Potting up, planting out

Tomato and courgette seedlings

Runner bean seedlings

The first batch of tomato seedlings were getting big enough to show roots out of the bottom of their peat pots, so I planted them into bigger pots. They will go into their final pots when they put roots out of the bottom of these ones.

Today I also planted out the runner beans. All eight of the chitted beans came up when planted in pots, and I'd made a wigwam wit six canes. I planted one in the middle of the wigwam - it may be able to grow up the central support, but I suspect the other beans will shade it too much. The last (smallest) bean seedling I planted in the pig manure to test for pesticide residues - the cress I planted to do that got covered with grass cuttings by the neighbours' gardener.

First pea flower

Pea flower

One of the peas which were started in paper pots has produced a flower, and several more of the broad beans are flowering too.

The runner beans are ready to go into the ground, and the remaining French beans are growing too. Three of the courgettes in pots are emerging, so I'll have to dig a bed for them soon.

Under my tender care, there is now one survivor of the three basil seedlings. A seedling has appeared in one of the seven pots with chilli seeds, but it may just be a weed.

Now I'm off to do a bit of watering, since we've had blazing sunshine for about a week now and the ground is drying out. I intend to do one or two beds thoroughly every day, which should be enough to keep the plants alive.

Bolting

Bolting salad plants

Quite a few of the salad plants in bed ten are bolting. At the front in the picture, there is a purple choi sum with a yellow flower. Behind it is a rocket plant, which has flower buds forming before a decent amount of leaf has grown. On the other side of the red and green mixed rows, the first two pak choi also seem to be bolting. This is disappointing, as they'll not put much effort into growing leaves now. I wonder if the lack of sunlight over the last month has something to do with it.

Compost

The reason I didn't post all of yesterday's exciting news at the time is that a friend turned up with a lot of roof laths (for kindling) just as I'd finished in the garden. When we'd unloaded those, we went and collected a couple of dustbins full of well-rotted pig manure, which I added to the small amount of compost already in the first compost bin. I sprinkled a few cress seeds on top, as a test for persistent herbicides, which can be present in manure, but since there were lots of nettles growing out of the pile I got the manure from, I doubt this will be a problem.

The other compost heap has been topped up, as well - more long grass from around the beds, and some nettles and goose grass which were growing over the path to the compost heaps, and some newspaper (a bit of 'brown' to balance all that 'green'.)

Beans in the ground

Dwarf French beans.

Three of the dwarf French beans were starting to poke roots out of their pots, so it was time for them to go in the ground - I put them in a gap between the overflow potatoes yesterday, as I'd made that bed longer than it needed to be. That freed up two plastic pots, and I put a couple more of the chitting runner bean seeds in them, so I now have eight seeds in pots, to fill six spaces. (One of the French beans was in a peat pot, so that just went straight in the ground.)

Tomato seedling

One of the first batch of runner beans has appeared above the soil today, as has one of the second batch of French beans. There are now seven tomato plants in small pots, from quite sturdy little plants to tiny seedlings, and there are also two basil seedlings - there were three, but one dried out. They are quite difficult, it seems. The last batch I killed by over-watering (I think), this batch the only casualty so far has been from the opposite cause.

Produce!

First produce - radishes!

Yesterday I ate the first of the veg that I've grown myself - radishes! Ate them with just a dab of salt. Tasty!

Runner beans potted

Today I potted the six runner beans which showed the best roots into three inch pots. Yesterday I did the same for five of the dwarf French beans. The soil I used is a 50/50 mixture of soil from the garden and seed compost.

Hoeing

Carrot bed, hoed

Today there was a bit of sunshine and it wasn't raining, so I went out and did some long-overdue tidying.

The grass round the beds was getting long and thick enough to shade the smaller plants, so I cut it back with shears. I then hoed round the carrots, potatoes, spring onions, peas and beans. :)

I haven't recorded weeding on this blog, because most of the time I've just done a bit from day to day during my morning inspection. However, what with the solid rain over the last few weeks, I've fallen behind with this and the weeds have taken advantage.

