2009 - a review

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...

Spring has sprung

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...

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!

British Summer Time

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

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...