I spent today working from my favourite office...
... and a very productive day it was too.
The shop-bought tomato plants have romped away; shirley and sweet million in particular have been potted on into their final pots.
Lagging waaaaaay behind are my home-sown red pear and gardener's delight; these are the only tomatoes that germinated so I am determined to keep them healthy so that they produce well later in the year.
In other late germination news, I have one cape gooseberry seedling... it's teeny tiny at the moment, but again, I will do everything I can to make sure it grows.
Hopefully we are over the freezing cold weather now, so things will start to warm up and therefore speed up.
The first of the cucurbits appeared a few days ago and there are now four courgette seedlings, but sadly no cucumbers yet.
I have gone back to the original varieties of peas, beans and sweetcorn that I grew in my first year; these modules and pots contain golden sweet yellow podded mange tout, cherokee trail of tears beans and double standard bicolour sweetcorn.
I also sowed a few of my favourite 'heading' lettuces, lollo rossa and little gem as well as a variety of mixed salad leaves including rocket, mizuna, mesclun and a spicy mix, so will soon be picking rather than buying lettuce for the dinner table.
Outside, the onions, shallots and garlic that I planted out a couple of weeks or so ago are starting to show signs of growth.
But there is no sign of the beetroot or leeks that I sowed direct at the same time... maybe due to the frost that followed shortly after, maybe not... it might just be too soon.
I also got a fair bit of sorting and tidying done; including going through all of my seed packets and disposing of the partially used sachets from 3+ years ago. I feel as if I have almost caught up with where I need to be at this point in the season... long may the good weather continue!
Well, it's been go go go for the past couple of weekends in the garden... I finally feel like I have regained some type of order; the raised beds around the back have been weeded and are now planted up or sown with a variety of produce
Around the front, the first sowings of carrots and beetroot are coming along nicely (in spite of next door's cat thinking the raised beds are there for his benefit!!)...
... and the courgettes I planted out over the bank holiday have done well without the recommended week of hardening off. Treat 'em mean I say, makes them tougher!
In the background, the greenhouse has been cleaned out and hopefully all slugs & snails have been eradicated from their little hiding places... just need to keep on top of it now so that they don't get a chance to take over again.
It's been ages... not posted since January; so far this year it's been a slow process but hopefully things are looking up with the weather and it shouldn't take too long to catch up.
So, what's doing well?
I have a fine selection (if a bit slug & snail munched!) of courgette, pumpkin & squash in the greenhouse; some of the larger ones should be ready for planting out soon.
Cucumbers and a couple of watermelon plants are also coming along nicely.
Tomotoes are coming into their own after a very slow start.
There is a very fine tray of various lettuce needing to be planted out...
... a few peppers and a couple of cape gooseberries coming up behind everything else.
The potatoes (for Easter) clearly didn't arrive in time, but they are looking quite healthy; I doubt they will be ready yet, but I might have a bit of a rummage in the sacks to see what's there.
And finally, there are loads of flowers on the strawberries so hopefully that means there will be lots of fruit.
There is still a lot to be done though; haven't sown any peas or beans yet, only have a few brassicas, sweetcorn germination was very poor so need to resow, not sown any leeks, parsnips or turnips either as it's been too cold... I am going to be very busy for the next few weeks!
So, here it is... my end of year review. First things first, lets get the disappointments out of the way:
Beetroot - what on earth happened there? I had new varieties, burpees golden and chioggia to try but they came to nothing more or less; partly because next door's cat thought that the freshly sown bed was put there for his benefit, but even subsequent sowings were poor. Old faithful boltardy did better, but I still didn't get as many as I should have done.
Brassicas - the less said about these the better; I'm not even going to detail them separately as absolutely nothing grew.
Broad beans - my first proper attempt was devastated by blackfly.
Courgettes - not a single fruit formed on any plants... actually, that's not strictly true; there were a couple but they just shrivelled up, and I have never failed to grow courgettes before.
Cucumbers - after the first couple the plants just seemed to give up so I also gave in and pulled them up.
Herbs - failed to germinate... end of story.
That's enough of that, now onto the good stuff.
I had more berries than previous years; a constant supply throughout the summer, from strawberries
to raspberries
and blackberries
Onions were spectacular
and tomatoes were consistent; they kept cropping until November
This year I also kept a tally of how much it would have cost to buy all of the fruit and veg that I produced; excluding the few things that never made it to the kitchen scales the grand total was.....
