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!

AWOL on the plot

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!

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...

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

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

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

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.