The boughs groan under the weight of produce

Tiny broad bean pods

On two of the broad bean plants (the ones which were planted in November and survived the winter) the flowers have set and tiny pods are developing. Excellent!

Goose grass soup

I tried the goose grass as a food - as a soup to be precise, just substituting it for the nettles in the recipe I followed last month. As soups go, it was a bit too fibrous. "Waiter, bring me a bowl of your most fibrous soup!" is not a phrase you often hear, and this is no doubt why goose grass isn't a popular soup ingredient. If I'd bothered to strain it, it would have been OK (and I'd have made a sheet of folksy craft-paper as well), but I like soup because it's quick and easy.

Probably when civilisation collapses, people will fight over a good patch of goose grass, but I doubt I'll eat any more until then.

Courgettes sown

6 courgettes just sown, 3 tomato seedlings and a French bean

Today I planted six courgette plants (shown, with the under-performing tomato and French bean sowing). I don't think the bed where I intended them to go will be ready in time to plant them in June, since the spinach and turnips there haven't grown as quickly as I'd hoped. I'll have to dig another bed just for courgettes.

Wigwam for runner beans

Wigwam for runner beans

Various salad plants

A couple of days ago I started some runner beans and some more French beans chitting indoors - this is just soaking them and leaving them on damp kitchen roll until they germinate. I will plant the six strongest looking runner beans in pots, then transfer them to the garden. I did a few more French beans because from eight planted in pots a few weeks ago, only three have grown. (I have space for only eight in the garden, but if I'd started 24, they'd no doubt all have sprouted.)

The runner beans will be grown up a wigwam, which I've also just constructed. The ground is quite soft there, so I've tethered it to the fence with wire.

Growth notes: Chives and parsnips have just become visible, and there are a few hollyhocks starting in the front garden. The hollyhocks I planted in the back garden have been swamped with goose grass, couch grass, and other vigorous ground plants, and I may have to cut those back and re-sow, but it isn't a high priority because I can't eat hollyhocks.

With all the recent rain the garden is looking lush, but the lack of sunlight seems to have slowed growth. Except of the goose grass, obviously, which is now forming dense thickets. Apparently it's edible when boiled, but it would have to taste particularly good for me to want to eat the amount I've got.

Something starchy this way comes

Young potato plant

Young spring onions

Young radish plants

More sowing and planting out today: seven of each of basil and chillies in paper pots on the windowsill to replace the unsuccessful first batches.

I've planted out the last batch of leeks in bed zero, and since they took up a row and a bit, I finished the row with leek seeds. That's almost finished the packet of Carlton F1, almost all of which have germinated, and that bed is now full. I hope the spinach and turnips there hurry up - I will want that space for courgettes in about six weeks.

In bed nine I've sown two rows each of beetroots and turnips, leaving space for a couple more rows of something.

Bed five is now full, after planting another row of carrots (half a row each of Early Nantes and Nepal F1), but the radishes ought to be out of the way in another month and will be replaced with a final row of carrots.

Bed eight is also full - I put in another row of spring onions (White Lisbon Winter Hardy), but again there will be room for another row when the radishes (pictured) have been eaten. The second row has done much better than the first - although I protected the first sowing with garden fleece on frosty nights, they probably went in a bit early.

Finally, just to empty the greenhouse, I put three odd lamb's lettuces in the very corners of the runner bean bed.

Growth notes: The first potato plants are above ground now, all Epicure (the earlies). The maincrop spuds haven't appeared yet.

Three of the dwarf French beans have sprouted on the  windowsill, but still only two out of the twelve tomatoes, which isn't a great germination rate.

Tomato seedling

First tomato seedling

The first of the tomato plants has appeared in one of the pots on my windowsill. In one of the other pots there are two seedlings, but they appear to be weeds - they don't have the tomato's hairy stem. I used soil from the garden mixed with potting compost to make the bag go further, and some weed seeds must have been lying in wait.

