Green original cube and walk-in run for sale

[sjp]

well I've finally ordered the rest of this years veg seeds

got the last of the seed spuds a couple of weeks back just got top sort out the ones from the display spuds that I need to keep for this year plus get no 2 spud bed dug with the aim of starting to plant them early April don't think 3rd weekend of March is a goer this year

I've finally got the first spud up in the pots in the greenhouse just 2 days short of the month since they were planted and 4 weeks till I need to hopefully harvest them at a potato event I'm helping out at

[mullethunter]

So far I have:-

 

Planted leek seeds - Musselburgh and a mix of 3 (just seen the first few poking through); planted tomatoes - Tumbling Tom and Gardeners Delight (1 Tumbling Tom poking through); Carrots - Nantes 5 and Autumn King 2; Early Purple Sprouting Broccoli; salad leaves; Peas - Alderman and Kelvedon Wonder. Potatoes chitting - Jazzy and Golden Wonder.

 

And sweet peas - they're about 5 inches tall and have a set of leaves unfurled.

[chickencam]

We are running behind again this year, need to crack on at the weekend

We have a few lettuce plants on the go and other leaves sown and 2 tomato plants (tumbler) in the greenhouse but that's it so far.

[sjp]

We are running behind again this year, need to crack on at the weekend

We have a few lettuce plants on the go and other leaves sown and 2 tomato plants (tumbler) in the greenhouse but that's it so far.

I'm just about on track with My digging now just got 2 one thirds of beds to clear and dig but they both have usable veg in them spud beds were fertilized Friday, cabbage bed limed Saturday so hopefully the rain today will have started to break that down might start planting the spuds this weekend or the Sunday after depends on how the weather is over the next week

just need to get motivated to start sowing seeds

[sjp]

started seed sowing Sunday and I've already got brassica seeds germinating just sown about 30 tomato varieties and an onion variety that I missed on Sunday

[sjp]

most of the brassica pots have seedlings in them germination is a bit varied through onions started to germinate Friday

this is a first for Me onions up in less than a week must be down to heating the propagators don't normally do that this time of year only if I start sowing in Feb or early March I've also left them only in the day time

[Daphne]

It all sounds good SJP I am frequently in awe of the sheer scale and variety of your produce growing, do you/your family eat it all or do you donate/sell it somewhere?

 

I shall be returning to my Portugal plot in about a fortnight, goodness knows what I am going to find, rampant wildflower and weeds wise. One of the things that comes up every year is camomile, I hate camomile tea and I don't know anything else to do with it. I expect to have to dig over all the beds, but it's usually not too difficult as the soil is quite free draining and loose after the rains. The thing I am more nervous about is whether the blossom on the fruit trees has been pollinated, or whether the rain came at the wrong time again.

 

Now, a question for you all. I heard on GQT today that it's the time to plant garlic. When do you all do it? For some reason I thought it was either November or February! Also Bob Flowerdew recommended Cosmic(?) potatoes as the best for chips. Has anybody tried them? I've never heard of them, not that that means anything.

[sjp]

It all sounds good SJP I am frequently in awe of the sheer scale and variety of your produce growing, do you/your family eat it all or do you donate/sell it somewhere? it's only me and the chickens

I grow a lot of varieties but not a lot of each one. Spud wise I average about 30 varieties but I only plant 3 tubes of each plus now I'm down to about 20 heritage/rare varieties again about 3 tubers of each but a lot of those is a case of just keeping them going. I do about 3 displays a year used to be 4, main of spuds but I also like to include different veg varieties to so folk what they can grow. with the brasicass I struggle with sprouts any way but not quite ready to give up on them I only grow between 15- 20 plants or each variety but probably on 5 or 6 are worth eating that getting better through. beans I partly grow for eating and partly for seed as I only grow old varieties that I can't get seed for so other that 2 or 3 varieties that I grow every year the rest get grown every 2 or 3 years just to keep the seed fresh

now I'm feeding them differently any that are not worth Me eating go to the chickens anyway. Onions and Leeks again it's about 20 plants of each variety slightly more for the leeks (as we suffer with allium leaf miner around here and I don't always get the netting over early enough) and again I either do really well with them or really poor

 

 

I shall be returning to my Portugal plot in about a fortnight, goodness knows what I am going to find, rampant wildflower and weeds wise. One of the things that comes up every year is camomile, I hate camomile tea and I don't know anything else to do with it. I expect to have to dig over all the beds, but it's usually not too difficult as the soil is quite free draining and loose after the rains. The thing I am more nervous about is whether the blossom on the fruit trees has been pollinated, or whether the rain came at the wrong time again.

