Big Gardening Weekend - The Results

Where does the time go? It didn't help that today was almost a complete washout... this is how I performed against the plan:

lettuce to sow - nope

lettuce to plant out - yes, a selection of little gem and reines de glaces now reside in the wicker bed

brassicas to plant out - sort of... well, 50% of the ones I intended to plant out have been; 2 romanesca nautalino, 3 flower sprout and 2 savoy cabbages are now in a raised bed. The rest are still in the potting shed.

tomatoes to pot on and/or plant out - yes, 4 moneymaker have joined a slangen longoda and a mini-white in the reusable growbags

chillies to pot on - yes, all done... no photos though.

sweet peppers to pot on - yes, all done and they are flowering / bearing fruit already

squash to pot on - nope, but on closer inspection they didn't need to be

melons to pot on - again nope, but didn't to be

courgettes to plant out - yes, the final all green bush is now planted outside. Had to dispose of one of the earlier ones though and I'm not sure if it was a tondo di toscana or a gold rush... as I only had one of each of these might have to resow a couple of each.

cucumbers to pot on and/or plant out - yep, see mini-white above... the other ones, marketmore, marketer and a gherkin aren't actually ready to go out yet.

peas and beans to plant out (and work out why some of the ones already planted out appear to be dying) - nope, urgently need to to this during the week, but the good news is the earlier ones seem to be perking up.

sweetcorn to plant out - yes, all done

a raised bed that needs clearing - yes, this is where the newly planted brassicas are.

a fruit bed that needs weeding - yes, and I also put down some straw to hopefully keep the remaining strawberries clean.

nematodes to spread... that will teach those damn slugs! - oh yes, all out war has begun.

Legumes

My first sowing of mange tout have been planted out into one of the new raised beds in the front garden

They were joined by my first sowing of delikata peas in a reusable growbag

French beans had a bit of a shaky start; I sowed 10 each of delinel and gold dukkat just over a week ago and left them on the staging in the greenhouse... the next morning I came down to this

I suspect it was a mouse as they tend to go for these types of seeds... I posted a quick query on the veggie forum to see if fellow gardeners agreed with my suspicions and some people suggest chitting the seeds before sowing or covering them in something that mice don't like e.g. mustard or paraffin!! 

Anyway, once I got over the fact that there had been a mouse (or mice) in my greenhouse, I popped the damaged ones back in the modules and added a new seed to each, before moving them into the potting shed on a higher shelf (just in case).

It didn't take long for them to germinate and some of the damaged ones have also survived as some of the modules have 2 seedlings poking out

I thought I may as well do another sowing of all legumes, so a couple of days later resowed all of the above along with old faithful cherokee trail of tears; these are also pushing their heads out of the compost in record time

April Showers

While the rain has been taking a break from falling from the sky I've been doing a little bit of tinkering outside and moving things around this morning.

The slugs were back in the greenhouse last night and had a real go at the cucurbits...

...to the point where I decided to sow some more gherkin and marketmore just to be on the safe side. The yellow scallop squash seems to have stood firm and only have slight nibble marks. The all green bush courgette had only recently appeared through the compost and were still under a propagator lid, so managed to escape attack.

While I was at it though I also sowed another courgette as one of the earlier ones failed to germinate.

On a more positive note, things are looking up with my tomatoes, I have 3 newly germinated costoluto fiorentino and 3 newly germinated garden pearl... it's still very early days and a couple of them are very weak, but considering I have around 40 modules on another shelf failing to germinate at all, I'm happy with what I can get.

The surprise tomato seedling from last week was also standing to attention and waiting to be potted on. I think it is sub-arctic plenty, but I'll just wait and see if it makes it through to maturity.

The mange tout are looking quite perky in the guttering...

... still a bit small to be planted out yet, plus a couple of years ago when I planted them out the first week in April it snowed the next day! They survived and went on to produce a magnificent crop, but it was still scary at the time.

In the raised bed I could just about see the shallots starting to send up shoots... about time, they seem to have just been sitting doing nothing for weeks.

Anyway, it does look like the sun is trying to come out now, so maybe I'll venture back outside in a bit

Slug Wars

So, what was supposed to be a quick visit outside this morning to work out my tasks for the next few days turned into all out war!

Silvery trails and munched leaves in the greenhouse were evidence that those slimy little critters have been dining out on my seedlings.

One of my poor little mini-whites has been munched when it was only half-way up through the compost, still with the seed casing attached - who knows if that will grow now?!

So, I undertook a search and destroy exercise... hiding under pots and in one of the propagators I found 6 slugs and one snail happily sleeping off their night-time feast. Unfortunately I dropped one of the slugs on the gravel and couldn't find him so he lives to munch another day.

One impudent snail was slowly making its way across the window frame in broad daylight - at least the others had the decency to hide.

To be honest though, I think I got off quite lightly... everything in the greenhouse is still very young and vulnerable and could have easily been decimated if there had been more of the little pests. They must have just been getting started.