:00.001+01:00

If you're anything like me, then every weekend you have your head deep in the papers, specifically the gardening sections, checking on what needs to be done next. One of my particular favourites is the lovely Alys Fowler - she of the 'tea dress and wellies' school of gardening - in the Guardian each Saturday. Now, I don't know if it's just that I'm getting better at this vegetable growing lark, but in recent months it seems that I'm mirroring exactly what Alice is doing - or is it the other way round? I harvest some green garlic, she writes about green garlic; I sow my winter brassicas, she writes about winter brassicas; I start saving poppy heads, she... I'm sure you get the picture.
It has been said in the past that I'm often ahead of the pack in action or thoughts - like wearing Dubes to Glastonbury or knowing that Robbie would be more successful than Gary post Take That (take 1) but this is getting ridiculous. I don't seem to be able to do anything in the suburban veg plot without it appearing in the Guardian. Is this coincidence or should I be changing the default password on my voicemail a little more often??

Christmas potatoes...

2011-07-17T18:18:00.001+01:00

'Done!'
*slaps back of right hand into palm of left a la Gordon Ramsey*

Summer summary

2011-07-16T09:00:00.002+01:00

I've been managing to keep up the watering regime during this week or two of hot weather and it seems to be paying off. We've had the occasional downpour to top up the waterbutts and give the raised beds a good soaking but the greenhouse crops pretty much need watering every second day.

The chilli harvest has started - hot cayenne and razzamatazz - and I'm slowly building up a freezer bag of them which will hopefully then last us through until next summer. We officially used the last frozen 2010 chilli about 2 weeks ago, so are very pleased to be self sufficient on that front. I've got about 7 different chillies growing - and I fear this is turning into something of a fetish...

The courgettes are starting to produce fruits faster and faster now. The Gold Rush variety, a beautiful solid rich yellow courgette, is very attractive on the plate and has a lovely taste.

One veg (well, fruit if we're being pedantic) that hasn't grown as well as in previous years is the Roma tomato. I'm not sure why, as the early days looked very promising. I have two plants in the greenhouse but they don't seem to have reached the size they have done before. There seems to be plenty of small fruits forming and I'm feeding them well. It's just they look quite dwarf compared to the Moneymaker plants next to them.

The salads have been a roaring success - both the loose leaf types and the butterheads. The latter were a trial seed I received free from DT Brown. They grew really well and almost took over one of the raised beds. I had to harvest some of them just to give the shallots their space back. In the end, the slugs and snails took over so the last few lettuces went on the compost heap, but one of two of the bases are re-growing so I may have another mini harvest from those before I need the space for something else.

Love me tendril, love me sweet

2011-07-11T16:10:00.001+01:00

I've recently been glued to the tv watching the ITV Botany series and am finding it absolutely fascinating. I love the history of botany and how the scientific developments and discoveries of the last few hundred years have shaped the plant and agricultural world as we know it today. I'm particularly interested in plant genetics, breeding and inheritance. They all sound so impenetrably scientific but we can all see examples in every variety of vegetable we grow.
Take, for example, this pea variety I photographed in the walled vegetable garden at the National Botanic Gardens in Dublin.

I thought it looked a bit odd, so looked up the variety - Sancho. It's a semi-leafless type, which is apparently better for commercial growers as the harvesting is easier than with leafy varieties. It seems the harvesting machinery copes better without so much foliage. So, assuming Mother Nature did not provide this Sancho variety herself, plant breeders have, over the years, selectively crossed pea varieties with smaller amounts of foliage in order to breed out the leafy tendencies. Now, on my RHS course we learnt about leaf adaptations - and a pea tendril is one such leaf adaptation. Basically it's a leaf that has adapted (in an evolutionary sense) to serve a different purpose - in this case, it helps the plant to support itself, to grow vertically, thus maximising exposure to sunlight and gaining a competitive advantage over those pea plants that cannot climb so high.
So, in the process of breeding peas to decrease the amount of leafy growth on the plant, the breeders have selected pea varieties that produce more tendrils. This has resulted in the Sancho pea that not only has less foliage and is easier to harvest for commercial and allotment growers alike, it also produces more tendrils, leading to a better in-built support system and thus a smaller need for managed support such as pea sticks, frames and nets. A most welcome development in my book.

The end of a chicken era

2011-07-04T18:28:00.003+01:00

In the words of my BIL:

Sadly missed french footballing legend chicken. RIP Cantona

Growing on the coast - California style

2011-06-20T21:27:00.002+01:00

A few weeks ago, we left the suburban veg plot in the capable hands of our neighbours and headed across to the west coast of the USA. In among visiting wineries, a trip to Alcatraz and coming face to face with a rather large herd of elk in a redwood forest, we planned a trip to the Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens. Winding our way through the extensive rhodendendron gardens (those west coast types really like their 'rhodies') we headed straight for the vegetable garden. I just love having a nosy around other people's veg gardens - usually to see what they're planting next to what or to find some new container planting idea that I can blatantly copy back in the suburban veg plot.
The organic vegetable garden at Mendocino was a beautifully laid out rectangular plot. Deep borders planted with flowers and edibles outlined the entire area and with central beds of varying sizes being cut out of the well-kept lawn. The variety of styles of veg beds was amazing - long narrow ones of rhubarb and raspberries, potager-style areas bordered with bricks, timber-sided raised beds and circular spaces for bean wigwams all overseen by a scarecrow named Dottie. My favourite idea there was a wonderfully ornate bedstead recycled as a pea frame. Definitely an idea I shall be using should the opportunity arise!

Winter veg in summer

2011-06-16T09:36:00.002+01:00

It's around this time of year as the harvests of tomatoes, peas, sugar snaps, courgettes, chillies, mangetout and broad beans really get going that I tend to forget all about planning for the winter season. Winter cabbages, kale and purple sprouting broccoli should all be sown in the next month or so to be ready to eat once the summer and autumn gluts are dwindling. So, as this year is the 'Year of the Organised Suburban Veg Plot' I've set aside all of the brassicas from my seed tin in order to select what to sow for the winter. And at the same time, glanced around my garden to plan where this veg could be planted out when the time comes. And that's when I noticed a rogue kale plant I omitted to pull up in the spring. It must have been a small one for me to miss though the fact it's in the far corner of the plot and involves clambering over a big pile of canes might be more the reason. As the sugar snaps grew, they obscured it from view - but now it's put on an amazing growth spurt, towered above the peas and broken into flower.

Elsewhere I have a parsnip that was sown in March 2010 - not eating this one was intentional when I happened upon the tip that parsnip flowers attract hoverflies. So I saved my last parsnip, moved it into the broad bean bed and waited. Well, the parsnip certainly flowered on its 5 foot stem, but I've yet to see any hoverflies around it yet. However, it does seem to be acting as a sacrificial plant - simply covered in blackfly while there are none on the broad beans. I guess if the result is the same, then the method isn't that important.

Broad appeal

2011-06-15T12:17:00.000+01:00

Veg gardening is just brilliant.
First you sow some small dried things.

Which grow into these...

From which you harvest these...

I don't think it gets better than that!

All change

2011-06-12T09:13:00.005+01:00

The suburban veg plot blog has had a makeover. It rained a lot, I couldn't garden, and there was nothing on tv. That's it really.

Awaiting the onslaught

2011-06-08T21:34:00.006+01:00

You know that scene in every old wild west movie? The one where the cowboy/rancher/townsfolk would stop suddenly listening for something. They'd concentrate hard, scrunching up their face and then raising their head, focus on some small dust cloud in the distance. The dust cloud would grow larger and larger and dark forms within it would begin to take shape. The indistinct noise would change to a faint drumming, getting louder and louder until it could be recognised as the sound of heavy hooves as horses were ridden at full gallop carrying the full might of the native American tribes to bear down on the settlers. The look on the face of the cowboy/rancher/townsfolk was that of both fear and resignation as they realised that life was about to irreversibly change and that resistance was futile

It's pretty much the same feeling I get every June when the courgette plants start fruiting. How I've looked forward to getting my first courgette since sowing the seeds in March and gently tending to the seedling as they grew. This year I'm growing Striata, a stripy green courgette from Seeds of Italy and Gold Rush, a yellow courgette I obtained in a seed swap on a grow your own forum. Now we can see the first few fruits developing, ready to open their flowers for the insects and achieve full pollination. But a small part of me knows that my array of courgette recipes cannot possibly keep up with the supply once the plants get going.

Chelsea 2011

2011-06-06T15:28:00.006+01:00

Just a few pictures of some lovely things I saw at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show

RHS qualified

2011-05-16T01:23:00.007+01:00

Bit of a belated post with the result of my RHS Level 2 Certificate in Horticulture (I actually received it in early May) but I passed - with commendation! I was really pleased and am now planning to move on to Level 3 in September.

planting out the tomatoes

2011-05-04T18:05:00.013+01:00

So, only a couple of weeks after the great tomato giveaway, I'm finally ready to put the best of the bunch into their final growing positions in the greenhouse. My greenhouse is quite teeny but I cram as much in as will fit but still allow me to access everything for watering. And my techniques and methods have been honed and tweaked over the last few years until I have what works best for me.