 

Now, a question for you all. I heard on GQT today that it's the time to plant garlic. When do you all do it? For some reason I thought it was either November or February! Also Bob Flowerdew recommended Cosmic(?) potatoes as the best for chips. Has anybody tried them? I've never heard of them, not that that means anything.

Garlic I can't help with as I don't grow it. the only potato I know close to Cosmic is Cosmo chipping isn't listed as one of it's uses but as roasting is listed it might fry I think it was bred as a baker it's not one I've fried and it's been a while snice I've grown it. Innovator, Alverstone Russet, Dunbar Standard and Yukon Gold will make good chippers if you want lighter coloured ones think McCain's King Edward,Carolus and Cara if you want more of a chip shop type Cara needs to be stored I tend to use it from Christmas then if you want a darker chip go for Rooster or one of the other latter reds plus pink fir apple makes very good chips there's also a new one called Camel it's a red and through not supposed to be a fryer I found it made very good chips and very smooth dry mash it's not yet available as seed for domestic gardeners I think it might be in the shops this year I was lucky enough to get a few samples back in February

[Alis girls]

Daphne are you blond? You can rinse your hair in camomile.

I seem to have got confused with my Omleteers. I have got some healthy looking garlic growing but not sure if it will produce bulbs. I was telling OH that someone on forum grows great pumpkins , courgettes and garlic (SJP) i thought. Now not so sure. Read the bit on beans and thought drat as I have potted mine.

Any one got any tips on rhubarb?

[Daphne]

Sadly not blonde, although possibly if I alternate it with a lemon rinse......

 

Rhubarb likes a bit of moisture in the soil, some sun and good fertility, so dig in compost or similar when you first plant it. You can top up with a bit more annually if you want, tho I don't bother, and you can put down a mulch in Spring if the site is a bit on the dry side to lock in moisture (but better to plant where it is moist in the first place if at all possible). If it likes its situation it will come up year after year for you

 

I am looking after a neighbour's veg patch and chooks for a week. The good news is I am going to get a small snack of about 6 asparagus spears on Friday if I'm lucky The beds are about 8 years old now, nice and productive, but I know my neighbour struggles with the weeding, trying not to disturb the crowns.

 

Thanks for the info SJP, I expect BF said Cosmo, not Cosmic. Of the others you suggest I know I like Yukon Gold. GQT also had a bit on blight and toms, and the panel agreed whilst nothing is consistently resistant they said small fruited toms, and early fruiting toms were sometimes a better bet, and Crimson Crush (I think) and Pink Brandywine were 2 quite good varities against it.

[sjp]

Rhubarb is a low maintenance plant once established it should grow 'wild' just cover it with rotted muck or garden compost late winter just before or as the shoots start to appear and pick it regularly upto late June Early July for most varieties the very early ones like Stockbridge Arrow you might get a month or so out of them before the flour goes there are a few late varieties that you can pick up to late August Early September was out at a potato planting day Saturday and their Rhubarb was a good 2 weeks a head at least and all ready had a flower spike up which is a worry this early in the season the early one was quite nice to eat but had no acidity

 

GQT also had a bit on blight and toms, and the panel agreed whilst nothing is consistently resistant they said small fruited toms, and early fruiting toms were sometimes a better bet, and Crimson Crush (I think) and Pink Brandywine were 2 quite good varities against it. the early ones tend to be bland never known small fruited ones or any of the brandywine's to have much resistance but it does depend on the strain of blight we get

best defense against blight is good ventilation. blight needs around 80% humidity and a temp of about 21 degrees to 'activate'. first off I leave the greenhouse door open 24/7 from late June till October then once the first truss has set remove all the leaves below it and the do the same for the next 2 trusses come August you can remove all up to the last truss don't feed them with a high nitrogen feed and don't over water. and I stop feeding come mid August and only water enough to keep the alive to encourage the fruit to ripen if a plants growing well it want bother to ripen the fruit if it thinks it's going to die then it'll want to protect it's seeds so will ripen the fruit

[mullethunter]

I planted my pea seedlings out at lunch time, and they've already wrapped their little tendrils around the mesh

[Luvachicken]

I planted my pea seedlings out at lunch time, and they've already wrapped their little tendrils around the mesh

 

I love how they do that

 

I bought some very cheap clematis from Morrisons last year - £1.50 - and hadn't really expected them to survive but there they were, both scrambling across the ground, so I got them a bit of trellis each - not so cheap - and they too are wrapping themselves around it

Now to see if I get any flowers later.

[chickencam]

Finally have cleared last year's stuff from the allotment and rotovated one area, potatoes and carrots scheduled for this week. Really need to catch up this year!

