Fusion of the Seasons

Let's face it, for most of us, the weather has been glorious - more like summer than spring.  Some years summer is nowhere near as good as spring is at the moment.

So, what have I been up to during the past week?  More seed sowing I'm afraid - I have had to erect my new mini-greenhouse to take the overspill.

I am hardening off my broad beans in there ready for planting out very shortly.  But mainly, I have been thinking about winter crops - seems a bit crazy thinking 9 months ahead, but Brassicas need a long growing season.

Nero di Toscana Kale

Sprouting Broccoli Red Arrow

Calabrese Sampson



Cauliflower Romanesco

All of the above have been sown, plus ordinary Cauliflower, Early Purple Sprouting and Curly Kale.

More beetroot and chards

Bright Lights Chard

White Silver Chard



Burpees Golden Beetroot

I wont be sowing any summer cabbage this year as there is always plenty of other veg around and the cabbages tend to get left in favour of beans.

Can't stay long - the warm sunshine beckons.
Is anyone else thinking ahead to sowing for winter?

Before I forget, I should like to thank Jane at Tidy Gardens by Jane check out her blog here for passing on an Award to me


When I have time I will pass this on to 7 deserving bloggers plus give you a few previously unknown facts about myself.  Watch this space.  Thanks Jane.

Sowing Sparingly

What have I been doing every afternoon this week - seed sowing - that's what.  Trying to catch up after my holiday.  Of course there's no rush - it's just that I like to get a few things underway in March - little and often is my sowing motto.

Boltardy Beetroot

This morning I sowed a row of parsnips and beetroot in the allotment garden

Tender and True Parsnip

The trick is not to sow too many at a time.  I try and space them thinly so that I don't have the job of thinning them later on.  It is quite easy with the larger seeds like parsnips and beetroot, but a little more difficult with carrots, say, as the seed is quite small.  I will sow more beetroot each month till July so that I have a continuous crop right through the year.  Then, to extend the season, I will sow some in containers, that I can bring them in to the greenhouse when the weather gets colder again.   That's the theory anyway.

I have sown five types of lettuce in modules, three to each station:-
   

 

Iceberg, Little Gem, Webbs Wonderful, Lobjoits Green Cos and All the Year Round.  The first four are crispy lettuce, All the Year Round is a Butterhead.  I love the crispness of  the first four but will grow salad leaves as well to mix in with the others to give different textures and colours on the plate. I tend to use each lettuce by breaking off the leaves rather than pull the whole plant - that way they keep growing and producing more leaves.  Lettuce do over winter well , so I will keep sowing little and often right through the year, giving the plants protection later on.  Even in summer I protect them with some shading mesh when it gets too hot.

Lettuce look pretty good in the flower garden too, used as edging plants - and if they bolt, and throw up spires, they look even prettier.


The last job for today was to transplant Broccoli and Cauliflower seedlings which now have two true leaves.  So far I have transplanted a dozen of each, but again, I intend doing a bit of succession sowing.  Broccoli did well for me last year, enabling me to pick for quite a few weeks.  But with Cauliflower it is best to harvest them quite small as they all produce heads at the same time.

So, I am slowly getting to grips with the growing season, Leeks have been transplanted , more Broad beans and Peas sown, and  a row of Charlotte potatoes put in the ground - I feel I am making a little progress at last.  If this weather holds and I am able to carry on doing a bit every day I'll be a happy bunny.

There's a Whole Lot of Sowing Going On!

It's that time of year again - but, I seem to be a little behind with my seed sowing.  I can't get myself into gear and get on with it.  You know how it is - I have just come back from holiday and feel all relaxed - now I need to rev up and get cracking.  So - after inspecting everything in the greenhouse to check on progress whilst we have been away - I sowed some more peas (Douce Provence) and broad beans (Aguadulce) and three types of dwarf bean (Rondo, Delinel and Tendergreen).  Only half of the pink flowered broad beans germinated, the rest rotted in the pot, due in part I think to over-enthusiastic watering. 

Broad bean - Karamyzn

Add caption

Peas - Hurst Green Shaft

The tomatoes are coming along fine, snug in their mini-greenhouse within the big greenhouse - I still have the Black Russian to sow yet, but I am leaving those for a while so I get a later crop.



Tomatoes - mixed

 And the Anya potatoes are just poking through



Anya potatoes

Anya

And except for a few herbs, that is all I have done so far


Chervil - Bronze Fennel - Sorrel and Hyssop

 How are you getting on with your seed sowing?

A Bounty of Beans

Now is the time to start thinking about sowing my first batch of Dwarf or French Beans.  I like to extend the growing season by having a few plants in containers in the greenhouse.  They come in all shapes and sizes each having their own special flavour.  I particularly like pencil thin beans, slim pods that hang in bunches from low-growing plants.  'Delinel' is a French 'filet' bean with a distinct flavour and heavy yield.

Delinel

I won't be sowing outdoors till late April/early May, once the soil has warmed up and the chance of frosts is less.  The thing about sowing in pots is that you have to make sure the seeds don't rot in the wet compost.  To make sure this doesn't happen I mix in equal amounts of perlite to compost - this ensures the soil is free-draining.


