Growing My Own 2012

It hasn't really been gardening weather for most of April but I have been busy sowing more veggie seeds in pots - the sunroom is an ideal greenhouse substitute.

Yesterday I did a third sowing of peas and mangetout, a month after the first lot which are now having to take their chances in the veggie plot. The second batch are just about ready to go out, but frosts are forecast for the weekend so I am holding off.

I have leeks in the small container on the right.

 And lettuces growing away on the utility room windowsill.

Beans (runner, dwarf purple and French climbing) were also sown yesterday


The tomatoes and cucumbers have been potted on. So far only partial success with the cabbages, 5 out of 9. The seeds I collected from an unknown variety seem to be doing best!

In the garden itself the rhubarb is really taking off. It is doing so well that I picked some and had it stewed with some yoghurt for lunch today!

The fruit garden appears to be thriving.

I was a little concerned at how advanced the gooseberry bushes were when I eventually got around to pruning them last month, but they look very healthy at the moment, with a large number of flowers. I am inspecting them regularly as last year they were really badly infected with powdery mildew and I didn't bother to try to pick any fruit. The blackcurrants were already flowering so I decided against pruning them.

The new apple and pear trees are in blossom. I think I am supposed to remove the apple blossom this year but I can't quite bring myself to do it. I will just remove the majority of fruits if they get successfully pollinated to relieve the stress on the young trees.




On the ornamental side of the garden I am now reaping the benefits of all the work I got done in February/March of this year on the long bank extension. It is now a joy to walk past it every day with the dogs. And I have spotted a lot of other people taking a good look too :)

Waiting For A Bus - Part 1

Time passes and edible garden grows...

The mangetout are in full production - picked about 10 oz so far. Luckily we like them as we will be eating an awful lot of them in the coming weeks.


The peas, looking unamazingly similar, are beginning to fatten up. And still a lot of flowers on them. Just need some sun to go with the automatic watering system, aka as rain...


A few of the red onion sets I planted are now bulbing up nicely despite throwing up flower spikes while I was in Malta in May. A few of the flower spikes are now beginning to actually flower...


The onion seeds I planted are performing with variable results. I have precisely nine bulbing onion plants that have survived so far and are looking pretty pathetic.

The spring onions are faring a little better, but still nowhere big enough to attempt to harvest. I sowed another row which again have germinated quite well but that is about as much as they have done so far. They are now surrounded by the pak choi which I thinned and replanted. Having never eaten pak choi I just hope we like it if they all survive and thrive!

The pickling onions are the stars of my allium world. We haven't finished the ones I pickled last year yet, but they are very good.

The leeks are also doing okay - I have learnt from last year not to panic too much if they are not the size of pencils yet. Still plenty of time before they need to be transferred to the veggie patch to overwinter. The first-sown carrots are coming along well.

The dwarf purple beans are beginning to put on a spurt of growth and a few flowers can be seen. They were last year's stars of the veggie patch, along with the runner beans. Talking of which, I reduced the number of those that I planted from last year and restricted myself to the better of the two varieties grown last year, Red Rum. Inspection shows that a couple have made it up to about four feet up their supports, although one has decided it prefers to grow sideways into the mangetout...

I have lost two of the tomato plants that I planted at the back of the veggie patch, but I have gained one self-seeded one. So eight very healthy looking plants. I still have more than that 'surviving' in the sunroom - I think the time has come to plant them out or throw them out. Time is running out for Reg to get his polytunnel in place...

The curly kale that I never pulled out last year has come back stronger than ever. It is obviously a tough cookie, surviving the onslaught of the caterpillars last year, and then the two foot of snow over winter!

The rhubarb is gigantic. A couple of picks so far, but I really need to keep harvesting it. I just need to get to it!

The last, but definitely not least, of the crops in the veggie patch is the potatoes. Both those I planted and those that still keep coming up everywhere else. It's the same in the fruit tree bed. I have started harvesting those. This has given me access to tie the new growth of the fruit trees to their canes. At some point soon I need to get up my courage to prune the side shoots...


The salad crops in the raised planters are also cranking up after a slow start. In fact, the first sown rocket and spinach has bolted but the next sowings are coming on well. And a second sowing of radishes.

And the winter sown savoy cabbages are taking over the world...

The War of the Cabbages

There are battles being fought in the veggie garden...

I had never noticed that many cabbage white butterflies in the past...

But now that I am growing cabbages they seem to have made a beeline to my back garden.

I have started an egg and caterpillar removal patrol every couple of days. I am learning the tricks of the caterpillars. They curl up and drop to the ground when I try to squidge them. So now I have a cup waiting to catch them. This is today's crop. Whilst I am doing this the butterflies are continuing to flutter around on the other side of the cabbage patch.

However, I have had some unintentional revenge. The cabbages in RP2 have a double layer of netting as I had originally cut a length to cover the whole of the planter but now the onions are getting quite tall I have just folded it back over the cabbages. Several butterflies have been tempted by the large healthy plants and have made their way under the first layer only to find themselves trapped.

I transplanted my leeks yesterday. I have got three good rows and two wimpy rows but I decided that I wasn't going to faff about - it was all or none. Inspection this morning showed evidence of dog (my money is on Jen) stomping over some of them. I pulled up and replanted about half a dozen.

I also got around to a better attempt at staking up my two tomato plants. I spotted in my fruit and veggie bible that they were vine tomatoes which are normally grown up a single tall support and sideshoots removed. Too late for that, but I could tidy them up from their sprawling on the ground. They are still fruiting well and there are loads more flowers on them.

I picked my first good-sized carrot (Amsterdam Forcing) on Tuesday, followed the next day by one of the other variety, Supreme Chantenay.

The peas are now also being cropped and I can hardly keep up with the dwarf beans now. And don't even mention lettuces although I have found an outlet for some of them in the shapes of Penny and Margaret.

I have found a use for some bright raspberry pink wool. I have been tagging runner beans, dwarf beans and pea pods to keep for next year's seeds. Adds a bit of colour.

I haven't completely neglected the rest of the garden. Penny came over last week and helped me to weed the LBE. I then sprayed several outbreaks of bindweed. I have since planted over a dozen hostas, a rhododenron and nine surviving carnations from J parkers, and two platycodons and rhodohypoxises that I thought were reasonably priced in Morrisons. It still looks very empty in places. I have my eye on several plants in other parts of the garden that can be divided in the autumn...

I am also back to planning the fruit tree bed to be. I think I have found a very good site to source my apple trees. And will probably get my pear and plum trees from J Parkers. Still undecided on cherry trees...