All Hands On Deck

We've had a very busy couple of weeks in the garden. Along with continuing with successive sowing, I'm trying to keep on top of transplanting the young seedlings that are fast outgrowing the propagators.

Although I've seen most of my seeds germinate, it seems that I didn't provide them with enough light :-(

The broccoli in particular have long white stems, but tiny little leaves. Fortunately the weather is warming up nicely so today I moved all the plants out into the greenhouse, where there's a lot more light.

I've also started to sow directly out into my raised beds. Hopefully within the next few weeks we'll be seeing red and green mixed salad leaves, iceberg lettuce and radish. I've also sown onions, leeks and broccoli, which will hopefully provide us with food right through the year.

The First of the Seeds

These little seedlings are jalapeno peppers that I planted on 14th Feb. The other peppers sown at the same time have also begun to come through, but as yet they don't need to be planted on. The onions are coming through slowly, but the leeks are doing very well and I've planted about 2o of those seedlings into pots too.

On 21st Feb I sowed some strawberries, mint and some more friggitello and jalapeno peppers. There's no sign of the peppers so far, but I've got a grand total of 1 strawberry seedling and 2 mint! I'm expecting the peppers through any day now, and I'm starting to wonder if I've done something wrong.

Yesterday was a really busy and enjoyable day spent indoors, while the finishing touches were being made to the raised beds and the greenhouse outside. While the man was occupied with heavy lifting, I took the opportunity to sow over 20 varieties of seed; mint, 7 types of chilli pepper, cucumber, sage, 5 types of tomato, onions, carrots, broccoli, sweetcorn and leeks. There's now a huge number of pots covered with sandwich bags all crowded round the radiator in the office, waiting for the weather to warm up. I had wanted to start a few off directly outside too, but the nights are still below freezing, so unusually for me I've displayed some restraint and am holding off until the frosts have well and truly passed.

The biggest lesson I learnt last year was about avoiding gluts, and ensuring a long cropping season. Whilst Cabbagetopia was immensely successful, giving us convenient frozen cabbage right through till a couple of weeks ago, I'd like to avoid having the smell of cooked cabbage permeating throughout the house this year! Therefore, I've become almost obsessive about successional sowing.

I'm aiming to sow a new batch of seeds every fortnight, following a "little and often" approach. In order to ensure the longest possible cropping season, I've worked out the maximum amount of times I'll be able to sow. For example, if my seed pack says to sow from March to May, I'll be able to have 6 batches. Whenever I've tried successional sowing in the past, I've always ended up using them all up to soon, or having some left over when it's too late to plant them. In thinking it through like this, I'll hopefully have a long cropping season, with a manageable amount of fruit and veg, and no left over seeds. Here's hoping!

The Veg Patch Wakes Up

Well, after the coldest Winter that I can ever remember, it's been fantastic to get outside and start preparing for Spring. We constructed three raised beds and I've been busy sowing seeds ready for when (if!) the frosts finally stop. On 14th Feb I used my new propagator to sow leeks, onions, golden bell peppers, Romanian peppers, Hungarian hot wax peppers, jalapeno peppers, red cherry peppers and frigitello peppers.

Since my job involves being away for days at a time, my main focus this year is on keeping my plants watered. I've got a self watering propagator, which has capillary matting to keep my seeds from drying out while I'm away. Hopefully I'll have some success with this propagator, as I'm planning to sow a lot more seeds over the coming weeks, including tomatoes, sweetcorn, lettuce, courgettes and cucumbers.

Transplanting leeks

Well the veg patch has finally been flattened. Work is slowly progressing on the garden and most of the plants have been moved to their new home. The final project will be to create a new set of raised beds in the end third of the garden. The dimensions of the new area will be about 20ft x 30ft, in what is currently the lawn. Although today was rainy and very windy, it was my only opportunity to save what veg I could, so I braved the wind and mud to keep my 14 biggest leeks.

I prepared the new area by removing all weeds, and digging in some compost. Although I wanted to keep all the leeks, I have finally started to get my head around the idea that plants don't do well when they're overcrowded. So I got the biggest plants, spaced them about 6in apart and watered them thoroughly. I'm really pleased that I've managed to save so many leeks. My absolute favourite winter meal is leek and potato soup and it'll be great for it to be home grown as well as home made.

The veg patch is saved - for now...

As part of the garden redesign, I spent Saturday helping (oh, alright - watching) my Dad put up a rather large screen. The new design is intended to break the garden up into sections, starting with a patio and large planting area, then a square lawn, then a veg patch at the end. This is going to consist of 4 raised beds, making the veg patch 4 times bigger than it currently is. Unfortunately, one of the two screens that will divide these areas is going to be situated right in the middle of where my veg patch is right now.

So, when Dad asked if he'd like all four posts put up together, or one whole screen put up that day, I immediately opted to concentrate all efforts on the first screen, far away from my precious sweetcorn, which are getting ripe at last. I shared one with my sister on Saturday night and it was delicious - much sweeter than those you normally get in the supermarket.

This weekend I'm looking forward to harvesting the remaining plants and making a large batch of chicken and sweetcorn soup. Unfortunately I don't think the leeks are going to be big enough to be harvested before the second screen has to go up. I'm going to try to save them by transplanting them to an area of the garden that won't get touched for a few months. While the future of the garden is looking good, I think I have to face facts that the days of my little raised bed are numbered...

Minimum Preparation - Maximum Results

In keeping with my mantra of "very little effort, money or skill", I can honestly say I've done nothing to prepare my soil. I know the books tell you to get your soil pH levels tested, mix certain ratios of poop to mud to get the best soil, and rotate your crops so all the nutrients aren't sucked out.

While I'm sure that all of these things make for a far better crop than mine, I'm only feeding 2 people and I want to spend as much time relaxing in my garden as I can. And faffing about with test tubes isn't my idea of a good time.

So I decided to take the lazy route. My theory is that if it's meant to be, it will be. If I plant a seed and it does well, then great. If it doesn't, then it's not suited to my garden for whatever reason and I should try something else. That way, I won't be wasting a load of time, effort or money on improving my soil for the sake of some cucumbers.

Using this theory I've grown 15 different types of veg in 3 years, and learnt a new lesson at each step of the way:

Potatoes - do too well, they need to be kept in a pot
Tomatoes - do better in the mud than in the growbag and much less watering required
Spring Onions - always seem to come back to life no matter how much they dry out
Radishes - grow from seeds sown straight into the ground but slugs love them
Cabbages - they get a lot bigger than you'd think, plant them far apart
Beetroot - so easy to grow, they survived under my cabbages with virtually no sunlight
Sweetcorn - take up a lot less space than you'd imagine
Squash - really fast growing
Lollo Rosso Lettuce - much hardier than I expected
Spinach - needs picking regularly, you'd only need one plant to feed two people all summer
Leeks - another vegetable that seems to need no water
Celery - just plant them through some black fabric and leave them to it
Carrots - sow the seeds in a pot, not directly in the ground

The only true failures I've had so far are peas and purple sprouting broccoli. I tried the peas twice with bad results both times. I'm going to give them one last chance, by growing them in a big pot. If I don't get any luck there, then I'll admit defeat. The broccoli was a heartbreaking disaster. Having just two plants survive my premature planting out was bad enough, but returning from holiday to find them utterly decimated by caterpillars was too much. Next year not only will I be more gentle with the planting out, I'll also be sure to keep them under a net.