Tomatoes really benefit from extra root depth so I've cut the bottom off a couple of large plastic plant pots to provide this. It's basically the same as those expensive 'tomato grow pots' you'll find for sale in the garden centre - so money saving and repurposing all in one. I also tend to put the growbag on its side to maximise the depth of compost rather than using them flat on the floor.

I cut a hole in the growbag the same size as the interior circumference of the bottomless pot and then push the pot into this to about a 1 inch depth. Then I pot up the tomato in the usual fashion. I find that 3 tomato plants per growbag works well - anymore than that and I get lost in a jungle of foliage.

In February I sowed some self-saved tagete seeds and the seedlings of these are planted into small holes at the front of the bag in an attempt to ward off the whitefly. Whether it actually works or not is a mystery to me. My toms haven't suffered from whitefly, but as someone on a gardening forum recently commented, they haven't suffered with tigers either, so maybe it works on them as well...

Bottletop drippers are positioned at the back of the growbag, leaning up against the greenhouse wall so I don't need to hand water the plants every day (I'm a bit forgetful on that front if the truth be told).Then I pour myself a generous Pimms and sit back and wait for the harvest.

Featured on Fennel and Fern

2011-05-02T15:32:00.005+01:00

Yay! A blog post I submitted to the lovely Fennel and Fern site has been chosen to feature on their front page. I've been skulking around anonymously on the site for a while, reading articles and looking at their lovely photos - and now I'm on it myself. Big smiles! Click here to read it.

Easter stocktake

2011-04-24T18:20:00.009+01:00

Each year in mid-April is usually a good time to take a look at what you've got in the ground and compare that with your planting plan. It will highlight if you have extra room you weren't expecting - something has failed at seedling stage, or you simply forgot to sow at the right time - and will also be a good check to see if you have room for the rest of your planned planting.

In the suburban veg plot, the broad beans have grown well since their re-sowing in February and are flowering well. Among them are nasturtiums which I hope will be more attractive to the blackfly than the beans themselves.

I've already started harvesting radishes and the looseleaf salad - and as last year, it's just fantastic. Crisp, fresh and tasty leaves from plot to plate in 2 minutes. You just can't get better than that.
The celeriac, carrots, beetroot and spinach are filling one raised bed and the butternut squash, miniature pumpkins and courgettes are also out in the ground.
On the herbage front, the chives and sage are in flower and the mint is flourishing. Just in time for Pimms season!!

I shot the chicken, but I didn't shoot the deputy

2011-04-20T17:14:00.008+01:00

Don't worry - she's actually just sunbathing.

The great tomato giveaway

2011-04-15T13:37:00.016+01:00

It was when I fell over the tomatoes for the 15th time that I got really annoyed. They were in a seed tray on the floor of the greenhouse - 6 plants each in a 5 inch pot - I should have realised they would impair my movements given that my greenhouse is about the size of your average corner bath (you know, one of those 80s avocado numbers - surely my parents weren't the only ones committing offences against interior design thirty years ago?). So I picked up the tray to move it somewhere more suitable. And that's when the scales fell from my eyes and I saw for the first time the reality of the situation I found myself in.
I think most of us sow more seeds than we need - to allow for germination failure - then the general advice is to select the strongest ones and thin out the weaklings and throw them away. I would estimate that I had an average germination rate of 80% across the 4 tomato varieties I sowed. And that's where problem started. I just can't throw plants away! First I'm waiting to see if the smaller ones are suddenly going to overtake those that looked strongest in the first place. So I prick them all out - just to give them all an equal chance. Weeks later, they're all growing on strongly and I keep potting them on - in newly bought compost and watering them all with precious rainwater from my water butts. I spend weeks in March carrying them all out to the greenhouse each morning and carrying them back indoors each night to tuck them up. Through April I see them flourishing in the sun and the bigger they get the more I can't bring myself to throw them on the compost heap.
So this emotional attachment has finally culminated in a veritable jungle of plants in a very compact greenhouse. And this is not just a case of a 'few' too many plants, oh no, this is proper obsessive. Each summer I have space in my greenhouse for a total of 5 tomato plants, 6 if I'm not growing melons as well (that's another post altogether). Guess how many tomato plants I have - that's right, 42. And it's not just tomatoes, I'm the same with peppers and chillies. Once the tomato plants are placed in grow bags on my greenhouse floor, I have space on the staging for 8-10 pots, depending on the pot size. So why on earth wouldn't I raise 59, yes, you read that right, 59 chilli plants. And still yesterday, I found myself potting some of them on again as they'd outgrown their pots.
This just can't carry on, it is, as they say untenable, unsustainable and just plain impossible. I'm going to ruthlessly pick out the strongest ones to keep and the rest are going on freecycle. And once they're gone, I'll see what else I can giveaway.

A visit to Van Gogh country?

2011-04-11T09:18:00.007+01:00

My sister-in-law will never forgive me if she ever sees this. We were visiting her for a few days last week and as ever, she and her boyfriend generously gave up their bedroom for us and themselves slept on a sofa bed in a very crowded home office. And I thank her by posting a photo of her garden on my blog. You'll have realised by now that she's not a garden person.
I think if you squint a bit, it could be a field of Van Gogh sunflowers that are far far away.

Polytunnel envy

2011-04-06T11:38:00.013+01:00

I was privileged enough to recently visit a garden that has been tended by a couple for the last 50 years. It's your classic secret garden, hidden just off the high street of a Hertfordshire village and I bet that most of the village residents don't even know its there. It has all the elements of a garden that I would love - beautiful old walls to trap the heat and act as backdrops for fruit cultivation, small meandering meadow areas with mature trees underplanted with daffodils and paved paths weaving beneath arches framed by climbers.
And in one area of this beautiful garden is an amazing vegetable and fruit plot. Potatoes growing in sacks in a greenhouse big enough to house my entire garden, rows of mange tout merrily waving their tendrils in the sun and then - the polytunnel envy set in. It's fatal, I should really stay away from other people's polythene-lined supercharged, super-heated growing spaces. I just don't have the space for one - unless we fastened the top of the arch to the back door and it ended at the larch hedge on our boundary. It would be like that scene from ET where the government scientists rig up a plastic walk-in tube stretching from the front door to a van - you'd never see the outside world again. But sadly I'm not sure the chickens would be very happy with that. Anyway, back to my gardening jealousy. The owner of said amazing garden structure explained that he uses his polytunnel to grow an array of veg, starting them off much much earlier than you'd be able to in an open plot and just look at the result!

The broad beans are not only about 4 times the height of mine, they're also in full flower and complete with visiting bees. Although they look like they were autumn sown, he actually sowed them in situ in February. Behind the first row of Aquadulce Claudia is a row of peas that are not quite visible in the photo. With leaves a good 3 inches across! It makes my 2 inch tall efforts in the suburban veg plot look a little lacking. Roll on the suburban smallholding...

tracking the radishes

2011-04-05T18:33:00.013+01:00

One of the many things I love about growing my own produce is seeing how things progress almost on a daily basis. And that's where photos come in - particularly digital ones. You can snap away all through the spring, summer and autumn and see how things are growing and changing. Dates are no problem, as most digital photography systems automatically assign the date and time to each image file so the info is always there to see. I also like seeing how further on (or far behind) I am from one year to the next. It acts as a prompt for sowing times - reminding me to get a move on usually. And it always give me a little self-satisfied thrill to know that the progress is down to me - the seeds I sowed, the seedlings I watered, the plants I tended.
As radishes are usually the quickest thing to develop in the suburban veg plot, here's the progress thus far for Radish Scarlet Globe sown in situ 12 March.
First photo taken 25 March:

and this one taken on 6 April:

All this talk of dates is now reminding me to sow another pot this weekend if I'm to keep myself in radishes throughout the summer!

Emerging into the light

2011-03-29T18:33:00.007+01:00

So, we've now reached the end of March and are officially into British Summer Time. Yes, that'll explain the forecast for torrential rain tomorrow - but to be honest that's what umbrellas were invented for. At least the garden will appreciate it, even if the chickens don't.
The house has been a hive of sowing activity this month. I established a production line of modules in unheated propagators circulating their way around the house. Last year's scheme, which had seed trays sitting on the heated kitchen floor was a good one in principle, but there were a few, let's say, tripping incidents en route to the back door. So this year chilli seeds have been germinated in the airing cupboard before being moved to one of a number of 1st floor rooms to take advantage of either the early morning or afternoon sun. I've even been creating foil wrapped receptacles out of wine boxes in which to sit seed trays of emergent seedlings in order to reflect sunlight all around them and reduce the leaning tendencies of young seedlings towards the light - which I learned recently is termed phototropism.