In other news, the second rows of spring onions and carrots have appeared, the rows of lettuces and other salad leaves in bed ten are thriving, but something has eaten the turnip seedlings planted out in bed zero. I suspect it was pigeons, in revenge for the wire mesh over the brassicas. The spinach directly planted in bed zero has mostly appeared now.

The beetroot, spinach and turnips in bed five is mostly doing well, although some of the turnips went reddish-green and didn't grow as fast as the others. I suspect some had an easier time than others pushing roots through the paper pots, since some of the pots had a large hole in the bottom  and some were completely closed up.

Nettle soup

Nettle patch

There are a lot of nettles growing in the garden, and at the moment they're putting forth fresh, tender new leaves. Later, when they're tougher, I'll make a nettle tea fertilizer, but today I made nettle soup from the young tops.

Recipe: I fried a chopped onion (and a chopped leek) lightly to soften, added a couple of litres of stock, a chopped potato, and half a carrier bag full of nettle tops. Seasoned (tarragon), boiled for 15 minutes, then blended. Delicious. :)

Potatoes in

Chitted potatoes ready for planting

It's traditional to plant potatoes out on Good Friday, but I left it a bit later because the weather was cool that week, and because I wanted to put up the mesh cage over bed three without having to worry about trampling the potatoes.

Now they're all in the ground, the earlies in bed two and the maincrop in bed four. In the end there were 23 of each type to go in, 18 of each in the main beds, and five of each in the overflow bed.

I also planted out some spinach from paper pots (in bed zero), a row of chives in bed eight, and eight dwarf French beans in large pots. There's enough space in the overflow bed for four dwarf beans, and enough space in bed one (where some broad beans didn't make it through the winter) for another four. The chives and the French beans were impulse buys when I was getting the chicken wire.

If the chives and the early potatoes are ready at the same time, I can have potato salad. Mmmm!

Broad bean flowers

Broad bean flower buds

I'm rather surprised by the appearance of flowers on two of the broad bean plants which survived the winter. I was expecting the plants to get bigger first, and the blooms to appear later. Never mind, it will extend the cropping period if some start producing flowers this early (assuming the bees are up and about enough to do the pollinating.)

I have built a replica of the Millenium Dome

Bed three cage

Bed eleven cage

Today I built cages to protect the brassicas from pigeons, using chicken wire. The cage over bed three is suspended from wires attached to a stake and the fence, the other one is a wood-frame structure. They are both pegged to the ground around the edges, and the separate sections of chicken wire are 'sewn' together with more wire.

I planted out the new batch of kale into bed three before building the cage, and I hoed round the surviving plants. There are still a few gaps for cabbages, which will be somewhat difficult to plant without taking the cage apart.

Your move, pigeons!

First potatoes in

Purple choy sum, rocket, 3 rows of mixed salad, pak choi, and lettuce.

Today I planted the overflow bed with five each of the Epicure (early) and King Edward (maincrop) potatoes, and put a row of parsnip seeds along the other side of the bed.

I also planted out some seedlings - the pak choi in bed ten, where various lettuce-type plants have sprouted.

The second batch of beetroots and turnips have gone into bed zero, where the spinach seedlings have appeared. These are all intended to be quick-cropping veg to make use of the space which will have courgettes sown in it in June.

Other growth notes: the peas in bed eight have sprouted, and in the row next to them there are about ten of the first planting of spring onions. The leeks planted among the garlic in bed seven seem to be doing OK, and the next batch of leeks in paper pots have mostly sprouted - thirteen out of sixteen visible so far. The pigeons have pretty much demolished all the cabbages and started on the kale in bed three, though.

Digging finished

Small bed for runner bean wigwam

The last of this year's planned digging is done, a small bed under the apple tree for runner beans. I've dug in some of the compost from the first heap since beans are greedy plants, but I had to pick through it and put a lot of half-rotted stuff back in the heap. I should really have waited until it was all properly composted. 

The beans will be planted in late May or early June, so there is time for a quick crop of something else. I'll probably transplant the turnip seedlings there.