Nacktschnecken omlet Cube

[Christian]

Most decent garden centres should still have seed potatoes and onions sets available Bron.

 

Chard - I prefer to pop a small seed (they are actually seed clusters, so you may get more that one plant) into individual pots and top up with compost. Water well and leave somewhere warm.

 

I planted some swiss chard 'bright lights' last week and they are already tiny plants. Very quick growing.

When the roots start appearing at the bottom of the pot, plant out. Keep well watered as it can bolt if it gets too hot.

 

Pull the other leaves off and cook - or give to the hens and use the more tender leaves from the centre.

With a fleece in winter it will survive all year. I have chard from 3/4 years ago still.

[Cinnamon]

I loved growing Chard last year - its a very easy crop - but none of us liked eating the stuff

[ValerieR]

Same with me Sarah - couldn't give the stuff away! Easy to grow - just plant seeds under about half a centimetre and keep moist. Mine went straight in the ground this time last year and grew fast - and it is quite windy up in Scotland where I live!

[bronze]

aaahh just saw I said sewn not sown

 

I have to order online as don't drive and dh starts new job and is away during the week, we don't all fit in the car at weekends (yet roll on landy)

 

I love chard I use the leaves line spinach and the stalks in bolognese etc instead or as well as celery

[theherd123]

Today it was parsnip seedlings, corn salad, lollo rosso, spinach & courgette (thanks to Christian who was a little gem and sent me some) oh and I planted little gems too!

[welovemarmite]

Yesterday I planted some herbs, some chammomile seeds, some sage seeds, some mange tout seedlings, two sweetcorn plants and some carrot seedlings. Tried carrots before from seed but they didnt work so got some seedlings from the garden centre to give them ago.

 

I have some caulis in that I put in last autumn, they are all green and no sign of a head. Should there be something there by now? Think they may have failed in which case I may be feeding them to the chickens and trying to find something else to put there.

[Christian]

I have to order online as don't drive and dh starts new job and is away during the week, we don't all fit in the car at weekends (yet roll on landy)

 

I love chard I use the leaves line spinach and the stalks in bolognese etc instead or as well as celery

 

Bronze, I have way too many chard and perpetual spinach seeds if you need any? Drop me a pm?

[chickencam]

Your cauli's should be about to produce heads. if they are big healthy plants and if they are not then they would have run to seed with a small head by now. You should find that they are fine and soon you should be cropping.

[welovemarmite]

Yay, I will give them a bit longer then.....

[Guest]

are my seedlings as big as they should be? I started off as early as i could but not sure if I'm up to speed, other people seems way ahead

 

should i give them a 'chicken poo tea' boost?

 

I also want to plant more toms, is it too late?

 

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=211471&id=568396756&l=d4dda121fe

 

ignore the established stuff, it's the seedlings I'm concerned about, oh and my strawbs aren't flowring yet but other people's seem to be!

[Cinnamon]

Got my Sweetcorn seedlings in the gound today,had a good old weed of the beds & discovered that we probably have fat mice around here

 

Poet,you could try the Tomatoes,on a nice warm windowsill,& if they fail to thrive there is always the Farmers market or garden centre

Mine are just about ready to pot on now,& one batch have gone into the grow bags already.

I have way too many - shame you are so far away!

[sjp]

potted another 10 varieties of spuds tonight 16 tubers in all

[Guest]

thaks sarah, I'll sow more t'row and then find the sunniest windowsill, I want to do them from seed as it feels more of an achievement

[Christian]

Got my Sweetcorn seedlings in the gound today

 

How do you grow your sweetcorn Sarah? I planted 24 seeds in modules, covered with a lid and a brick - the mice eat everything here - and only 4 have come up Any top tips?

[Cinnamon]

Yeah,I grew mine in my porch - no mice in there

Althought the little horrors have taken the tops off of a lot of my seedlings in the garden

 

I didn't cover them, & they did take a long time to come up,but I got 24 out of 24,so really pleased with the result

[Couperman]

Another 54 pea plants put in toilet roll tubes last night.

 

I'm gonna sow my sweetcorn tonight in the heated propagator, every one came up last year they seem to like heat.

 

Kev.