The shallots are germinated and residing in the unheated greenhouse, where they'll stay until mid-April.
The leek seedlings are up - but will stay in their respective pots until May/June. They've been moved outside the greenhouse now but the trick will be keeping them watered during the warmer months. Basically if I don't fall over it on a daily basis it risks being forgotten in the watering round. As for the next stages, the common advice is not to plant them out until they're 'pencil thick' but I've yet to achieve that. To be honest, some of mine are still only pencil thick when they're harvested, but that's usually due to planting out too late which restricted the length of time they have to re-establish themselves before winter set in. I've introduced a journal of sorts this year in order to plan my timings better. But let's just say I'm not holding my breath...

No queues at Kew

2011-03-16T11:41:00.007Z

I took a break from the suburban veg plot last week and took the train to Kew Gardens to meet up with a good friend. The visit served a different purpose for each of us. Since completing my RHS course, I've become a little more interested in ornamental gardens and my only previous trip to Kew Gardens was as an environmental science student in the mid 1990s and I couldn't really recall much of what I saw there. She on the other hand, is a student of design and architecture and wanted to see the Xstrata Treetop Walkway designed by Marks Barfield Architects who also designed the London Eye (which, as an aside, can be seen from the walkway).
The walkway is 18m above the ground (so not for the faint-hearted) and currently accessible only by a staircase. The original lift, intended to ferry wheelchair users and child buggies to the top, hasn't worked reliably since construction was completed and is now out of service until they come up with a replacement for it. Once at the top, you have a panoramic view of Kew Gardens and the city and countryside beyond. You are quite literally walking through the treetops and I'm sure that come late spring and summer, when the leaves have returned to the trees around, the experience will be different again when you'll be able to reach out and touch the foliage.

We also took a walk around the Temperate House, once the largest glass structure in the world and now the largest surviving Victorian glasshouse in the world. It's official, I now have greenhouse envy... My greenhouse will only fit 2 grow-bags on the floor plus a small staging unit for the pots of chillies - a bit on the tiny size compared to this one...

2011 - a reawakening

2011-02-26T13:02:00.007Z

So, 2010 stopped suddenly for the suburban veg plot blog in July. Needless to say I have excuses, nay reasons, galore for it.
Reason 1 - mainly time-related. The wedding was fast approaching which involved many visits to Belfast, many phone calls and emails to caterers, suppliers and wedding guests alike to ensure that everything happened on the day, in the right place, at the right time. And it did. Even the sun came out (a novelty for Northern Ireland!) so our garden setting was just perfect. If any gardeners out there are thinking of tying the knot and are looking for a garden-related reading, then this one went down very well indeed.
Reason 2 - erm, time-related again?? Went on honeymoon for three weeks and then life was very busy after that...?
Okay, okay, enough of the excuses. I got entirely out of the habit of blogging and there always seemed something else that needed doing.
Now we're in 2011, and there are seeds to be sown and winter veg still to be harvested, so all this raking up the past really isn't helping. Talking of raking, why did no-one warn me that putting chickens to free-range into a garden with very stony borders would only result in said stones ending up all over the lawn area? We started off by raking them up and throwing them back on the borders only to find them on the lawn again in just a few hours. Now we do regular stone collections and transfer them to the suburban veg plot to create paths between the raised beds - which also serves to keep down the weeds.
As well as the reawakening of the suburban veg plot blog, the garden itself is reawakening in the recent mild weather. Wild birds are returning, blue tits and blackbirds mainly, enticed in by peanuts, fatballs and saucers of mealworms. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that blue tits will settle in the nest box on the fence as a couple of them have shown something of an interest in it.
The strongest signs of new plant growth (aside from the snowdrops and crocuses) are the buds on the blueberry bushes (one Jersey and one Ozark Blue). These were new acquisitions in the autumn of 2010 and so this year will be the first harvest from them. They're in large pots on the patio, as the soil in the suburban veg plot is too alkaline, though they may be moved into the front garden if space becomes tight. As ever, my plans would fit an allotment rather than a suburban garden!

Black times ahead

2010-07-10T08:55:00.007+01:00

I must be very good indeed at growing tasty broad beans. Well, certainly the local population of blackfly seem to agree. The autumn-sown Aquadulce Claudia escaped the onslaught - we had 3 harvests from them during May/June. But the spring-sown broad bean mixture have been plagued by them since they threw up their first shoots. I've tried the various remedies - squishing them (I can't bear doing it, even wearing gardening gloves), spraying with a soap solution (works to a certain extent but doesn't actually vanquish them all) and pinching out the leafy tops (they colonised too quickly along the entire height of each plant for that to have any effect).
So, though I'm loath to admit it, I've given up fighting. At least if they're on the broad beans then they're not infesting anything else in the suburban veg plot.

Lazy blogger...

2010-06-23T13:47:00.009+01:00

apologises for the lack of posts. I'm still here - and the suburban veg plot is flourishing - though the same cannot be said for the herbaceous borders after their encounter with the chickens...

The warm sunny weather in Hertfordshire is really doing the garden good. I'm eating fresh salad leaves nearly every day - 'just like you get in M&S!' (I'm sure there's a compliment in there). This is the first year I've grown salad in the suburban veg plot and I have to say I'm delighted with the harvest. Previously I'd tried growing salad in pots in the kitchen but barely managed to get micro leaves before the whole lot turned up its toes and gave up. Now I've got very healthy rows of rocket, mizuna and baby mixed salad leaves.

The celeriac seedlings were planted out in early June and are really growing well. They were tiny little things back in February but I'm hopeful of a good harvest in the winter. Bring on the celeriac mash!!

My little bit of companion planting seems to be having a positive effect. I planted out nasturtium seedlings in my broad bean beds - probably slightly later that I should have done though. The broad beans grew at a much faster rate and it's only now that the nasturtiums have started to flower. But they look very pretty nestled in between the tall Aquadulce Claudia plants and the beetroot and they do seem to be the only plants in the vicinity with black fly on them. Sacrificial plants is the correct term I believe. And just in front of the raised bed you can see my mini leeks awaiting a vacant bed.

Behold the chickens...

2010-05-31T08:00:00.003+01:00

Yes, chickens have arrived at the suburban veg plot!! We collected 3 ex-batts on Saturday afternoon and since then have been amused by their cautious and comedic exploration of their new surroundings. So far they haven't been let out of the Eglu run but we might give them a run out today. The suburban veg plot beds have been fenced off from the main lawn area, so that should keep the crops chicken free when we come to free-range them!

Terminal terminology

2010-05-28T06:47:00.004+01:00

This week I learned the difference between hardy, half hardy and tender as plant descriptors. And I'm baffled.
Let's start with hardy - that's an easy one. A hardy plant is one which will withstand extreme cold, winds and frost. In your veg garden, this would be the likes of savoy cabbage, cavelo nero and overwintering broad beans.
Now it starts to get bizarre. Any normal person would expect half hardy and tender to operate on a sliding scale towards wimpishness in the face of harsh weather conditions. But no, that would have been far too straightforward and intuitive. Instead of which, tender is used to describe a plant which may be killed by a frost and half hardy is the term applied to a plant that will certainly end its days if confronted with a below zero temperature.

Logical? Hardly! I'm sure that's been confusing the amateur gardener as far back as the advent of the max/min thermometer. To whoever makes up these terms, can I suggest something? Next time you're dealing with a plant lacking in the cellular and substantive fibre to stand up to a bit of chilly weather, try leaving the word hardy out of it.

top gardening tips for hot weather

2010-05-26T08:55:00.006+01:00

Phew, what weather we've been having this past week! Saturday was soooo hot - particularly if you happen to be climbing Mt Snowdon like we were. And that's "climbing", not "getting the train up, having an ice cream and then getting the train back down". There are 7 walking routes to choose from when it comes to getting up that big Welsh mountain and we decided to challenge ourselves by doing one of the toughest - The Watkin Path - 3.5 hours up and then 3 hours down again. Gradient aside, the sun for the first 2 hours made for a very hot and exhausting walk. However, armed with factor 50 sunblock, a cotton neckerchief to keep the worst of the sun off my neck and a plentiful supply of water for along the way, I got to thinking about sun and heat protection for the suburban veg plot.

One of the best investments I've made for the veg plot thus far is an automatic greenhouse vent opener. It's basically a hinged arm hydraulically controlled in response to rising temperatures. As the internal temperature in the greenhouse rises, the arm starts to push the window open. Gardening magic at its best and perhaps the best £25 I've spent.

Last year I also bought some water-retaining products to use in hanging baskets and pots. Both the granules, which you mix with compost when potting up containers and the mats, which I've found most useful for hanging baskets have proved their worth. It's so nice not needing to water them numerous times every hot day and the various fruit and veg growing in them still seem happy enough to start flowering.

