Earthing up potatoes

Out early this morning to earth up potatoes. Not as big a job as I'd thought it would be.

Some were earthed up just using the soil around them, and some using a mixture of soil and pig manure. We'll see if there's any difference in the crop.

I also planted out the three courgettes which had grown too big for their pots. There's space in the bed for another three, and I have some more planted in pots indoors, but they haven't shown yet.

I did a few other small jobs - a bit more scything and hand-weeding, and putting in canes to support a couple of  broad beans which were beginning to tip over. While I was pottering about, I noticed that the blackcurrant bush now has a dozen or so tiny green currants. Funny, I didn't see any flowers at any point. The apple tree didn't produce any flowers either - I think they should have been out in late April or early May, so perhaps I pruned the tree too hard.

Signs of spring

Blackcurrant buds opening

 The buds on the blackcurrant bush have started to open, so they have decided it's spring. Hurrah!

The warmer weather and longer days have also caused the kale to start growing. I planted these in a seed tray indoors in October, and planted them out in mid-November. They didn't really grow at all over the winter, but at least most of them survived, and now seem to be growing quite strongly.

Lettuce and rocket seedlings have appeared, too. I haven't taken a picture of them because all my photos of seedlings do look very similar.

Young kale plant

Murdah, Holmes!?

Just before I left on Thursday, a parcel containing ten strawberry plants arrived in the post. I followed the instructions and soaked the roots, then placed them in shallow holes loosely covered in soil, to keep them damp until I got back.

Sadly, there wasn't anything left when I went to plant them out - a few shreds of leaf was all that remained. Something had dug them all up and eaten them.

Busy morning

Making paper pots

First batch - leeks, cauliflowers, and two varieties of peas

Since the weather is very mild at the moment, and the long-term forecast says it will probably continue mild, I decided to try getting some veg off to an early start. I chose things that are supposed to be planted in March, and will keep them in the greenhouse for the first month or two. The veg chosen for this early experiment are leeks (Carlton F1), cauliflowers (All the Year Round), and two varieties of peas (Early Onward and Greenshaft).

For Christmas I got a wooden tool for making biodegradable pots out of newspaper, pictured right. A strip of newspaper about 4" wide is wrapped round the top part with about 1.5" sticking out, which is folded under and crushed against the bottom part of the tool.

They seem to stay together quite well. Obviously they won't be very strong when wet, but I will be able to leave them in their trays until it's time to plant them out, when the pots will be transferred whole to the beds - no need to unwrap them, the newspaper will just decompose in the ground.

Since the volume of earth in each is quite small, and the paper will wick water away, there may be problems with them drying out. Time will tell.

Raspberry plant

I also planted out the raspberry I got from the neighbours. I put plenty of slow-release fertilizer pellets in the hole, to help it along.

Some raspberry varieties produce fruit on the new year's growth, and some on year-old wood - if mine is the latter I wont see any raspberries until 2013. Hope it's the former!

Pruning apple tree

Before pruning

After pruning

January is a good time to prune apple trees, and the one in my garden definitely needed it. When I moved in there were hundreds of very small apples on the ground around the tree, and I hope by giving it a vigorous pruning I will get fewer but larger apples this year.

I found some useful information on pruning on the Royal Horticultural Society's website here, so I had a go. I've probably taken off more than they suggest, but the tree has been neglected for some time and there was a lot of dead wood. There was also a lot of growth which was too high to be able to pick the apples easily, and many branches were too close to each other, rubbing together or tangled together.

Now the structure is much more open, the highest branches have been removed, the lowest ones which were below head-height have also been trimmed back, and there are still plenty of fruit buds on the remaining branches. I left some long branches growing across the garden so that the open area is divided up visually, which should be more appealing to look at.

Winter salads in, blackcurrant planted

Blackcurrant 'Ebony'

Bed five now has lamb's lettuce and land cress planted - two rows of each. The blackcurrant has been planted too, with plenty of compost and some slow-release fertiliser in a hole much larger than the root ball.

The seedlings spotted yesterday are definitely cabbages, they are in neat rows where I planted them, and several more peas are showing. One broad bean seedling is just poking out of the soil too.