... drumroll
... £115.85 and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. I'm under no illusions that I'm near self-sufficient (especially not this year), or have broken-even but still, it means I didn't spend it on produce.
The highlights were:
Potatoes £29.00
Tomatoes £15.31
Parsnips £10.55
Raspberries £8.62
Onions £8.54
Peppers £8.48
Strawberries £8.29
So, onwards and upwards to 2013 and next season!
Today has been a good day... the sun was shining and I harvested a mighty fine haul from the garden.
Emptied the first sack of very pretty bonnie potatoes; this is the first time I have grown this variety and am very pleased with the results
A lovely selection of beetroot had reached picking size, so they came up
Tomatoes are ripening quite frequently now, so this is what gets picked on almost a daily basis
I have never been known for patience and my lack of it got the better of me today; I've been admiring the foliage on the parsnips and wondering what was happening under the ground so pulled one up
I should also be harvesting cucumbers and courgettes right now but it just isn't happening; so far I have only had 3 cucs and the plants aren't producing anything else so I made the decision to put them out of their misery and pull them up. On the courgette front I have not had a single one... I'll probably end up pulling them up as well, but saw a ray of hope on one of the plants this afternoon so will give them another week or so.
But, I don't want to finish on a negative so here are first blackberries of the year
It may only be a grand total of 3 at the moment, but there are loads more just about to turn so watch this space...
Very successful germination of cucurbits has taken place in the greenhouse; 3 black beauty
2 tondo di toscana and 2 zucchini
I'm still waiting for the all green bush and gold rush to show. In cucumber news, 4 mini-whites have germinated
Even the outdoor wonder melons have come through; although I've managed to get them to the flower stage before but never got them to fruit... this year we shall see
I am waaaay behind on where I want to be with my sowing schedule, but there was a frost last night and the local council has tweeted that the gritters will be out tonight so I'm still a bit wary about doing too much if the weather is against me. It is difficult though when the sun is shining like it has been most of today.
So, I did a little bit more sowing, and everything is in the greenhouse so fingers crossed.
I opened up my brand new seed packets of baby brassicas: matsuri (broccoli), ruby perfection (cabbage) and fremont (cauliflower). The idea behind these is that they will take up less room than the varieties I have previously grown. I also sowed calabrese, evesham special sprouts and dwarf green curled kale.
Courgettes were also started off today, 12 in all, a mixture of black beauty, gold rush, all green bush, tondo di toscana and zucchini. Now, I am not expecting all 12 to flourish on my plot. I don't have the room to grow that many plants to maturity, plus as much as I love them there is no way this household could cope with the number of courgettes that this many plants would produce. If they do all germinate (which is unlikely) friends and family lookout as you may find homeless plants appearing on your doorsteps.
I finished off today with a couple of butternut squash, a couple of hunter squash and a couple of outdoor wonder melons. I have never managed to produce a single melon and every year I try one variety or another, so I'm hoping that this will be the year for me.
... and it's a bigun!
I did actually let this one grow on purpose, unlike previous specimens which caught me by surprise.
I didn't notice any smaller ones on any of the plants so I think this might be it now.
I'll leave the plants in the ground until I need the space just in case there are a few late arrivals.
I did a quick run round the garden yesterday evening and this was the veggie haul
It included the first picking of baby sweetcorn, although I think I left them a bit late so they are slightly bigger than they should be
I also picked a handful or so of blackberries; these have been ripening for the past couple of weeks
I'm sure the courgettes are hiding... I check them pretty much every day but then every now and again come across one that cannot have been there the day before. A case in point last week
And last month
As per the last couple of years, courgettes have been producing really well; they are currently being included with every meal and my freezer already has a few portions ready for winter cooking. They are great thrown in a bolognese.
The trug is out of hibernation as today is the first day I have harvested a selection of produce.
The onion leaves started to bend over a week or so ago which I think means they are just about ready to be picked.
I don't think the weather has been warm enough to pull them up and dry them out so they are still in the ground apart from this one, the biggest one.
The carrot was also in the onion bed... don't know how, but one solitary seed found it's way in there, germinated and grew.
I picked the courgette smaller than normal as it should encourage others to follow. Similarly with the mange tout, the more regularly you pick the more prolific the plants.
This is also the first picking of redcurrants and blackcurrants; the bushes are surrounded and overshadowed by the strawberries that ran and rooted themselves and the raspberries that I forgot (or rather left it too late) to cut down last season, but are still managing to crop quite well.
First courgettes...
First buds and open flowers on the cape gooseberries
First tomatoes
First mange tout
