planting in the dark

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

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!

potato harvest!

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.

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...

Welcome to 2009

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.