Big Gardening Weekend...

... that's what I'm planning anyway. For starters I have:

• lettuce to sow
• lettuce to plant out
• brassicas to plant out
• tomatoes to pot on and/or plant out
• chillies to pot on
• sweet peppers to pot on
• squash to pot on
• melons to pot on
• courgettes to plant out
• cucumbers to pot on and/or plant out
• peas and beans to plant out (and work out why some of the ones already planted out appear to be dying)
• sweetcorn to plant out
• a raised bed that needs clearing
• a fruit bed that needs weeding
• nematodes to spread... that will teach those damn slugs!

I wonder how much of that I will get done.

Fruity Friday

I have been picking strawberries for a week or so now and there are plenty left on the plants waiting to ripen. This was this evening's pickings along with the first of the raspberries

I decided to take a slow wander around the garden to see how the rest of the fruits are coming along, so here a few photos of apples

pears

plums

cherries

redcurrants (with a few blackberries sneaking into shot)

and the surprise of the evening... cranberries

...okay, so not enough to make a jar of sauce but I'm happy all the same. Last year's attempt produced nothing.

Cucurbits

Cucurbits are taking over the greenhouse; I have a newly germinated all green bush courgette and gherkin, both sown on Easter Sunday

3 newly germinated outdoor wonder melons, sown on Easter Saturday. I'm still waiting for the hunter squash to put in an appearance

5 courgettes (3 black beauty, 1 tondo di toscana, 1 gold rush) and 4 cucumbers (2 marketmore, 1 marketer, 1 mini-white) are ready to be potted on

3 yellow scallop squash and 3 jack o'lantern pumpkins are ready to be planted out

I have already planted out an all green bush courgette and 2 slangen longoda cucumbers

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

Potatoes

I sowed my main crop potatoes over the Easter / Bank Holiday period; desiree, which I have never tried before. They are in potato sacks like the earlier sown spuds, which have already pushed through the soil.

These are the charlottes, which will need topping up with compost soon

And these are the sharpe's express, which I have topped up since taking the photos