Summer Sowing

Once again my good intentions to sow successionally have fallen by the wayside, so today I attempted to rectify that by sowing a selection of lettuce (reine de glaces, little gem, romaine ballon and romana bougival), chicory, wild rocket, spring onions, chinese cabbage, calabrese and autumn king carrots. I'm about a month behind with the carrots so will just have to wait and see if anything comes up. It would be fantastic to have some to pull up on Christmas day.

On that subject, the potatoes for Christmas are coming along nicely; the plants are now peeking over the top of their sacks and looking very healthy

I gave them one last topping up with compost so they should be okay outside for a while yet.

Today's harvest made for a very pretty trug so I thought I'd share a picture of that too

I have decided that the peppers are actually sweet banana... I saw some similar plants in the garden centre today and they look exactly the same, plus the description that they ripen to orange then red was exactly what mine have done.

Similarly, I think that the orange chilli peppers are cheyenne because I saw them in the garden centre too... mystery solved.

Making the most of the spring sunshine

I have been making the most of the recent good weather and luckily had a few a few days away from work so have been able to spend a lot of time in the garden.

Yesterday I planted out a row each of peas and mange tout into the raised bed. My cunning trick to stop the slugs and snails was to scatter vermiculite around them. I'm sure they won't like crawling over that to get the goodies and it seems to have worked last night anyway.

I was also pleased to see that 6 of the minipop seeds have germinated in the greenhouse.

First thing this morning I continued with planting out...

... brassicas; evesham special, raab and all year round are now located in the raised bed, protected by cabbage collars for the root fly and a net for the butterfly... the last thing I want is them laying their eggs all over the plants.

... and onions; kamal and sweet spanish have now been planted in the bed with the shallots and leeks (that have yet to make an appearance). Talking of onions, the pickling kind; barletta and purplette have germinated in their separate bulb crate.

 I also did a fair bit of sowing today, undercover:

• Brussels Sprout (Red Delicious) x 5
• Brussels Sprout (Evesham Special) x 2
• Broccoli (Green Heading Calabrese) x 3
• Broccoli (Early Purple Sprouting) x 1
• Cauliflower (Autumn Giant) x 2
• Cabbage (Savoy) x 2
• French Beans (Cherokee Trail of Tears) x 8
• French Beans (Cherokee Trail of Tears) x 8 that I saved myself a couple of years ago
• Peas (Golden Sweet Yellow Mangetout) x 8

Outdoors I sowed:

• Chard (White Silver 2) x 1 row in the raised bed
• Lambs Lettuce in a trough
• Spring Onion (Ishikura) x 1 row in a bulb crate
• Spring Onion (White Lisbon) x 1 row in a bulb crate

and planted the first batch of main crop potatoes (Rooster) into potato bags.

Elsewhere, the pea shoots are coming along nicely:

... so I decided to sow another batch of those in the greenhouse, but the herbs could be doing better, so I direct sowed the following in various containers outdoors; rosemary, chives, sage, mint, thyme, parsley, basil, dill, chervil and coriander.

Heading lettuces are also growing well:

I was tempted to plant them out too because quite a few of the roots are already showing through the bottom of the pots. I managed to stop myself, but did sow 3 Romana Bougival seeds, which is a new variety for me.

I think I managed to cover all the vegetable groups so all in all a very productive couple of days.

A few seedlings and a bit more sowing

Yesterday was very busy outdoors, and the weather didn't disappoint so I was a very happy gardener. I started off by doing a bit of tidying up and a check on my seedlings; garlic, rocket and brassicas are coming on quite nicely now:

Only two of my herb pots have germinated; coriander and dill:

I can't work out why things are taking so much longer than previous years. I usually have pepper and tomato seedlings by now, but my first sowings have so far yielded 2 gardeners delight, a red cherry and no peppers :-(...

... at least there is still time to sow some more if needed - I'll check if there is any more movement by the weekend and make a decision then.

In terms of new sowings, the greenhouse now contains:

• Peas (Feltham First) x 8
• Peas (Golden Sweet Yellow Mangetout) x 8
• Lettuce (Reine De Glaces) x 3
• Lettuce (Little Gem) x 3
• Lettuce (Lollo Rossa) x 3
• Tomato (Garden Pearl) x 4
• Tomato (Costoluto Fiorentino) x 4

Outside I sowed:

• Leeks (Autumn Mammoth 2 - Snowstar) 1 row in the raised bed
• Mizuna & Mixed Lettuce scattered together in a bulb crate
• Spring Onion (Ishikura) 1 row in a bulb crate
• Spring Onion (White Lisbon) 1 row in a bulb crate
• Pickling Onions (Barletta) 3 rows in a bulb crate
• Pickling Onions (Purplette) 3 rows in a bulb crate

There are a few new things here that I am trying this year; Lollo Rossa is a pretty looking lettuce and Costoluto Fiorentino will be the first beef tomatoes I have grown. Barletta and Purplette are part of my master plan for storing my produce so I am really looking forward to seeing how they turn out.

Whilst my mange tout has always been a great cropper, I have not had success with harvesting regular peas in the past... I either pick them too early when they are very tiny even though the pods look fat, or let them go too long and they turn yellow, maybe I just need to pay a bit more attention to them.

On my way back inside I noticed a bit of green action on the raspberry canes:

Couldn't help but smile at the thought of picking them in the autumn... they are always delicious.