Picking Up At The Plot

 I have been indulging my newfound interest in flowering plants and particularly wildflowers recently. Despite appearances I have been keeping up with the production of edibles too.  To bring the record up to date, here is a statement of the current state of play.

I went for alliums in a bigger way this year growing autumn and spring planted garlic as well as shallots and onions from seed. These were sown indoors in February .  The garlic has emerged and shallot and onion have been planted out on site yesterday and today. 

Broad beans sown in cells and planted out a month ago are now sitting pretty at the plot. 

Peas on the other hand have refused to be cajoled into germinating early. As a last resort I have started them sprouting in a jam jar in the kitchen and only "sown" them in cells after germination and exporting them to the greenhouse and then the plot.

Still on legumes I have sown 5 varieties of Dwarf French Bean into deep cells in the hope that the improved night temperatures will help them get started.

The greenhouse has been stuffed full each night with the paraffin heater lit on any night when the threat of frost is flagged up by the weatherman.  The main beneficiaries are flowers: Cosmos, Marigold, Lobelia, but also tomato, cucumber and pepper 

Tomatoes and Cucumber

Pepper Hungarian Hot Wax

I have attempted direct sowing at the allotment but tend to hedge my bets by using up remnant seed supplies (open packets from last year or out of date ones).  This way I don't get upset when they fail - although failure is also more likely as a result!  Parsnip, carrot, Swish chard have been experimented with in this way - and have all been resown recently..

Good Friday is a traditional potato planting day.  Easter Saturday and Sunday saw me getting all but the maincrop Rooster in. 

Potatoes in waiting

The patch allocated to potatoes in my rotational plan still had "spring" cabbages at one end and leeks at the other.  Now that's what I call bad planning! The leeks are going into the cookpot.

The ground for runner beans, celery and celeriac has been thoroughly prepped with plenty of buried organic matter.  The celery and celeriac have been growing on at home

Celery and Celeriac  - Can you tell which is which?

 but the runner beans have yet to be sown.  The courgettes squashes and sweetcorn haven't been sown either yet, but I have recently prepared a bed for them too.  My method is to bag all my weeds and trimmings in old black lined compost bags and leave them for a year or two to rot down in the hope that after another year buried underground any weed seeds will not be viable.  This keeps all the nutrients recycled on the site - all except the edible part of any crops.  

Weed suppression is something I take very seriously.  The best method is to have a crop growing but failing that deployment of weed suppressant fabric in the early part of the growing season saves hours of repetitive weeding.  As the sowing season progresses so the aesthetically unpleasing fabric gets rolled back. 

Brassicas tend to be at their best late in the growing year. None more so than purple sprouting broccoli which is currently in full production mode. 

 One again my lack of planning means the row of PSB plants is right in the middle of this year's carrot patch (under the fine mesh).  The PSB needs nets to keep the pigeons off while the carrots need fine netting to keep the carrot root fly off. so it is a bit of a logistic nightmare to cater for them both simultaneously.  As the early carrot sowing show no sign of germination yet perhaps there is no imminent prospect of running out of space just yet - the main crop carrots can wait until the PSB harvesting season is over.

This years brassicas and leeks are coming on at home in readiness for planting out. It iis going to be busy for the next month or two!

Early season brassicas

Leeks

 

In Cold Storage

After my protracted excursion into the wild you might think I have given up raising vegetables.  Fear not.  I did get carried away with the warm patch at the end of February and sowed lots of things.  Then of course the weather turned cold.  Today for instance the thermometer has peaked at a balmy 7C as the sun has made an appearance.  The night time temperatures have hovered perilously close to  freezing.  I have the paraffin heater at the ready because the greenhouse is bursting at the seams.  Under the circumstances the production line from propagator to indoor lights to greenhouse to outdoors, has well and truly come to a grinding, if temporary, halt.  I've taken a snapshot of the situation with the benefit of the aforementioned sunny interval:

Propagator

Indoor lights

Greenhouse Right

Greenhouse Left

Greenhouse centre

Hardy outdoors

Shed

I do have two rows of early potatoes already planted at the plot

But the rest are waiting for the Good Friday day of planting.

It has been a nervous week of watching the temperature forecasts and I am so looking forward to a change in the wind direction and a jump in the temperature so that I can get the production line going again.  After all it is April and according to the seed packets it is the ideal time to sow just about ANYTHING you may care to grow.

As I write the sun has disappeared and a shower of hailstones is pelting down.

Up and Away

Vegetable garden blogging is a contradictory activity:  Either you have nothing to report and all the time in the world to blog, or you are so active that you don't have the time or the energy to blog.  Recently I have moved from one phase to the other.  Aside from the improvement in the weather dictating a change of gear I have also been helping out in a school vegetable garden lately so demands on my vegetable growing time have doubled.  Having made my excuses here is an update.  Pride of place goes to the migration of the sensitive plants to the greenhouse where they are resident 24 hours.

Tomatoes

Courgettes and Butternut Squash

Chilli Peppers

Outside the greenhouse the former occupants are disporting themselves across the "patio" area.

Spot the bench to relax on.

Indoors the sowing programme continues with the second round of brassica sowings.  Nowadays I am much more disciplined about labelling everything at the time of sowing:

This year, after sowing, I log everything on a spreadsheet.  I realised today that I have now made my 100th sowing of the year.  (That is home sowing:  school sowings have their own log.)

Onwards and Upwards:

Successional Sowing Success

In the past I have annually regretted my lack of foresight when it comes to successional sowing. But this year I have experimented with late sowings of cut and come again salads sown in half seed trays. The dates on these four are 19 August, 8 September, 26th September and 7th October (see below).  The earliest tray has already been chopped and is regrowing. The second is currently being trimmed  one section at a time and the last two are coming on nicely.  Looks like our lunches will continue to be pepped up for a few weeks yet.  Although this picture has been taken in the greenhouse the trays have been sitting out in the elements and have only just been moved inside now that the tomatoes and peppers have been cleared out my small greenhouse.

While I am on the subject I will admit that the successional sowing at the plot has been a little disappointing.  Second and third sowings of beetroot, lettuce, pak choi, even leaf beet  have produced very patchy or non existent rows -  probably as a result of all the rain and the resulting slug action.  In future I will sow more thickly to allow for poor germination and heavier predation.

Sometimes it is a good idea to sow more more more.