And finally, if I get chance this weekend, I'll be applying a coat of Coolglass on one end of the greenhouse. This white pigment (titanium dioxide) is mixed with water and painted onto the glass panes and acts to reflect the sun's rays thus keeping the temperatures down and preventing plants from drying out too quickly.

Hopefully those measures will go some way to maintaining my veg growth if the sun stays with us this summer!

Local runner goes foraging

2010-05-15T07:56:00.004+01:00

I regularly go out running in my local area. Actually, I should correct that - I'm more of a fast jogger really. Anyway, whatever speed, I often take in a cycle route created from an old local railway line. It's nice and shady when the sun is out, it provides shelter from the bizarre weather we've been experiencing (hail showers last week!) and although it's heavily used by dog walkers, yummy mummys, cyclists and other runners/joggers, it's nice and wide so there's rarely a bottleneck.
Well, last week when I was out I passed a clump of plants that had pretty white flowerheads that reminded me of aliums. As I ran on, I tossed this about in my mind and came to the notion that they were wild garlic. Luckily for me my runs are 'out and back' so I encountered said clump again on my way home. Without missing a stride I swung down and plucked out a leaf as I ran past and was rewarded by that lovely fresh mild garlicky scent. Mmmm, I just had to have some for the suburban veg plot.

So yesterday found me, trowel in hand, heading down the cycle path to get some of my own. The garlic is in two large swathes on opposite sides of the path, which got me wondering about the origins of it. Suburban gardens back onto the path at both sides, but two householders living at exactly the same position along the path deciding to toss plant debris over their respective back fences sounds like too much of a coincidence for me. I assume it must have grown from seeds ingested by a bird elsewhere and then excreted from one of the many tall trees overhanging the path. Whatever the reason, the wild garlic has flourished well there.

I got myself a couple of plants in flower and have now installed them in a semi-shaded corner of a border. Can't wait for the first stir fry!

Fact for the week

2010-05-11T20:59:00.004+01:00

Did you know that Carl Linnaeus, the Swedish botanist who laid the foundations for our modern scheme of binomial nomeclature was born Carl von Linne. His father adopted the Latinized version, Linnaeus, after a giant linden tree (a lime tree to us Brits) on the family homestead. Do you think that inspired young Carl's interest in the Latin language?

Burying potatoes

2010-05-04T07:57:00.010+01:00

I've grown potatoes each year since I got my garden but they've never really been the huge success I've hoped for. As space is tight on the suburban veg plot I used potato sacks or planters rather than growing them in the raised beds. Maybe that's the problem, maybe I don't water enough, maybe the growing medium is too poor. Whatever the reasons for my slightly underperforming potatoes, it has yet to put me off and so the bank holiday weekend found me once more setting off across the lawn with chitted potatoes in hand...
My potato collection this year has taken on a curiously Peruvian slant (possibly a subconscious leaning as 6 months after ordering the seed potatoes we booked our honeymoon - which takes in Peru. Make of that what you will.) Anyway, I purchased a collection of potatoes specially bred from ancient strains grown in the Peruvian Andes for thousands of years. The collection consists of Mayan Gold, Mayan Queen and Mayan Twilight and it was the Mayan Gold I have planted this weekend. They've been chitting for the last 8 weeks in the the kitchen and should be ready to harvest in mid September.

So my guide to potato burying on the suburban veg plot goes thus: firstly, fill the potato sack to the depth of 15cm with general multi purpose compost. I also added in the last of the 2009 rotted horse manure (note to self, must fetch some more). This gives the seed potatoes a decent depth to start stretching out those chitted shoots.

I then add a layer of organic potato fertiliser (providing the correct NPK ratio to grow great spuds but not too much foliage) and cover this with more compost or soil.

Then place the chitted seed potatoes on top of this, followed by a good soaking. This not only wets the growing medium but also serves to start dissolving the fertiliser into the lower layers so that the roots will reach down into it and benefit from the nutrients.

Finally cover with a good few inches more of compost. The haulms should start to show in a week or so - I'll keep you updated!

Back to school

2010-04-27T19:53:00.002+01:00

So, with my satchel packed and new school shoes buffed to a shine, I headed off to college to start my horticulture course. I figure that as knowledge is there to be shared, I will post one little tidbit, factoid or tip on my blog from each class.
So, is everyone sitting comfortably? Be quiet at the back! No, you'll have to go to the toilet at breaktime! Today's gardening knowledge is the distinction between monocotyledons and dicotyledons. A cotyledon is the name for a seed leaf, so the former have one seed leaf, the latter 2. In simple terms, veg such as onion, shallots and leeks are monocotyledons and veg such as parsnips, cabbage and celeriac are dicotyledons. Obviously, you do need to see a plant at emergence stage to determine its type using this method.
So there you go - 2 long scientific words that you can throw into conversation with your non-gardening buddies - they'll be most impressed!

Pottering on the patio...

2010-04-26T08:17:00.010+01:00

Tidying and clearing were the keywords on the suburban veg plot this weekend. Sweeping out the greenhouse, folding up sheets of weed suppressant fabric, organising the plant pots and soft drink bottle cloches in a tidy fashion in the shed. You see, winter has now gone and I want everything to look nice on the plot. Well, that and I'm fed up of falling over things.

Even the patio got a bit of a makeover with the moving of the newly painted ladder allotment into its summer position. As you can see, I'm trying a first attempt at strawberry growing. We have wild strawberries growing in some of the flower beds but for the grow bags I purchased Cambridge Favourite plants, from which I hope to get a harvest from this year. My next job is to affix some netting to the very top of the ladder and drape it over the plants once fruiting. With any luck, that will keep the greedy birds away!

Elsewhere in the suburban veg plot, most things are growing well. The parsnips that were all painstakingly started out indoors in loo roll tubes are all growing well in their dedicated bed.

After suffering an onslaught of slug terror in late March, my purple podded peas have made a spirited recovery and are heading up the trellis. I did sow a couple of back-up peas so it looks like we'll have another glut of these this year. I do need to save more of these this year so perhaps I'll focus on doing that earlier rather than later in the summer to avoid pea moth problems.

The dwarf peas (Half Pint) have taken to the pot very well after the initial rotting problems. Here's hoping for a harvest soon!

An occasional mention of fruit

2010-04-14T17:48:00.009+01:00

Now, eagle-eyed blog readers will notice that I have used the word fruit here - despite the blog being called the Suburban VEG Plot. Well, I will admit to having a few fruit trees/plants/bushes dotted around the place, however most of them survive despite the lack of attention they are shown.
But I decided to survey the current stock of fruit and report my findings and pictures here.

Firstly, the fruit trees that came with the garden when we bought our house: 2 pear trees - one is a mere shadow of itself due to experiencing a severe pruning the year I sited more raised beds and realised I needed to get in between them (exactly where the tree stands). The other is already showing some buds:

Secondly apple trees. There were 2 but the smaller one bought the farm in year one (It was smack bang in the middle of the veg plot raised beds and I kept turning round sharply into it quite frequently. Thus it was me or the tree.) But the remaining one is a nice size and despite giving us no apples last year, we are hopeful of some kind of crop in 2010 as the new growth is developing nicely.

Next is a blackcurrant bush. This I obtained on one of those 'free with £2.95 postage' gardening magazine offers. Planted it, it took well but it soon became obvious it was overshadowed when the rhubarb got going. Thus I moved it at the beginning of 2010 into a border by the patio - a week before I discovered I'd managed to kill off said rhubarb anyway...

And lastly, a tayberry plant. Obtained with a similar gardening magazine offer, this one arrived in March 09 and went into the greenhouse in his little pot until I found the time to plant him out. I managed to find that time in March 2010!! I was quite prepared for the plant to be dead as a courgette in December, but amazingly the odd watering it received in the greenhouse somehow kept it going and having planted it out along the same border as the blackcurrant, I can already see signs of new growth! The plan is to use the fence behind them to rig up some kind of netting over them both.

So there you go - fruit corner lives on in the Suburban Veg Plot.

Compost aplenty

2010-04-07T17:28:00.004+01:00

In order to improve the structure and texture of the soil in the
suburban veg plot, the contents of the compost heap have been spread
liberally on the still vacant beds. The suburban veg plot compost heap
is housed in a self-built structure of 3 wooden pallets with a sliding
panel front. It is also divided down the centre to form 2 separate
sections.
The compost heap is fed liberally with our vegetable waste, flower and plant material, lawn mowings in the summer, cardboard (especially egg boxes) and copious amounts of shredded paper (taking advantage of the fact that bank details will be pretty illegible by the time they've passed through a worm or two).
We fill only one side of the heap at a time to give the other side
time to really rot down, stirring it occasionally. Then every 12
months or so, the rotted side is emptied out over the raised beds or
added to the potato sacks and the other side is forked over the
partition and left alone. This leaves us with an empty side to start
filling again. Brilliantly simple!