[sjp]

I should (hopefully ) finish planting the spuds tomorrow and get the parsnips and some of the carrots sown.

potted up the brassicas yesterday and today and made a start on the onions might be able to start potting on some of the tomatoes latter in the week and it looks like only 6 varieties are going to fail plus I think I've lost one to damping off. another bad year for sweetcorn germination so far only one out of 25 have germinated that's the worst I've done I really hope We get access to USA seed post Brexit so I can get some good sweetcorn varieties again. I'll also need to resow the golden beetroot again 2nd year running that's performed badly that's 3 lots of fresh seed that's failed this year might be 4 if the one pot of leeks don't come through this week as I've also had a pot of sprouts fail wouldn't be so bad if the pot of minicole cabbage seed hadn't been a 100% germination from 3 or 4 year old seed and swede seed 100% from 2 year old seed

[mullethunter]

Second earlies (Jazzy) are in and have just popped heir heads up - will need to earth up mid week for chilly nights. Sprouting broc still in where the main crop are going but almost finished. As well as a few peas (Alderman and Kelvedon Wonder) mentioned earlier, carrots in a trough (Nantes 5) have been sown, sprouted and mostly eaten by slugs, parsnips (Gladiator) I sowed yesterday. Potted on Brussels and sprouting broc today. Had to put tomatoes (Gardners Delight) in the small unheated greenhouse as I had no room anywhere else, but have kept 2 (1 tumbling Tom) on the kitchen windowsill as an insurance policy. More peas and runner beans sown and in bags on the living room windowsill to germinate. This is the second attempt for runners - the first were old seed and did nothing.

 

On the Tumbling Tom, it's about 8 inches tall and is growing a little set of flowers! Should I pinch them out?

[sjp]

Second earlies (Jazzy) are in and have just popped heir heads up - will need to earth up mid week for chilly nights. Sprouting broc still in where the main crop are going but almost finished. As well as a few peas (Alderman and Kelvedon Wonder) mentioned earlier, carrots in a trough (Nantes 5) have been sown, sprouted and mostly eaten by slugs, parsnips (Gladiator) I sowed yesterday. Potted on Brussels and sprouting broc today. Had to put tomatoes (Gardners Delight) in the small unheated greenhouse as I had no room anywhere else, but have kept 2 (1 tumbling Tom) on the kitchen windowsill as an insurance policy. More peas and runner beans sown and in bags on the living room windowsill to germinate. This is the second attempt for runners - the first were old seed and did nothing.

 

On the Tumbling Tom, it's about 8 inches tall and is growing a little set of flowers! Should I pinch them out?

how old were the runner bean seed? I use seed up to about 5 years old with no problem. they don't like to be in to wet a compost and don't like to much warmth

on tip on spuds planting them in ground that has had cabbage/sprouts etc in the year or 2 before you increase the chance of common scab in nearly all spuds and more or less guarantee it in Maris Piper, the rotation should really be the other way round

[chickencam]

This thread is making me feel better, maybe we are not so behind. All of the planting areas are prepared now so a frantic week ahead.

[mullethunter]

The bean seeds were to sow before end 2014. They were in the utility room at about 15 degrees in compost that to be honest I thought was too dry.

 

Thanks for the tip on the spuds - I still have other space- maybe I'll rethink my plans.

[sjp]

This thread is making me feel better, maybe we are not so behind. All of the planting areas are prepared now so a frantic week ahead.

don't forget mullethunter is in Cornwall so should be a head of us in the Midlands and it's still only mid April. personally I don't even think of planting out anything other than spuds and sowing carrots and parsnips until the end of May. We had 2 hard frosts here last year in early May with at least on night down to -1 just as the first earliers started to come through after sulking for nearly 8 weeks that's partly why I've delayed the spud planting this year by nearly 3 weeks to a month

seed in the greenhouse got started more or less the same time as last year but with the exception of a few germinated very quickly and in most cases 90-100% germination. most be a good year as tomato Ildi has germinated at the first attempt and all the seed germinated it renowned as a hard variety to germinate this seed is about 3 years old as well, it's new seed I'm having fail mainly the sweetcorn seed has gone mouldy and rotten in the compost yet again the seed looked to dry

[Luvachicken]

It was only 1 deg here at 7 am today so watch out for those little planties.

[mullethunter]

Should I pinch out the flowers that are already forming on my foot tall TumblingTom tomato plant?

[sjp]

Should I pinch out the flowers that are already forming on my foot tall TumblingTom tomato plant?

no need to, Tumbling Tom is a bush type tomato which only reaches about a foot high and spread about the same

[sjp]

started to pot on the Toms yesterday I've only had 4 varieties fail out of 28 and they were old seed that I only planted on the off chance. also found at least 6 or 7 seedlings that had only germinated in the last couple of days in pots that had plants in that are 3 or 4 weeks old only got 4 rogue seedling so far this year through

[mullethunter]

A few of the original runners have actually germinated after over two weeks!