Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Some photos

There has only been about 10 minutes today when it hasn't been raining so I went outside to have a look at the garden and take some photos.
purple sprouting broccoli

mangetout

potatoes
It's starting to look good!  My camomile and lettuce seeds are doing well and my tomato plants are still alive.  The sweetcorn I planted out have been mostly eaten by the rabbit but I hope they may recover.  Indoors the tomatoes in my porch are getting really big and my squash plants are starting to outgrow their paper pots.

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Quick update

Cauliflower
Just a quick post today, I've not gotten out in the garden all weekend except for 10 minutes to turn the compost heap and put out bread for the birds.  The cauliflower and swede I planted on the 9th have started to sprout but none of the other seeds are up yet.  The weather has been strange (glorious warm sunshine for half an hour followed by hailstones) so I am prepared to start again if nothing happens in the next couple of weeks.

I had a walk into town this morning and bought some flower seeds in wilkinsons, while I was there I got three raspberry canes for £1.50!  I have had a run of failures with raspberries so I am not hopeful of success this time but I will plant them and see what happens.

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Hungry animals

On Monday I got lots done in the garden.  I planted all of the outdoor seeds except the lettuce and herbs (I can't decide where I want them).  I didn't put the artichoke in pots, I just put them directly in the ground.  I wasn't too controlled about sowing the seeds, I pretty much just spread the seeds around on raked ground.  We shall see what happens.


I transplanted the butternut squash to paper pots, five of them look ok and had lots of roots, one looks a little pathetic but I figure five will probably be too many anyway.


Continuing my plague of animals eating my plants I caught a blackbird eating lily bulbs out of a pot tonight.  It actually dug them up!  Although I've lost two bulbs (and now have earth all over my patio) it was really interesting watching the bird dig them out.  I also caught a slug on one of my broccoli leaves, I pulled it off and hoped that a bird would eat it.  I need to find a way to kill the slugs that doesn't make me want to throw up.


There is more frost forecast tonight so I brought my pots in to keep warm in the kitchen overnight.

Monday, April 9, 2012

Seeds to plant this month

If I don't write things down they don't happen (hence the existence of this whole blog). I'm taking a week off work so I'm going to plant my next batch of seeds and do some pottering around in the garden if the weather dries up at all.

Seeds to plant:
(indoors in paper pots)
9* brocolli
more asparagus

(Outdoors in ground)
Cauliflower
More sunflowers
More onion sets
Celeriac
peas
lettuce / herbs

(Outdoors in pots)
Imperial star artichoke

Yesterday I repotted nine leek and three celeriac seedlings (unfortunately, I forgot to label them so I shall have to wait till they get bigger to know which is which). I need to repot the butternut squash and I need to decide what to do with my artichoke seedlings as they are trying to escape from their paper pots.

Sunday, April 8, 2012

Taking stock

I had a quick walk round the garden this morning.  The past week's frost and rabbit carnage have left me with five fewer Tomato plants (the ones in the upside down planters and ones in a large pot are all dead from the cold.  I had covered them but they would still have been quite exposed), six less Sunflowers and a sorry looking lump of Kiwi vine.

In the win column I can see that the turnip seeds I planted outside (to replace the ones I killed by planting out too early during the good weather) have sprouted.

The lettuce and camomile seeds I scattered around the tomatoes two weekends ago have also started to sprout which is nice.  Most of my potatoes are up now and I can see lots of growth in the garlic and onion beds.  Some of the onions have failed so I'll replant as soon as I get a few hours of dry weather.

Indoors there has been a lot of growth.  The seeds I planted four weeks ago are looking really good.  I got about a 50% success on the seeds I planted and the Artichokes, Asparagus and Butternut Squash are coming on well.  I'm going to plant some more this week.
About a month ago I planted some left over lettuce (last years seeds) and it is ready to eat at last. I'm going to have some in my sandwich today.  This will be the first food I've grown and eaten this year other than the herbs.
Butternut Squash
Asparagus
Artichoke
Yummy lettuce

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Gah!

The sunflowers I repotted last weekend have been eaten!  It is very disappointing, I had been bringing them in each night to save them from the frost and one morning my husband helped put the pots back out and left them low down where the rabbit could reach them.  When I went out to get the plants that night they had all been eaten. :(  

I'll start again this weekend.

Monday, April 2, 2012

Strange weather

After last week's beautiful weather we went to the garden centre and got some new pots and compost.  I spent a lovely afternoon repotting my sunflowers and a few more tomatoes (because the rabbit ate four of them!)


Today it has been much colder and snow and frost are forecast for most of the coming week so I've brought as many pots as I can indoors and I've put plastic cloches or polytunnels over everything else.


Annoyingly, I discovered that the naughty rabbit had chewed through my kiwi plant.  I'm really disappointed, it was looking good and now it is an unhappy 6 inch high twig.  I'll have to protect it and see if it recovers.

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