On the garden (war) path - grrrrr

2010-04-05T14:04:00.005+01:00

Honestly, you turn your back for 5 minutes (well, 8 days) to fit in a bit of late season skiing action and when you come back all hell has broken loose in the suburban veg plot. My lovely healthy purple podded pea plants have been set upon by my most hated of garden nasties - slugs. I have no actual documented evidence - I could be blaming them entirely in the place of a slimy snail or two - but it's slugs I like the least so I'll stick with them. Of only 5 plants I planted out (they're a heavy cropper and we were overcome by the harvest last spring) 1 of them is a definite goner, with 2 possibly hanging on in there on life support. The last 2 put on a growth spurt and managed to shrug off the worst offending nibblers. Looks like I'll have to soak a couple of spare pea seeds as back up.

Secondly, I think the weather is to blame for my pea rotting problems this year. Despite my creative sowing in the guttering lengths, only 3 Feltham First peas look like they're sprouting - and they were planted back in January! I sowed the remainder (I had only a few from a seed swap) and a couple of those have rotted also!
I recently sowed Half Pint peas in a pot for the patio - 7 of approx 15 plants came up at the end of March, but on forensic investigation (furtling beneath the soil) I discovered the remainder had gone all squishy. So I've resowed some of those in the pot now and hopefully they will 1) not rot, and 2) catch up with the first few - shown here in the photo

planting progress

2010-03-21T20:53:00.009Z

At long last the ground outside seems to be warming up enough to start planting out or sowing direct. The sun has started to linger on the raised beds in the suburban veg plot making it a warm and fuzzy place to potter around in once more. Even the comfrey, planted only last week, looks like it's growing strongly.
The Lancashire Lad purple podded peas were planted out in their final position and are looking very contented. They grew over 6 foot tall last year and I struggled to support them on canes - so this year I've put them at the base of a fixed trellis which should support them easily.

The overwintered garlic cloves are looking really strong. I selected the largest bulbs from the 2009 Purple Moldovan harvest and they're certainly looking even better than this time last year (the concept being that year on year the selected variety adapts to the conditions in your own garden).

The Solent Wight bulbs - every last one of them has come up and a couple seem to be developing as multi-bulbs.

The tomato, chilli and sweet pepper seedlings that are growing in the kitchen have been benefitting from daytimes spent in the greenhouse - the all day light should bring them on swiftly and strengthen them further. They're still coming back indoors each evening as i don't think it's yet warm enough to leave out overnight.

And cosy in the sunny kitchen still are my little celeriac seedlings. Gosh they're tiny! One of them produced a teeny weeny true leaf this week but goodness knows how long it will be before they're big enough to transplant - 2012 maybe??

the comfrey patch

2010-03-10T18:50:00.008Z

There's been a lot of comfrey talk recently on a gardening forum I frequent. I understand it has a number of uses from liquid fertiliser (aka comfrey tea), to compost activator, from potato fertiliser to mulch, so I decided to grow some in the suburban veg plot. Here comes the science bit, so listen carefully. If you're going to get comfrey, you need the 'Bocking 14' variety. This can be obtained only as root cuttings as its seeds are sterile. If anyone offers you comfrey seeds back away very slowly and carefully - if sown in your garden, this stuff will self seed all over the place for the next few centuries and you'll never be rid of it (nor be able to find any of your lovely vegetables among its copious leaves). Bocking 14 is all you need to remember. So anyway, I ordered some root cuttings via eBay, which arrived well packaged, healthy looking and moist. I decided to clear a space behind the compost heap to grow the comfrey - a currently unused area but one that I can access easily to harvest the leaves come 2011. I just have to resist until then as it needs a growing season to establish itself.
I'll have to venture out on a nettle harvesting walk in the meantime for an alternative 'tea' base.

stop press - horticultural update!!

2010-03-05T17:48:00.003Z

I've got a place on a course: RHS Certificate in Horticulture (level 2) starting in April! Yay!!

what to do when it's raining...again

2010-02-28T09:23:00.006Z

Looking through photos of my garden from February last year, it's amazing to see the difference - all the crocuses, snowdrops and even daffodils had started to peek through and show off their gorgeous colours. Looking out into my garden today, it just looks grey and the percussion accompaniment of rain on the window ledge does nothing to improve that.
So, I have once again focused my efforts indoors - potted on the moneymaker, roma and garden pearl toms, sown some Lyon 2 leeks and tagetes (the latter to be used as companion plants for said toms in my greenhouse later in the summer) and laid out some parsnip seeds on damp kitchen towel in a propagator. Parsnip seeds are a right bugger when it comes to germination - I had very little success my first year (I think 3 parsnips finally grew from a row of about 20 sown) and then a random seed leftover in the ground germinated the following spring. This year I have a fresh packet from Kings - 500 seeds apparently - so I'm determined to get a decent crop this time around. I've heard of people having success with sowing them in loo roll tubes. This sounds ideal as parsnip and other similar vegetables don't like being transplanted - the shock or damage to their tap root finishes them off. But with the loo roll method, the root isn't exposed or disturbed at all. And being such a fan of loo roll planting (broad beans, peas and sweet peas being my past successes) I think this sounds like a great addition to my list.
This week we also signed up to attend a 'hen party' through the Omlet website - so watch this space in future months for the arrival of feathered friends!

time to germinate

2010-02-15T11:07:00.011Z

So, my mammoth day of paper potting certainly paid off. Within just a few days, some of the tomatoes and peppers began to germinate in their propagators and most of the chillies were hot on their heels. The germination rate has been 100% for most of the seeds, with lower rates (60-80%) for some chillies and tomatoes which were self-saved or saved by other gardener friends. I have 5 types of tomato (covering the full range of salad, plum and cherry types), 2 sweet pepper varieties and 6 chilli varieties (2 of which were planted only last weekend, so have yet to peek through). There's no way I have space for all of the plants, so I'm already canvassing friends as to who wants what.

The Lancashire Lad purple podded peas germinated very strongly in their loo roll tubes and are now in the unheated greenhouse, swaddled in bubblewrap on the colder nights. They're already 6 or so inches high and looking quite happy. We got an absolute bumper crop of purple mange tout from these last year, so are already looking forward to a repeat of that.

Still awaiting signs of life in the Feltham First pea guttering as well as with a few celeriac (Giant Prague) seeds I sowed. The latter can take a few weeks though so I'm trying hard to be patient. The Autumn Mammoth leeks have germinated well, alongside mixed salad leaves and rocket. And with the presence of all these pots and trays in the kitchen, and no sign of the frost threat diminishing, I decided to invest in a ladder allotment on which to store everything. This will stay indoors during the winter and be moved out onto the patio as spring arrives. Makes a change from lines of seedlings along every available windowsill like last year!

snow time like the present

2010-01-24T19:33:00.010Z

Hurrah! The snow has gone!!
As pretty as it looked, after only a few days it became a bit tiresome, not only preventing me getting to the office on a few days (during a very busy time) but also stopping me from really getting into the garden. But thankfully the blanket covering has vacated the suburban veg plot.
This weekend was a hive of activity - moreso in the kitchen than on the plot. Paper potting ahoy! All of my tomato, chilli and sweet pepper seeds have now been sown in little paper pots and the seeds trays placed on my lovely heated kitchen floor.

Feltham First peas have been sown - I'm experimenting with the guttering method this year rather than direct sown. I had my builder from last year leave me 2 pieces of guttering cut to 1m length (the width of my raised beds).

The idea is that once germinated and ready to plant out, I need only to dig a shallow trench and then slide out the contents of the guttering, pea plants and all! I now have them filled and covered with holly to keep off any hungry mice.

Lancashire lad purple podded peas along with Autumn Mammoth 2 leeks have also been sown - the former in loo roll tubes and latter in a 5'' pot. I'm hoping to do better with successional swing this year, so I have another leek variety to sow in a month's time. Last years leeks were started off slightly later than planned and so we've had the benefit of them only since November. They've been great as baby leeks though - brushed in olive oil and cooked on a griddle pan - mmmm. Will be nice to see what they're like fully grown this season!

2009 - a review

2009-12-29T12:16:00.007Z

The first full year of the suburban veg plot is now complete and it seems a good time to look back on this year's harvest to review the best and worst . Some things grew more successfully than others,either in spite of or despite my best efforts.
Top marks must go to the greenhouse plants - tomatoes (3 types) and chillies (5 types). They flourished and fruited from April to October providing us with a cupboard full of green tomato chutney, an airing cupboard full of dried chillies, a freezer full of frozen ones and one or two to-die-for passatas.
Bottom of the class goes to the squash family - pumpkin, outdoor melon and butternut squash. The former didn't last as far as planting out, the second died within weeks of being carefully placed in its own raised bed and the latter went rampant with leaves but not a single female flower was to be seen. But i shall attempt them all again in 2010!
I won't be bothering with runner beans again - we got bored of them after just one harvest, but despite being left to their own devices, the plants soldiered on determinedly. I've saved some beans from them before consigning the remainder to the compost heap, but these will be only for giving away if I can find a willing recipient.
Already my fingers are itching to get out there sowing and I can almost hear the new seed packets clamouring to be released from within their dark cupboard home. I'll ignore them for as long as I can...

