The importance of a good plan

I will happily confess to being one of those gardening types with a planting plan. It helps me keep track of where my crops are grown each year, serving as a rough guide for rotating crops the following year. It acts as a historic record of what I've chosen to grow year by year and documents my changing tastes and preferences. Additionally it serves as a space planner, letting me see what crops I have room for each season and what might need to be kept in pots or in the greenhouse. But the most important thing about a planting plan is that you appreciate it is subject to change. And change mine did when in February my brassicas came under attack from the local wood pigeon population. Here's my updated winter plan:

But after annoyance and frustration I came to the view that it has opened up possibilities for the spring season. I have areas of raised bed that are now empty and available for early planting - whereas the brassicas would have remained until June, preventing me from replanting in those areas. Silver linings and all that. It means I can sow more varieties of summer and winter squash than I had first planned – which is good, given the surprise seed packets I found last week...

Waiting for spring to arrive

A cold, snowy March put a stop to much garden and blogging activity but now that April has arrived, the weather as well as the spirit seems to be lifting. Spring may be late in arriving but that hasn't slowed down the seed sowing that's been going on in the background here at the suburban veg plot.

Hardy plants such as leeks, peas and brussels sprouts were sowed into pots in an unheated greenhouse. They were slow to germinate but have soon emerged with the onset of warmer weather. Broad beans were sown direct into a raised bed in October and were looking good by November (see post here). However, the recurring blankets of snow stunted their growth to a degree and then the attentions of an escaped chicken may have worsened the situation somewhat. A quick flap of her (soon to be clipped) wings and she was over the fence enjoying parts of the veg plot hitherto undiscovered by your average ex-batt. The parsnip tops proved tasty and the broad bean bed offered a veritable feast of digging and scratching opportunities. I shall wait a couple of weeks to see what proportion of the plants have survived before resowing...

Lettuce seeds were sown in trays in February and some have done well enough to be transplanted out to a raised bed though still protected by the Victorian cloche. I have planted out only the red leaved varieties to test out the theory that they are less likely to succumb to the attention of slugs and snails.

The green salad seedlings have been left in their tray and I've already started to harvest some as cut-and-come-again salad. It's tinglingly fresh to the tastebuds and wonderful to have fresh greens so early in the season. I am intending to stick to a plan of successional sowing to keep me in microgreens all year long - watch this space...

A flurry of February flowers

Where has the sunny weather gone again? I don't mind the cold so much, it's the grey dampness that I find can put me off a spot of garden pottering.

So, in order to cheer up proceedings, here's a few shots of some flowers that were taken a week or so ago when the sun was visiting.

Crocuses - unknown variety/cultivar. They've been popping up in my garden since we moved here. These were hiding beneath a pile of leaves at the foot of the strawberry tree. They've found a sunny corner and seem very happy there.

Snowdrops - again, variety unknown. Nestling beneath the Winter Nellis pear tree, slightly too close to the chicken fence for comfort so these were swiftly relocated after I took the photo. My chickens do not distinguish between weeds and lovely naturalised winter flowers... And you can really see my muddy clay soil in this shot. In no time at all it will be covered in wild geraniums (Geranium robertiatum, pratense and mollis).

Nectarine blossom - 'Big Top'. My patio tree is still in its overwintering residence in the greenhouse but is beginning to develop a multitude of delicate pale pink buds. As the sun comes out, the petals begin to slowly unfurl. I won't be moving it out of the greenhouse for a while yet, so I have an old blusher brush at the ready to help along the pollination. I know I really should be doing it with a rabbit's tail tied to a stick to give it the authentic touch...

And lastly, our elegant and unassuming native primrose (with a little cyclamen coum tucked in there). This wasn't taken in my garden but is on a large raised bed fronting a museum in St Albans that I passed by this morning. I have just sown some primrose seeds in a tray, so am hopeful that I shall have some of my own to photograph next year.

What's brightening up your garden this grey February week?

Strawberries that reach for the sky

I'm always looking for space-saving ideas in the suburban veg plot. It's not the largest of growing areas - 8 square metres of raised beds, a rhubarb patch and one or two small spots beneath trellis panels - so I try hard to pack a lot into it. So when I came across climbing strawberry plants, I thought I'd just have to give them a try. I've grown 'Cambridge Favourite' in grow-bags for the last few years but these went into the compost at the end of 2012 as they'd started to tail off in terms of production.

Strawberry 'Mount Everest' is available from a number of the bigger online/mail order seed and plant companies and is described as producing runners upto a metre long that can be trained up a trellis or other climbing support. They produce mid-sized fruit from mid June through to September and can also be planted as trailing plants in window boxes or hanging baskets.

They didn't come cheap (£12.99 for 12 runners) but the plants certainly look vigorous with a healthy bare root system. Once unwrapped, I did find a bonus 13th runner in the box as well. The runners were placed in a bucket of damp compost for a couple of days until I was ready to plant them out. I've decided to reuse my pea teepees from last year to train them up as they're in a nice sunny spot by the greenhouse. The teepees proved to be surprisingly strong and have weathered well through the winter. I replaced some of the twine fastened around them and they're good as new. 

So, 13 planting holes later, each of the runners are now situated at the bottom of a nice rough vertical stake to climb up (coincidently enough a strawberry tree pruning) and awaiting the warmer weather.

I can probably use the space beneath the teepee for salad leaves and radishes as they'll mature quickly before the strawberries grow and block out the light. And aside from the space saving aspect, I'm also hoping that unless the local slug population are kitted out with crampons and climbing ropes, then this may prove to keep more of my fruit safe from the hordes of marauding molluscs!

A tentative salad update

Following my woeful salad year – in particular the second half of 2012, I am pleased to report that despite sowing salad leaf seeds 2 days before a downfall of snow, the seeds bided their time and waited until more suitable daytime temps had been achieved before germinating. They're still a bit small for microgreens but I'm sure we're not too far off!

I'm hoping to be a bit more organised this year as regards succession sowing so I can maintain a regular supply of fresh green leaves. And indeed red leaves, as these were recommended by the Tuckshop Gardener as being less likely to become victim of a slug attack. I look forward to comparing the two once they're out in the raised beds. 

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!

2012 – the year that salad forgot

It has to be said that 2012 wasn't the best year for salad leaves. I started well, with a couple of small lettuces overwintered in the greenhouse and moving into the early spring we have good harvests from cut and come again salad leaves grown under a heavyweight glass cloche in a raised bed. But then the drought set in and then the monsoons started. And the salad stealers arrived... It seems that the slugs in my garden have a good appreciation of the perfect moment to harvest (devour) young salad leaves. They, as I, would check on the developing seedlings on a daily basis. And when the leaves had reached the perfect tender size to be picked, I headed out to the cloche to find....nothing. Absolutely not a trace of them. This happened a couple of times before I gave up completely on the resowing front and started buying the bagged supermarket variety again – at least that way I could guarantee I would have salad available when I wanted it.

Anyway, I have started the new year afresh with renewed optimism and have sowed my first batch of salad seeds in a seed tray in a propagator in the greenhouse. Let's see you fight your way through these, slug invaders!

seeds sown on the damp surface of a potting compost and homemade compost mix

Seeds tucked up under a layer of vermiculite and the propagator lid