Wow, I think it must be time to update, I haven’t blogged for ages and there’s lots and lots happening, most of it all by itself with no real help from me at all! I think I’ll start with the garden.
The greenhouse is full of tomato plants, Boo & Tom’s are storming ahead and already flowering (with several tiny tomatoes present also!) so they’ll be the first to produce fruit, then it’s the huge amount that Yogi and I managed to sow shortly after she was born, so they’ll be cherry, yellow and white. Tom has planted out the crystal lemon cucumber plants that I sowed and they seem to be doing pretty darned well too. My tray of ordinary size tomatoes have all come up so that’s another huge pile of tomatoes we need to find homes for…
We now have melons in the raised bed along with celery, the various squashes I sowed last week and they are looking fairly trifid-like already so they’ll be going in there when the shortly. In my first raised bed where I planted the parmex carrots and the garlic we’ve continued with successional sowing (and they seem to be coming along very nicely thank you) although the first 2 rows that were looking lovely and I was just thinking about thinning no longer need thinning – thank you rabbits….
Boo’s trough has one pea plant and a half row of parmex carrots – hopefully the beans will come up & the parsnips, I think maybe I’ll sow some more of each just in case.
On the main area of the plot we have a forest of potato plants come through, they seem to be storming along, Tom’s finding it hard to keep up with the earthing up, but he’s wonderful so I know he’ll manage.
The next bed along I sowed carrots – nothing, nada came up so we dug it over and decided to start again, I think there are some little tiny seedlings starting to poke through. I have to admit to being pretty disheartened by the carrot situation this year but superstar Tom di the re-sowing for me so hopefully things will be looking up soon. We also decided to try again with the parsnip seeds as Tom hadn’t realized sown anything that end of the bed and dug it over ‘one last time’…..
Next to these we have some very successful pea plants, interspersed are Purple Podded Peas and all are currently doing magnificently. The dwarf French beans I planted at the other end of the same bed didn’t seem to be doing so well, but now they’re doing a whole lot better, I may sow some in pots and then plant out. Partly to give myself more chance (i.e. sow loads plant out what comes through) but also to give them a chance, the soil looked very disturbed (in a dug kind of way rather than emotionally of course… – although I can’t really speak for it’s emotional state as I’m no plant psychologist) and so we suspect the mice may have been at it as they were last year with the peas.
Next along we have the brassicas….. Oh dear what can I say??? Do I really like them enough to keep trying? Unfortunately yes. I gave in and bought 6 sprout plants and 6 cauli plants (all that was left at the garden centre) and they seem to be surviving – although the slugs appear to find them tasty. I did (maybe foolishly) decid to give it another go and sowed another tray of seedlings, it’s ok though, I’m not getting my hopes up, I chucked the seed in, I gave love and affection (ah, I’ve just realized what I’ve been doing wrong – it’s water & light they need not love & bloody affection!) and quite a few came up nice and healthy so they’re out in the greenhouse, coming along ok for now. I may also just chuck some seed straight out and ignore it and see how that works, seemed to work well on the kale and purple sprouting broccoli last year!
In this last bed we still have the overwintering onions which are doing fantastically and look as though they’ll be ready fairly soon, which should be just in time for me to get my cabbage, calabresse, and extra cauli & sprouts in…..
Then round the edge we have the cucumbers in one spot, the sweetcorn in another (not sure about that at all but Tom was determined) and some strawberry plants – one purchased, 4 acquired from m-i-l, all of which are flowering, some of which are already bearing green fruit (stay away birdies, stay away).
So that’s it for the veggies.
I decided I want some prettiness, as in I want to plant some flowers, we have an awfully large area of garden and no flowers at all, not anywhere… I’m not really a pretty, flowery kind of person but all we have is lots and lots of green so Tom kindly cut a little border along the front path and planted some Alyssum that I had bought and sowed some Forget-me-not seeds, so not huge pretty, flowery things but hopefully a little bit of little, pretty, flowery. I did want to sow Sweet Peas, a la SheWhoDigs but haven’t got round to it yet and suspect it might be too late. My intention is to copy her idea (shouts across the www ‘hope you don’t mind’) and use these as the flowers at our wedding next year.
that’s the veggie update for now.