The best laid plans...

2009-12-20T09:49:00.008Z

Plan A this week was to fly to Amsterdam for a pre-Christmas break. Amsterdam is so lovely in the winter - twinkly lights over canal bridges and cosy cafes serving hot chocolate and spiced biscuits. But Jack Frost put paid to that plan on Friday by closing Luton Airport. So Plan B was to sow overwintering peas - Feltham First - which I received as part of a seed swap in November. It didn't take long to realise that 5 inches of snow on the raised beds isn't conducive to seed sowing. We then considered making leek and potato soup to cheer ourselves up before concluding that we'd need a flamethrower to get a leek out of the ground. So I then consoled myself by organising my seed box into chronological order of sowing times. And that all starts in a few weeks' time!

Now that the house work is all but finished, I've realised that a secondary advantage of the underfloor heating in the kitchen is that I now have the world's biggest heated propagator. Come January I'll be lining up my seed trays on the floor to give those tomatoes a head start. We've made a start on this years' green tomato chutney so will definitely be needing to replenish that come the autumn.

winter prep

2009-12-06T17:35:00.005Z

I'm finding that winter gardening is not so much about growing than about preparation for the upcoming season. My weekend potter around the garden is predominantly about checking on the small selection of crops in the ground - leeks, overwintering onions, garlic and broad beans - before tidying pots, cleaning tools and planning the veg plot for 2010. The leeks are really coming on well now and we're harvesting them regularly for heart-warming leek and potato soup, or griddled leeks with cheese sauce. Mmmmmm...
I'm also experimenting with sweet peas - again. I've not actually managed to grow these from seed yet. My mum donated first a whole pot of them (which are now residing in a border and grew well this summer) and now a bag full of saved seeds. I'm trying the loo roll method of sowing them, which has worked well for me with broad beans and peas - and also threw a handful of them in the border vacated when I pulled up the runner bean plants. I'll let you know what happens with all that in the springtime.
I need to find the time to give the greenhouse a good clean out sometime before Christmas - it's recommended to fully clean down the inside to get rid of any diseased leaves or lurking insects so as to reduce the risk of harbouring anything nasty for next year.
My seed box overfloweth and I really think my plans for next year exceed the space I have available, but only time will tell..

planting in the dark

2009-11-09T21:29:00.006Z

What a difference an hour makes! Since the clocks went back, I can't believe how dark it is so early. Though it does mean that the mornings are light enough to allow me, before I set off to work, to empty the previous night's food scraps onto the compost heap with a fair idea of where I'm throwing it. But it has seriously curtailed any post-work gardening - unless Santa gives me a head torch for Christmas...
However, I've managed to finish planting out all the overwintering garlic cloves and onion sets - very important if you want to get a head start on the spring planting and get a slightly earlier July harvest.
So the final roll call is 60 Senshyu Yellow and 50 Radar sets - neither of which I have grown before; and 32 Solent Wight cloves (ditto previous aside) and 18 Purple Moldovan cloves - these are from my 2009 harvest which is still lasting well.
I got into a bit of a panic the other week upon reading a veggie gardening forum where it seemed that I was the only person left who had yet to plant any broad beans seeds for overwintering - Aquadulce Claudia being one of the most recommended for this purpose as the small plants are hardy enough to stand through the winter months and then spring into life again as the soil warms up. So out I ran to the suburban veg plot and hastily sowed 4 or 5 short rows and covered them in holly cuttings to keep those pesky critters off. The following
week or so was still unseasonably not frosty and so the plants have shot up even faster than they did last year - hopefully they won't get too tall before the winter winds start up.
The Boltardy beetroot are all harvested as of this weekend - their growth seemed to have stalled with the loss of any real sunshine, so I figured they were best pulled up and turned into something lovely and comforting (soup perhaps?). So the suburban veg plot is looking much sparser now with only 2 sections of leeks to show for this years' work.
But there is plenty going on behind the scenes - planning the veg plot planting scheme for 2010. Onwards and upwards!

Suburban veg plot you are not forgotten

2009-10-24T13:40:00.005+01:00

Oh, how the weeks fly by when you have a full time job and a house to unpack/finish/furnish and a wedding to start to plan. The cliche of 'I don't know where the months go' is certainly appropriate right now. I've managed to keep on top of the garden task (just about), so I've dug in well rotted manure to three of 6 raised beds and even planted Senshyu Yellow onion sets and Purple Moldovan garlic cloves but I just haven't found the time to take any picces or report back...

The plot needs a good tidy as well - there are random plant pots lying around alongside discarded twine and canes. The tomato plants were cleared from the greenhouse a couple of weeks ago and the last of the extremely unsuccessful sweetcorn was pulled up for the the compost heap.

The upside is that the Boltardy beetroots are thriving on their near-neglect, so I've been having lots of lovely goats' cheese and beetroot salad lunches, and the winter leeks (2 varieties, the names of which escape me right now) seem to be growing well.

Backing up in a queue waiting for my attention are Radar onion sets, garlic cloves from the Isle of Wight, and mixed tulip bulbs from Amsterdam (not exactly veg, but they're the only flowers I get excited about). I did sow some kale, savoy cabbage and spring cabbage to plant out but again, my attention and time was elsewhere and I think they've either been eaten by the slugs or just gone on strike due to lack of attention.

So, this is my solemn promise to the Suburban Veg Plot and to the blog - I promise to attend to the veg plot more frequently than once every two weeks and also I will update this blog on at least a fortnightly basis - notwithstanding any furniture purchases or wedding preparations...

And just one last thing - a thank you to whoever invented wireless internet access - I'm posting this from the Concorde lounge at Terminal 5 awaiting a flight to Chicago. Be good y'all!

AWOL on the plot

2009-08-25T21:02:00.005+01:00

Okay, okay, I know I said I would post more often - but when you're moving house, things such a blog do tend to take a back seat. So, we finally moved into our house and are slowly getting through the dust left behind by the various tradesmen. A few last light fittings and radiators plus the installation of the ensuite shower and we'll be done.
Anyway, back to the suburban veg plot. Things have been rocketing along despite the variable weather. Thank heavens for the greenhouse - a veritable array of chili peppers have been fruiting and ripening: from purple jalepeno to scotch bonnet, from hanoi red to peruvian chinense. Every stir fry is a party on the tongue!

The onions have all been harvested now - the best results came from the Senshu variety - but I got nothing from the Swift or Red Barons. We got bored of eating runner beans after the first harvest - I don't think I'll bother with any next year. I have some soya beans to try instead.
And at long last I have managed to grow beetroot! Last year ended in very few seed germinating and those that did were eaten by those nasty molluscs so I'm very excited. Not sure exactly what I'm going to do with it yet, but that's what internet recipe sites are for!

potato harvest!

2009-07-19T17:57:00.011+01:00

This weekend seemed a good time to harvest the first of the potatoes. These are Mimi and Anya, both planted back in March. Now I've read in gardening books about the various ways of identifying when it's time to harvest your potatoes but found that none of them were of use to me:

1) after they've flowered and the haulms (shoots and leaves to you and me) have died down - these potato varieties don't flower
2) for earlies, harvest 37 weeks after planting - I can't quite recall exactly when I planted them (I promise to write this on a calendar next year...)
3) have a 'furtle' in the soil and see if you find any - I planted all my potatoes in bags, so have limited furtle space
So, I've decided to add my own suggestion to this list:
4) when virtually all the haulms have been eaten by slugs or snails and you fear your potatoes are next on the menu.

But my fears were unfounded when we discovered a respectable harvest in both sacks, certainly much better than last year.

And the suburban veg plot have been yielding many other harvests recently: onions, runner beans, carrots, chillis and garlic but the most surprising was a parsnip that grew from seed I sowed in 2008... The leaves started to get really big after a couple of months so I pulled it up to reveal a root the size and shape of a cricket ball with lots of long thin roots growing in all directions.

I'm already planning the winter veg plot - I have 2 varieties of leeks in the ground and have started to sow savoy cabbage and kale seeds for transplanting in September. I also hope to time a new planting of potatoes so that I get a Christmas day harvest.

love is like a heatwave...

