Phil’s Vegetable Garden

Hi Folks – It’s high time for an update.
Well last time I was talking about my second try at sweetcorn, and its been quite the learning experience. I had my dozen plants for outside all put out in early June but to date they are at a max height of 2 feet high – I do have clay soil but I did add a lot of compost to each one, so I’m just going to wait and see – I read that they are slow growing, but the thing that’s probably making me impatient is…. When I planted out I ended up with 3 plants over, so I left them in the conservatory as I hate to waste something that’s made an effort to grow. Its usually too hot in there for most things, I germinate in there and then get them out asap – Basil and Oregano quite like it but it can kill young tomatoes on a hot day. However the corn LOVES it in there I have 3 plants in there that are now about 8 Feet high! Two of them are starting to grow cobs too – I’m pretty excited about them – Because they are indoors I’ve been tapping the tops, and sweeping up and blowing pollen over them from the floor. Even if I only get a couple of cobs out of it, I’ll be quite pleased. I did have some issues with them toppling so I’ve had to stake them but they seem pretty happy in big tubs in there. I hope the outdoor ones do something soon.

I found out that despite not looking like much, (a breezeblock shed with one old window and a bench) my shed is actually a place of magic. The tomatoes think its brilliant and I’ve gone from thinking I’d have to buy tomato plants or be a failure this year to having loads of them in there – I’ve put 9 plants out in giant grow bags which all seem very happy, at about 4 feet high all bearing little green tommies and a trough I made from some wooden pallets I got hold of, lined with the plastic off of a new mattress – That has 3 plants in there too and also some basil and oregano in the gaps which is supposed to be a 3 way companion planting thing which also adds a flavour to the toms – I’ll let you know if its all true later.. I had lots of plants left over, even after a couple snapped in transit from shed to patio, so they have gone into the recently vacated plots where the potatoes were. About another 8 plants in all. Some are a bit spindly but every extra fruit is very welcome.

The potato crop was pretty good in the end – About the volume of one of those reusable fabric supermarket bags full of them, which is great – I have a few plants still out which will have to come up soon, so its mostly been a great year for ‘taters once I overcame the early blight issues. Any other space I had after the potatoes came up (and the borage I had to get rid of as it was taking over everything – Lesson, Borage gets HUGE!) has now been seeded with squashes & pumpkins which have started to come up now – Hopefully I’ll have some nice Pumpkins for Halloween carving and pie again.

Courgettes, which I’d also had some issues with, basically because I’m useless at hardening off and they all kept dying – Also love the magic shed and its starting to look like I’ll have a glut.. but to be honest, because I thought I was also going to fail at courgettes this year, I kind of WANT a glut.

What else…? Strawberries – Super crop this year, must have had at least 6 heaped bowlfuls of those – all gone now though. I’ve taken some of the runner plants and potted them for planting later – A really easy and rewarding fruit to grow, I want to have more of them.

Okay, this is turning into an essay, so maybe more tomorrow and possibly some pictures too. Ta ta!

Hello there!

Apologies for being away for a while, but theres been a fair bit going on and any free time I’ve had has been spent gardening, rather than writing about gardening!

On to the update – Mostly things have been going well, but I’ve had some issues too – The potatoes are mostly growing well and a couple of the maincrop ones from the supermarket that grew chits that I planted are in bud already, but some of the others (Lady Crystal) developed the dreaded blight and went brown and manky. I think this is because when last year (my first growing season) I had some tomato plants that developed a stem & leaf blackening towards the end of the season – I didn’t really know what this was and put the plants in the compost when they were spent. I now think that this was blight and I ended up transferring that into the soil when I put the rotted compost on the garden… Lesson learned there.

Anyway, those got pulled and replaced with new seed potatoes and everyone else gets a good spray with Bordeaux Mixture from here on in. I also had a couple that had leaf curling and looked pretty miserable, this looks like a ‘virus’ according to my garden book, so I pulled them out too. It didn’t look like it was spreading, but I didn’t want to risk it.
Fingers crossed for the rest of them.

The sweetcorn in paper tubes idea was unfortunately mostly a failure I think.
I haven’t given up on the idea totally, as I think the problem was that I bought low quality or old seed (A local bookshop sells seed packets 3 for £1 and I used those) The germination rate on those was about 1 in 3 so getting the 12 plants I wanted took a lot of effort and the paper pots got soggy and mouldy. I put the young plants out, but they mostly didn’t do much, grew slowly and some of them just died. I don’t want to cross pollinate so I had to yank the lot up. I really want successful sweetcorn, so in the end I ordered some from vegetableseeds.net which have been MUCH more successful, like 80 – 90% germination. Those got planted out this last weekend and I have a few more plants over which I’ll think about putting in pots on the patio to see what happens. Fingers crossed there too.

I am also trying tomatoes from seed this year (I bought young plants last year instead) and I’m finding it really difficult. Every guide I’ve read says that toms are the easiest thing in the world to grow. I definitely seem to be an exception to this rule – I can get them past germination, about to the 2 inch level, then the ungrateful beggars wilt and die on me. I’ve planted loads dotted on every windowsill and the vast majority just won’t grow past seedling level. Except in one area – I planted about 10 in pots on a bench in the shed with one window as an experiment – I didn’t think they’d have a chance in there but they’ve hands down been the best growers. The only downside is that they are all ‘moneymaker’ and I did want a nice variety of different ones this year – I’ve bought 2 batches of ‘tropical ruby’ and they’ve all bitten the dust. I think its getting too late to start planting any more, so if this lot of money makers don’t make it, I’ll be forced to buy some nursery plants and try again next year.