Prince

 Each year I add a different variety to my collection - last year it was 'The Prince' which is a heavy-cropper with good flavour - this year it is 'Delinel' - of which I have heard good reports, but beans come in a few different colours to add a bit of interest.

Purple Teepee

Mont D'Or

After the initial sowing - if I can remember - I will sow a few beans each month outdoors from April to July - to get a continuation of crops.  If I sow them at 2in. intervals it means that I can thin out the weaker ones and also if the slugs decide to make a meal of them I will still have enough left for good crops.  Dwarf beans only produce for a short period so it is important to make several sowings.

It helps to pick the beans regularly when they are small, as soon as the beans start showing in the pods they become tough and stringy, and it helps to keep the plants producing.  All the beans require is a good, rich, soil and plenty of water.

Towards the end of the season I will plant some in pots in the greenhouse again to extend cropping into October.  I can't ever remember having a bad season with French Beans, as, unlike runner beans, they are self-fertile and don't rely on pollination.

August 2011

When do you start sowing your French Beans?

All photos Google images except the last one

February Round-Up

As you can see from the photograph the allotment crops have just about all gone.  Half a row of perpetual spinach has survived, a couple of cabbages and the psb which didn't weather the winter very well at all.

The bottom leaves have dried out completely but there are a few flower heads

not enough for a complete meal though - I am seriously considering not bothering to grow it again - for the amount of time it is in the ground and how many meals you get from it - I don't think it is value for money.

This is the last Savoy cabbage

and this is the last January King - when they have both been eaten, that's it - nothing left.  What you might call  the 'hungry gap' has begun.

I did pull the last of the Parsnips and Carrots at the weekend as they were starting to regrow I will store them in dry earth till needed or maybe even cook and freeze them for later.

The last crops from 2011 - altogether I am quite pleased with the harvests from last years' sowings - because of this blog I now have good records of what did well and not so well, I will learn from the mistakes made, over-sowings, under-sowings etc. and adjust quantities accordingly.  In previous years before I started this blog about veggie growing I had to rely on my memory, which isn't very good at the best of times.

Hopefully, this year I will remember to do repeat sowings at the right time and try to extend cropping where possible.  I haven't had too many disappointments - most crop failures have been down vagaries in the weather.  This year I must try not to be too impatient and sow too early - waiting for the soil to warm up, planting out into cold soil doesn't make things grow any quicker.

As the temperature rises there are signs of spring - the rhubarb is slowly emerging from hibernation, there are buds on the fruit bushes, and before long I will be panicking because I am running out of freezer space - and so the veg growing season begins!

It's Nearly All About Onions

There isn't much left in the veg garden now - a few cabbages maybe, purple sprouting broc looking the worse for wear and a few leeks - but I guess that's the way it should be at this time of year.  Of course space is now needed for getting ready for the new gardening season and preparations are in hand.



Shallots, onion greens, garlic and leeks

 I decided to plant the shallots in last years potato sacks, all I have to do now if carefully transplant them into the ground now that they have rooted, this will give them a good start, and the birds will find it more difficult to pull them out.  The onion greens have been cut several times and have grown well, these will remain in this container for further use throughout the year.  The garlic withstood the bad weather well without protection and the shoots are about a foot high now.  If you remember in a previous post here I decided to experiment with my leeks by not digging them up, instead I decided to slice them off at ground level to see if they would re-grow.  As you can see from the picture, bottom right, the experiment has worked and new leeks have formed.  I have cut them off twice now and still they come back.  I will have to wait and see if they go to seed this year - but nevertheless I have so far had three lots of leeks from the one crop - so that can't be bad.


salad leaves

In the greenhouse there are just a few overwintered salad leaves left now, but they are beginning to look weak and spindly and some are going to seed.  I have just sown the first batch of new seeds for this year to keep the momentum going.

Potted up strawberry plants

In the greenhouse the strawberry plantlets that I potted up are showing signs of new growth, slowly, but it has been pretty cold in there - I prefer growing  strawberries in pots as it keeps the slugs off and you get earlier crops, outside I grow them as ground cover under the raspberries.



purple sprouting broccoli

 I only have half a dozen psb plants - two at home and the rest at the allotment.  The ones at the allotment are really looking in a sorry state after the snow etc. but this one pictured at home seems to have fared better, although there is no sign of any flowering shoots yet.

The next job for the month is to get the ground prepared for the onions, potatoes and peas - which, if the weatherman is right about the weather warming up towards the end of the week - I may be able to get done, with a bit of luck and a following wind.

Not long now before it could all be looking like this (click)

Pleasures of the Kitchen Garden

What are the the things that bring you pleasure in your vegetable garden?

plaiting onions into strings
in the garden shed
with the rain pattering on the roof above

the first thin green line
of seedlings
down the dark soil

white flowers on early peas

gaudy orange flowers
opening in the early morning sun
on courgettes and marrows

beads of dew resting on the
crinkled inner leaves
of cabbages, like
crystal drops

the sweetness of stolen peas
eaten raw

 

scarlet flowers
climbing up wigwams
and
tents of runner beans in high summer

leeks in orderly rows



the earthiness of new potatoes
just dug up



baskets piled high
with a glut of produce

frozen fingers tingling back to life
around a mug of hot soup
after winter digging

Extract from

'Through the Garden Gate'

by

Susan Hill