2009-07-01T22:16:00.006+01:00

as Martha and the Vandellas sang... and it's certainly that this week - the greenhouse crops are fruiting up nicely: scotch bonnets, purple jalepenos, hanoi red, Roma, Moneymaker, Yellow Pear - all very bountiful and hopefully colourful.
The house building/construction/development is going well and now that the new patio is laid, I've been furnishing it in the plant department. Some people would say I'm getting ahead of myself seeing as we haven't actually moved in yet but I'm desperate to get everything looking lovely for the remainder of the summer. I'm very pleased with my hanging basket of gartenperle toms and nasturtiums - particularly with the solar-powered rotator device...

In fact almost as pleased as with my engagement ring (my gorgeous boyfriend has attained a new status in the middle of this heatwave)... And somewhere in between Farrah Fawcett and Jacko...a night to remember indeed...

tomatoes are a setting

2009-06-14T10:27:00.005+01:00

I have 6 varieties of tomatoes growing this year. Which, as I don't actually like the taste of tomatoes, could be seen as rather an odd thing to grow. However, my gorgeous boyfriend likes them and I can eat them if they're cooked down to a rich sauce or made up into green tomato chutney, and I do seem to find they grow very well for me.

I'm growing Moneymaker again this year and then for the first time Roma, Yellow Pear, Gartenperle (in a hanging basket with nasturtiums), Gardener's Delight (from a swap with a friend) and a couple of Tomato 'Tomazing' obtained as plug plants from a newspaper offer.

I guess I'll be giving quite a lot of these away or serving them up when friends come for dinner. From January sowings, I already have small tomatoes on the Roma, Yellow Pear, Gartenperle and Moneymaker plants, so hopefully the first harvest is not too far away. The photo here is from the Gartenperle plant.

And in the meantime, I still have radishes, broad beans and spring cabbages to keep me going.

Make do and mend...the suburban veg plot way

2009-05-31T09:58:00.004+01:00

Spent an hour constructing an insect-proof mesh mini tunnel for my purple sprouting broccoli - and though I say so myself, I think it's pretty good.
If Alan the plumber is reading this, then yes, you do recognise the grey piping used for the hoops... I am finding garden uses for a lot of items and materials left lying around our building site of a house. The obvious one was reusing old guttering for pea sowing, but I've also got roof tiles and house bricks for garden paths and I'm determined to make a fixed mesh frame out of unused stair ballustrades.

The broad beans are swelling well now - there are a few small blackfly infestations on a couple of the plants, but the ladybird army has arrived so they should make short work of them.
I'm still sowing sweetcorn which I'm then planting out in my courgette patch. I've been assured that the sweetcorn plants will shoot up quickly before the courgettes spread too much. I seem to be trying to cram so much into the raised beds this year - so this sounded like a good way of managing this.

I'm noticing more wildlife in the garden now that the sun is out more often. Lots of hoverflies and bees (all good news) and also some more exotic looking species.

Keeping it in the family

2009-05-28T17:55:00.006+01:00

Went on a visit to Derbyshire to see my parents for bank holiday weekend - thus no piccies from my garden. I did take a few photos in their garden - what would be termed 'mature' having been tended (mainly by my mum, I think it would be honest to say) for the past 33 years.

Here's a pic from a clump of ginormous poppies (I've been promised a seed head when they die down). Is it just me or do they look like tissue paper?

And here's a pic of my dad's potatoes - being grown in a Victorian chimney pot, which is a fab and very 'garden chic' idea!

Anyway, we'll be in the garden this coming weekend - hopefully harvesting broad beans and more purple mange tout - and checking on the courgettes, pumkins and butternut squash plants now they're at the mercy of the elements.

Spring has sprung

2009-05-21T23:02:00.005+01:00

During only an hour in my suburban veg plot this evening, I could see dramatic changes in so many of the plants. The Lancashire lad purple podded peas have started to produce little purpley-green mange tout, so I harvested some for my stir fry. Yum.

The spring cabbages are getting quite out of hand now. They started off as 20 plants in a metre square bed (over-planting? moi?); and after losing a couple in early winter, about 15 went on to grown-up cabbage life. I've pulled up 4-5 recently but i don't seem to be making very much headway into clearing the bed. I planted one of my outdoor melons at one end of that bed last week - so far it looks fine and after removing 2 more cabbages this evening, the melon looks like it has a bit more space and access to more sunlight than previously. Anyone know if I can put another melon in there later, or is one plenty for the space?

I harvested more radishes - this time I want to try eating them the French way - apparently with butter and salt... I'll let you know what that's like.

Collected a couple of tomato plants (both red and yellow cherry) and two courgette plants (round yellow and long green) to give to a friend at work tomorrow - in exchange for a decent bottle of red wine. I've found homes for all of my spares this year - I hate throwing any living plant away, even if it is onto the compost heap.

The overwintered broad beans are getting plumper now - I guess another week or so before harvesting? I can't believe how easy these plants have been to grow. Definitely doing these again.

Now we're motoring...

2009-05-11T12:53:00.006+01:00

A busy Sunday was had in the suburban veg plot. More spring cabbage was harvested - I think they're starting to go to seed so we may be eating cabbage rather a lot over the next few weeks. A few more radishes were uprooted and new seed sown in their place.

Excitement abound as the purple podded peas (Lancashire Lad) are seen to have shot up to 6 foot and are now in flower - in beautiful colours! So hopefully the cabbage dinners will shortly be making way for purple mange tout.

I've been hardening off plants over the last few weeks so took the plunge and planted out 2 summer purple sprouting broccoli, a Floridor courgette and an outdoor melon. With a few pieces of strategically placed fleece and one or two plastic bottle cloches in place everything should be fine if the overnight temps suddenly drop again. I've still got Defender courgettes, butternut squash and pumpkin in the greenhouse in large pots, so they'll make the transition to outdoors over the next week or so. At that stage I'll actually be able to move around in my little greenhouse and reach the tomato plants rather than flinging water in their general direction.

The flowering broad beans (Aquadulce) are now waving little baby pods around and the spring-sown broadies (Express) are already showing their first leaves in the same plot as the peas.

I have learned a new way of dealing with slugs - my preferred method thus far has been to scoop them up on a trowel and then catapult them at speed towards the laurel hedge at the bottom of the garden. Although it gave me great satisfaction to hear the little muffled thud as they hit the tree trunks, it was pointed out to me that given that they're made mainly of muscle, they were probably getting off with a bit of a headache before heading back towards my raised beds for another snack. So, with the aid of an upturned flower bucket, I'm now laying them out as fast as I find them as a snack for our friendly garden blackbird - who seems very pleased with the general arrangement.

Potato update 2009: The first bags of Mimi and Anya are almost filled up with soil with plenty of potato foliage (haulms, so I'm told) on top. Looking forward to the harvest in a couple of weeks!

fun in the sun

2009-04-26T20:12:00.006+01:00

Photos a go-go! After spending 3 hours in the garden this Sunday (wasn't the weather fabulous!?) I took a veritable plethora of photos of the flourishing, blossoming and flowering that's going on in my veg plot.

The overwintering broad beans are now reaching 60cm and are flowering well. Being my first year growing broad beans, I hadn't before realised how pretty the flowers are. Despite the reported decline in bee numbers, my veg garden seems to have more than its fair share.

We're harvesting spring cabbages on a regular basis now. Again, my first attempt: I don't think I bedded them in firmly enough (I know now that they need treading properly), so they haven't formed the tight heads I was expecting. However, the leaves might be looser than they should be, but they're very tasty served up stir-fried with chili, garlic and ginger.

Ambassador peas are poking their heads above the ground now - I'm sowing a new row every 2-3 weeks.

The Saxa radishes are swelling nicely and should be ready for harvesting any day - they look so cute and shiny red in the sun!

busy, busy...

2009-04-25T19:21:00.002+01:00

The building work and accompanying design choices seems to be taking all of my time at the moment. I have been sowing seeds - which are germinating well in the propogator before being promoted to the windowsill and finally being moved to the greenhouse. But I just haven't taken many pics.

Here's my blackcurrant bush in the meantime...

British Summer Time

2009-04-05T17:54:00.003+01:00

I just cannot believe it's already April!! My garden blog has been less frequent than I intended during March, but I hope to remedy that through spring and summer.

The Mimi and Anya potatoes are doing well in their gro-sacks. I moved them out of the greenhouse today as the outside temperatures are improving week by week. I've already started earthing them up, so I'm hopeful of getting to harvest them in May/June. I'll be planting more potatoes over the next month, so we should have a plentiful (and hopefully continual) supply over the summer and autumn.

Most of the veg in the raised beds (purple podded peas, onions, broad beans and garlic) are doing amazingly in the recent good weather. The cabbages are now vying for space with each other, so we've started taking a few as spring greens to give the others more growing space.

