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.

The story so far

The veg patch was born in the spring of 2007, when a bare area of mud became the future site of my foray into self-sufficiency. I bought a bag of potatoes (Desiree, I think) and stuck them all in the ground. Next thing I knew, little tufts of green were poking their way through the mud and I was hooked. Over the next few weeks, I bought a load of seeds - onions, radishes, spring onions and carrots and learnt 2 key lessons.

Firstly, it really is best to sow successively. We ended up with 3 carrier bags full of spring onions that appeared in every meal for 2 weeks. I find it very difficult to sow my seeds and then pull half of them up when they've barely begun to grow. I get so emotionally involved with the little guys that even the thought of it makes me upset. I learnt to get round this problem by sowing just a few seeds every week or so and planting them a good distance apart - no ruthless thinning out required.

The other mistake I made (that I am still paying for now), is that potatoes are best grown in a pot. I can't believe that over 2 years after planting the things, they are still popping up now. Don't get me wrong, they're a damn sight better than dandelions in my rose garden, but the novelty is starting to wear off. If you're planning on growing potatoes in the future, please keep them in a pot. The added benefit of this is that it is so easy to keep adding compost as they grow and you end up with a huge amount of potatoes for such a small place. Just make space in the freezer for a load of shepherd's pie!