About
Our garden has one strict rule….
If it aint edible, it’s not allowed in!
What started as the odd herb in a pot has been gradually growing over the years.
The garden has gradually developed to contain a wide variety of fruit and vegetables. Extra space for growing has become non-existant with new raised boarders in place, boxes stuck to walls, big pots around the patio, grow bags on top of the chicken coop and even guttering tubes attached to a wall to hold some strawberry plants.
We thought we would use this blog to talk you through our gardening year; share our trials and tribulations; our sucesses and failures, and the adventures of our rabbits, chickens and bees (bees came after we made the name – sorry you’re missed off the blog name bees)
Enjoy!!
Lin & Chris
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Here’s our successes and failures so far with a little comment on what we thought or did. We’ve tried to link the vegetable or fruit if you’re interested in getting seeds of proven success – each name is a link. We will update the page as the 2012 season goes!
VEGETABLES 2011
| Vegetable | Success? | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| Broad Beans – Item Link | YES | Great success – Easy to care for, small canes to prop them up |
| Peas – Item Link | YES | Good success – Easy to care once they had germinated (couple of bad runs), need some small cane structures to cling to |
| Courgette – Item Link | YES | Good sized courgettes and great taste, give about 20cm space from planting to spread out |
| Cauliflower Navona | NO | Would not germinate, various conditions tried |
| Radish – Item Link 1 and Item Link 2 | YES | Easy to care for, lovely taste and texture. Small space needed so pack them in |
| Carrots (all varieties) – Item Link | YES | Superb taste, needs nice deep soil that is loose so they can push down easily |
| Beetroot – Item Link | YES | Easy to care for, loose ish soil to push around in, not much room needed |
| French Bean – Item Link also purple and yellow bean varieties | YES | Grown well, good leaf growth, small structure to grow around – good amount of beans and still growing |
| Yardlong French Bean – Item Link | YES | Grown well, good leaf growth, good structure to grow around – good amount of beans and still growing |
| Globe Artichoke | YES | Established last year with no edible sections – 2 large globes this year with a 3rd late globe coming through now |
| Jerusalem Artichoke | YES | excellant crop last year, approx 40% kept back and replanted – excellent growth so far – awaiting foliage to die back for finished product and yield |
| Purple Sprouting Broccoli – Item Link | YES | Huge growth of plant so make sure each one has a good foot squared space or slightly more. Has yielded loads of edibles and is still pumping out more |
| Brocolli – standard | YES | like puirple sprouting, it likes to have a large space – some nice large heads of brocolli growing and getting bigger by the day |
| Cabbage, Red Drumhead – Item Link | YES | Lovely growth from these cabbages, still growing at the moment, but all producing good solid balls of cabbage. The colour is an amazing reddish purple that really brings a different look to the garden |
| Sweetcorn – Item Link | ?? | As expected with a crop like sweetcorn, high winds and low temps kill it off, so we’ve had a couple of attempts. Growing nicely now and some starting to produce heads, we shall see how our yield turns out |
| Gourd – Metro F1 – Item Link | ?? | No appearance of edible sections growing yet, but the plant is nice and leafy and a good size, so we expect success with this one |
| Squash – Winter Turks Turban – Item Link | ?? | Good sized plant and leaves, signs of squashes starting to grow so we expect good stuff from this one |
FRUIT 2011
| Fruit | Success? | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| Strawberry (Orginary and Alpine) | YES | Huge success from both seed (Alpine) and pre grown plants (Both varieties). Seedlings given plenty of time indoors before planting outside to avoid bad weather. |
| Raspberry | YES | Pre-established shrubs from previous years, very good success with high yield |
| Logan Berries | YES | Again, shrubs established from previous years, good amount of fruit |
| Figs | OK | Only a couple of figs, last year saw over a dozen from 1 small tree |
| Apricot | NO | New Tree, yet to be fully established – still looks very healthy though |
| Plum | YES | New Tree, yet to be fully established – handful of fruit growing so good first year |
| Damson | YES | New Tree, yet to be fully established – handful of fruit growing so good first year |
| Blue Berries | ?? | Unknown Success, handful of berries now coming through and darkening in colour |
| Melons (Cantaloupe and Honey Dew) | NO | Superb germination but cold weather meant plants stayed inside and were too weak to survive transplant outside, will try again next year and start later on. |
