A squeeze on time and space

If you thought that all my focus on the Gardeners' World show was affecting my planting and growing for the suburban veg plot you wouldn't be far wrong.
I think I've managed to keep up with some things; we have peas and broad beans planted out and flowering already, the potatoes are in and growing vigorously.

Exquisite Aquadulce broad bean flowers

But I've sown only one set of beetroot and carrots and the tomatoes are sulking in their very small pots in a corner of the greenhouse.
It's a matter of space at the moment – the tomatoes are usually potted on into their pots or grow bags in the greenhouse by now, but that space is still needed for my plethora of chard, basil, cucumber and cucamelon plants for at least another two weeks. I spent most of yesterday moving pot after pot of lettuce out to the cold frame, which now being fully glazed is fairly slug-proof.

The cold frame filled to capacity

Chard 'Bright Lights' for my Gardeners' World raised bed

Thankfully, I have a lot of fruit that are perennial - from blueberry bushes to raspberry canes, tayberry plant to wild strawberries, so all of those seems to be taking good care of themselves and seem to need only water from me in order to do their thing.

Apple cordon with lots of buds - sadly, none of them have formed fruits.

And below, raspberry and tayberry flowers respectively. I have high hopes for a good harvest from both of these in 2014.

Where potatoes and peas are planted out

So the spring that we've been waiting for through a cold and frosty March and a chilly and wet April has finally arrived. My Apache potatoes were planted out a week ago – over a month past their planned planting date. The extra time chitting indoors did mean that the shoots were particularly well developed by the time they went in the ground. Apache potatoes are maincrop types so should be ready for harvest 18–20 weeks after planting. That will give me an August harvest for these and they should be good for storing for a while as well.

I've been taking advantage of the nicer weather this last week by hardening off my peas that were germinated in pots in the greenhouse. I'm growing Kelevedon Wonder and Meteor peas this year, both of which are early varieties. I have, however, already lost the labels off a couple of the pots so the peas are being planted out together. I wonder if I'll see any difference in the plants or flowers as they develop? My pea harvest in the early part of 2012 was fantastic – I froze lots of bags and used them in risottos over the winter. I'm really hopeful they do well for me again this year.

A beginning and an end

Potato chitting time has arrived again! My Apache potatoes arrived in the post yesterday, so I got them straight into egg boxes and into the cool spare room. These are a maincrop potato variety with attractive red markings. We've been buying them from our local supermarket for mini roasties, so thought I might as well try growing my own. I grew Ulster Classic last year and while they were lovely in taste, they were a bit too floury for my preference - fine if you want mash all the time, but pretty useless for anything else.

This weekend I also need to redo my planting plans for the year. Maybe it was the cold weather and snow cover, but our garden in December and January was suddenly inundated by some very hungry pigeons. There have always been pigeons in the large trees surrounding the suburban veg plot and there have always been winter brassicas in the plot, but this was my first experience of the 2 meeting... And suffice to say, the brassicas came off worse.
The tuscan kale, the early sprouting broccoli, the cauliflowers bought as plug plants, the savoy cabbages - all of it, gone. This is probably gardener's karma for forgetting about them as seedlings in the autumn (see post here). I managed to net the brussels sprouts before Christmas, so saved some of those but the rest was wholly decimated. Were it not for the fact I am vegetarian, there may have been some pigeon pie served up for dinner!

Almost a potato disaster

Well, that was close. With the warm, yet wet, weather of late I did suspect that it might be ideal conditions for that most dreaded of all diseases in the vegetable garden – potato blight. On close inspection it did look like the potato plants were starting to suffer from those telltale brown patches on the leaves and some stalks and there was a general yellowing all over the foliage. So, once the greenhouse door was closed (to protect the tomatoes from the airborne spores) I set about clearing the bed.
My potato variety this year was selected purely on the basis of name alone – Ulster Classic – in honour of my lovely hubbie's Norn Iron roots. And what a harvest I found beneath the surface:

Lots of creamy white potatoes with pale pink splashes snuggled deep in the soil. And thankfully, no sign that any blight had reached them. Which is, when you've got an Irish husband, quite a relief to report. I don't want to see him disappearing across the Atlantic...

Protestant potatoes...

So the new seed potatoes arrived the week before last - after a small delay due to the weather...

This year I've ordered a first early variety called Ulster Classic - in honour of the hubby's Belfast roots. We grew some towards the end of the season last year - planted them in early August with the intention of getting Christmas potatoes but got late blight in October so had to harvest them. The yield was surprisingly high, though there were lots of mini ones. But they tasted lovely and so I decided to order the same ones for this year. 

They've been chitting in the cool spare bedroom for about a week now and have started putting out little green and purple shoots. 

The bed they're going in still has baby leeks and savoy cabbages in it, but I'll be harvesting the last of those shortly. 

First earlies should be planted between Feb and April, for harvest May to July. I'll start warming up the soil in the raised bed with a cloche and plant them within the next 4 weeks.

Christmas potatoes...

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

Burying potatoes

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!

winter prep

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..

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.

Keeping it in the family

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.

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...

Seeds and seedlings

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.