[chickencam]

Sweetcorn does germinate better in a propagator, we have given up with expensive seed because we are lucky to have a local garden centre that do good veg plants. We have bought 2 lots of 12 so far and will buy some more when the weather warms up again. The ones that we have planted seem to be coping with the cooler conditions very well so far.

[Christian]

*adds propagator to birthday list*

 

Planted out some corn salad and rocket seeds today.

[Guest]

just sowed the rest of my tomato seeds; 100s and 1000s, Hildares, Marmande, Sub arctic plenty and harzfeuer...my tumbling seedlings are coming along nicely. With all that lot, if i don't get a decent crop this year then i'm giving up on toms!

[bronze]

Nothing today

I was meant to spend the day at the allotment but called to pick up dd instead who was being having swallowed blood after injuring herself.

I did order some seed potatos and some red onion sets in the middle of last night though and I will get my chard seeds (thanks c) planted tomorrow.

[squidsin]

That's interesting - I've sowed two batches of sweetcorn indoors in a propagator now, and both times, only a couple of the seedlings have come up. I've not tried sweetcorn before, is this a common problem then?

 

I think I am going to have to buy some tomato plants today as my chooks have eaten my seedlings!

 

I sowed early potatoes back in late Feb - red Duke of York - and the plants are massive now! Think I might be able to harvest in June and then I'll have that bed free again. What would be good to put in there - some kind of brassica?

[chickencam]

Brassicas would be good, or anything from the squash family.

 

Yesterday I sowed

 

loads of basil, purple, green and Thai

parsley

coriander

cummin (bought some seed, but might try some of the culinary seeds too, see if they would grow the same as an experiment) I haven't grown this as a herb before.

chervil

purple sprouting

Nero kale

calabrese

little gem lettuce

large cos letuce

Amazonka pumkins (cute little stripey orange ones)

butternut squash

courgette black beauty (Dig in free seed)

cucumber burpless tasty green (old seed so may not germinate)

and swede invitation and best of all.

 

Some of the seeds are in the house on the sunny kitchen window ledge some are in the greenhouse under lids. It is hard to know the best place for them so I thought that I would experiment. The kitchen will have a more even temperature and will not get so cold, although they have been cooking in the sun this morning.

 

I love sowing seeds, it is so exciting waiting for them to come up.

[ValerieR]

That's interesting - I've sowed two batches of sweetcorn indoors in a propagator now, and both times, only a couple of the seedlings have come up. I've not tried sweetcorn before, is this a common problem then?

 

I think I am going to have to buy some tomato plants today as my chooks have eaten my seedlings!

 

I sowed early potatoes back in late Feb - red Duke of York - and the plants are massive now! Think I might be able to harvest in June and then I'll have that bed free again. What would be good to put in there - some kind of brassica?

 

French beans and maincrop peas could go in in June .... and if you started them off in pots you could transplant courgettes or cauliflower or some kinds of cabbage into the plot I think (so my wee book tells me!)

 

Don't know about sweetcorn germination - I cheated last year and bought plug plants. I am not bothering this year as we didn't get enough sun to get the sweetcorn to ripen fully - they ended up like big "mini sweetcorn" ...

[ValerieR]

Quite a list chickencam you must have been at it for ages!

My purple sprouting all died - Saturday was really warm and I think it got too hot in the greenhouse - so back to the drawing board on that on!

I planted carrots and parsnips AGAIN yesterday - chickens ate the seedlings and what they didnt get was dug up by the cat

Also parsley

And planted up my hanging baskets which are now stashed in the greenhouse. (Bargain in Aldi - strip of petunias and bizzie lizzies - £1.69 each!)

[chickencam]

Did some purple top Milan turnips and some radishes at the allotment last night.

 

We also planted out our celeriac plants. We bought them this year as tiny plants from the garden centre, seperated them out and potted them on into 3" pots and they have grown on into really healthy plants. they are much better than anything that we have grown from seed in the past. I am really hopeful that this year even on our sandy soil we may get something bigger than a tennis ball We have about 40 plants so surely at least one shold get to the right size.

 

We planted out out first batch of pea plants too. We always grow them in pots at home about 6 to a 3" pot then plant them out when they are about 3 inches high. We just open up the group into a line and plant them in a row. We find that the mice just munch all the seed we do in the ground.

 

Considering the late season we are pretty up together now, we have even weeded the onions which we don't normally do until we can't see them.