We have a bit of a leek surprise...last year's leeks took absolutely ages to germinate, got to the size of chives and then stopped growing. Not even big enough for baby leeks. Anyway, I left them in place as there were only 7 of them. They survived through the winter, through the snow and frosts in Jan & Feb and then, very unexpectedly, started growing last month. They're now growing well; a couple of them are already past 'spring onion size' and are heading towards proper leek size. Very weird - given that they'll have taken 16 months to grow by the time we get to harvest time, I'm really curious as to whether they'll taste good... Well, I've got some new ones on the go in a pot just in case.

The chantanay carrots have germinated in a bucket in the greenhouse!!! Yay!! They're already more successful than last year's attempt.

Pumpkin, melon, butternut squash and nasturtium seeds have all germinated and grown like the clappers - these have all been potted on now and all look to be quite strong growers.

My veg plot, as the name would suggest, focuses on veggies. But I do have a small blackcurrant bush acquired last year. I planted it and then didn't do much with it, if I'm honest. Who knows if it will bear fruit this summer?? It does seem to look happy and there are some leaves starting to unfurl. I need to consult my trusty copy of Alan Titchmarsh...

rhubarb, rhubarb

2009-03-22T20:43:00.009Z

Despite having to pick my way over timber, piles of roof tiles, steel girders and bricks to get to my veg plot, I can see that the garden is already starting to produce a harvest. In the last 3 weeks the rhubarb patch has been busy under the cover of a dustbin and our first harvest of forced rhubarb stems has been an absolute delight. Rhubarb sponge pud was the first dish to be created using this very early crop and I'm looking forward to experimenting with more as the weeks go on.

The tomato plants are all upto about 7 inches tall and now permanently stationed in the greenhouse. In mid spring, the ones I need to keep will go into various grow-bags or hanging baskets and the remainder will be offered to friends and fellow gardeners. I have 5 new chili varieties on the go - not sure where they're all going to go actually...

Most recent seeds sown are Outdoor Wonder melons, Butternut squash, self-saved pumpkins and nasturtiums. They're all awaiting germination in the unheated propagator indoors.

2nd potato update of 2009: Mimi and Anya seed potatoes planted up last week in potato sack in the greenhouse. Hoping this year's attempts will yield a much better crop than last year. Wouldn't be difficult...

bulb surprise

2009-03-11T15:10:00.002Z

Not a lot to report at the moment - been away skiing, so garden activity has been nil. But I did take some pictures of some spring flowers peeking through. Having only had this garden since last April, this is the first we've seen of the spring bulbs that have been hiding beneath the lawn and borders all year.

Give peas a chance

2009-02-23T20:40:00.005Z

The change of weather in the last few weeks has been remarkable. The big freeze gave way to flooding roads in Herts and Essex but now there's no sign of either. A new burst of growth has sprung forth thanks to the milder days and nights - you can almost taste the spring in the air. The vibrant red of the forced rhubarb is startling against the drab brown earth; the bright green shoots of the garlic seemingly appearing from nowhere.

We're shortly to have building work starting on the house, which necessitates the relocation of 2 huge water butts. Since they will not be re-connected to downpipes until early summer (and we're predicted a bit of a hot one this year), I've been getting very nervous about the prospect of having no water available for the plot. So, we spent what seemed like hours transferring water, one bucket or watering can at a time, from one butt to another. Gradually emptying one, then moving it up the garden and refilling it...and repeated this with a second. I'm sure our neighbours think we're mad - it must have looked like some kind of back yard 'It's A Knockout!'.

But back to the veg report: broad beans approx 3-6 inches high - some kind of support will be needed soon; the garlic is going great - 11 of 12 cloves planted are racing ahead; and the weather was so good that I was able to plant out the purple podded pea seedlings. These have been seeing out the last few weeks in the greenhouse swaddled in bubble wrap. And they look great on it!

The white stuff

2009-02-07T18:16:00.006Z

Wow - I will never doubt a weather forecast again. Snow - lots of it - landed on my veg plot on Sunday night. I wasn't around during the week, so could only worry from a distance about what was happening to my broad beans and spring cabbages. I spent a good half an hour this morning checking out the situation and excavating the veg from beneath their snow blankets. They look a bit squashed but not too bad. They're so tough! The sun came out just as I took a photo of the garden scene - broad beans in the foreground beneath the fleece, cabbages behind them. Let's hope this weather doesn't continue - I want to get out there planting things!!

February flurries?

2009-02-01T09:31:00.009Z

A couple of hours of work in the garden saw the last raised bed filled with top soil and rotted manure. We added 3 new beds in December to double our growing area from last year. The bean trench has been dug (after finally deciding to grow the runner beans up an existing sturdy trellis rather than battle to put up temporary cane supports again) and is now part-filled with kitchen waste.

So, everything is ready for plants to go in the ground now - but obviously that still won't be for a couple of months yet. 1st May is the projected last frost date so I'll have to bide my time until then. The seedlings are keeping me occupied in the interim - the photo here is of a summer purple sprouting broccoli seedling about 2 weeks old. They're currently living happily on my windowsill.

The scotch bonnet chillis are showing tiny tiny little signs of germination and I've sown some yellow pear tomato - they look so cute on the seed packet picture!

So now it's time to sit back and wait for the forecast Russian snow blizzards to arrive. It's certainly cold out there and there are a few snowflakes floating around, but no real sign yet of a full-on snowfall.

Seeds and seedlings

2009-01-26T19:18:00.014Z

The rain this weekend did nothing to tempt me into working in the garden. I ventured out as long as it took to do a quick weed tidy of the cabbage plot and harvest a couple for spring greens, but then scuttled back indoors to the warmth. I used the opportunity to have a long-overdue sort out of my seed box. How on earth have I managed to accumulate so many packets of seeds when I've been gardening for barely a year? I definitely didn't buy them all - lots came free with gardening magazines. I'm sure I won't use them all - there's only so much coriander leaf a girl can eat.

The seedlings are coming on well: a couple of lancashire lad peas and aquadulce claudia broad beans will go out under cloches shortly after hardening off, the moneymaker and gartenperle tomatoes are starting to show secondary leaves and I followed them up with sowing a couple of roma tomato seeds (plum toms for cooking apparently) and some scotch bonnet chili seeds obtained in a postal seed swap. Latest on order: floridor courgette seeds (little round yellow ones!)

1st potato update of 2009: currently chitting Mimi and Anya seed potatoes on the bedroom windowsill (rapidly running out of space!). I'll start these off in potato grow sacks in the greenhouse next month.

Wind and water

2009-01-18T17:25:00.013Z

Having survived the frost of early January, my veg plot has now been buffeted by winds and rain from this weekend's gales but came through virtually unscathed. Come Sunday morning the only casualty seemed to be a water butt lid that had been thrown around the patio. We decided that it was finally time to set up the new butt to collect rainwater from the greenhouse guttering. I'm not sure how long this one will take to fill compared to the two connected to main drainpipes on the house, but every little helps given the predictions that the summer of 2009 will be a scorcher!

Some more seeds were sown (lancashire lad peas, aquadulce claudia broad beans, rosemary, moneymaker and gartenperle tomatoes), some seedling pricked out into larger pots (purple sprouting broccoli) and all of these are sitting happily in an unheated propagator. Mid-morning, the sun put in an appearance whilst I was weeding the cabbages and made me forget all about the wintry weather.

Plot preparation

2009-01-12T21:04:00.004Z

The very beginning of the growing year seems an odd time. This is my first January with a veg plot so each season reveals something new - and I'm loving the discovery. And my first discovery of 2009 is how much growing there actually is going on - even despite the below freezing temperatures of late. My fears for the spring cabbages were unfounded after all - they seem to have shaken off the worst of the freezing conditions and are looking happy in their little bed.

After weeks of searching I finally managed to locate a source of manure - from a local riding stables. And it's free! So, I found a small space near the compost heap and have begun to build up a manure pile which should be rotted down enough to be used in the summer. My veggies are going to love it!

Welcome to 2009

2009-01-03T21:55:00.006Z

A frosty morning awaited my first garden visit since before Christmas. My broad bean plants were looking less than perky but they are under horticultural fleece so I'm hoping that they'll be okay. The spring cabbages seemed okay but as the weather forecast this coming week could be as low as -3C overnight, I covered them in fleece also. Belt and braces, as my granddad used to say... Despite the weather, the onions (4 different varieties, including 1 red) seem fine with the frost and their green shoots are still growing strongly.

My inherited rhubarb patch is already showing signs of new growth. It seems only last week that we pulled the last stalks! I've decided that 2009 is to be a year of garden experiments, so I've upturned a plastic dustbin over the patch to try out forced stems.

Shortest day

2008-12-23T12:06:00.002Z

So, we're now past the shortest day of the year (Dec 21st), which instills a sense of excitement in me (and those gardeners among you) as this means the daylight hours are getting longer again. A mere 12 months ago if anyone had told me that I'd be getting all a-quiver at the thought of planting peas in January, I'd have told them they were out of their tiny mind. But that's what a suburban veg plot can do to a girl...