Everything else is doing well – My sugar snap peas are being pecked by birds a bit but otherwise doing well, Carrots and Onions going great guns and my bean trellises are up and have some young beans planted by them now. The strawberry patch is netted and it looks like I’m going to get a good crop from them in this their 2nd year. Most of the work apart from watering and weeding is done now except for the patch I have reserved for purple sprouting broccoli.

More updates and maybe some photos soon.

Cheers!

These were an Xmas present from my girlfriends Mum, theyre doing nicely..

Well, Spring is finally here and the rains that came with it have filled up my water-butt already!
Our small corner frog haven pond (known as the Fraven) that we put in last year (Backstory: I think the previous owner had a pond and frogs tend to come back to their spawning ground, only our current landlord had it filled in and laid a lawn, but we still got the frogs coming back – After an unpleasant incident with a frog and the grass shears which made him 2 feet shorter we decided to build them a haven)This year the fraven has big blobs of spawn in it and the mucky rascals are ‘at it’ still, so it must be spring. Unfortunately there was a dead one floating that I fished out with a hoe – I read that females can be spent after laying and sometimes a male can drown them too, I think that this might be the case because there is another female which is definitely dead, but it constantly has a male stuck to it, so I cant get to it without him swimming her away… its pretty gross really. I haven’t ruled out that the male frog in question may be a serial rapist/murderer/necrophiliac – But I somehow don’t think that the CPS would be interested in following it up. Surely he HAS to let go sometime!? My main concern is having a dry few days so I can mow the lawn before we are awash with froglets.

Back to plants – Half my early potatoes are in now, with another couple in a big pot to give the patio method a try. I was going to buy some maincrop seed potatoes for the next area, but I had so many earlies left over from the kilo I bought, I think it would be wasteful not to use them, so I’m just going to have extra earlies and no maincrops (apart from two shop bought taters from the larder that have gone green with big sprouts, so I’m taking their hint and I’m going to plant them too)

My onion sets are planted now and so is the garlic – The garlic has shot right up already and the onions are making a show too. (See pics and my stoney soil!) I also planted out some Borage plants here and there, but it looks like something has been eating them… might be pigeons again.. Luckily I have more still growing indoors for any that get stripped right down. Also indoors are some herbs, lavender and some tomatoes from seed which have started making a show.
They’re a variety called Tropical Ruby and there was only 7 in the packet, so I was anxious that they were successful. I saw on the Gardeners World website where the lady put the seeds in the warm and dark until they sprouted – So I put mine in the boiler/airing cupboard. It seems to have worked well as 4 of the seven have come through already and have been put in the conservatory now.

I’ve also tried the technique where you make plant pots out of newspaper for growing sweetcorn – You can buy a wooden ‘pestle and mortar’ style doohickey for this, but I just used a thin jam jar and my palm and it worked just as well (And saved the £10 – £20 on the tool!)– I don’t read newspapers, apart from a very informative one I subscribe to called the UK Column which can be found online, which I didn’t feel moved to tear up – so I used brown parcel paper which seems a bit water resistant which might be an issue but I have my fingers crossed on that one. I also have a couple in old loo roll tubes too. Nothing coming up yet though. I actually have pictures today and look forward to bringing another update and more pics soon.

Hi Folks, well very soon its going to be ‘full on’ gardening time! I’ve been pretty much ethusiastically impatient since the end of January – I hope that enthusiasm stays with me for the rest of the season.. Although I’ve not been able to plant much, its been the time for preparing my growing zone – All of last years compost has been spread around, new patches of what was lawn have been stripped and dug over and plans have been made.

Unfortunately I’ve had to change my plan a bit already – I dug out a new patch for (what was going to be) potatoes – Then I discovered (by breaking 2 prongs on my new cheap fork, which was the replacement for my last cheap fork which met a similar fate and is now a very large ‘dibber’!) that I had quite a big tree root as a leftover of the gardens last owner, a big fan of apple trees and rosebushes (both are great for killing forks I have found) which then got chopped and overlaid with lawn. I fought with the first bit of root and got that up, which took about an hour – then i traced it along the soil to find it led to an even bigger one! I checked a few sites and saw some drastic and expensive options to deal with the issue, then opted for the big hammer and chisel method. This worked for a bit but in the fight I dug around to see how big the problem was…and then I found the STUMP – about a foot across and very well established! Fans of the TV show ‘Lost’ will understand when I liken the situation to when John Locke was trying to get that hatch open. I just wished I had some dynamite!

I was pretty tired and frustrated by that point and as much as I hate giving up, I could see that this was going to be a bigger problem than it was worth. So I stopped, had a cup of tea and decided to change my plans instead. The roots & stump are 3 – 4 inches down, so I switched the area I had planned for potatoes with the onion area. I want to crop rotate, but I guess that area will need to stay with shallow or above ground veg. I figure onions this year, followed by brassicas, peas, herbs etc.. Adapt and survive and all that.

On the planting front I’ve been getting a few things sown in pots indoors – My African Marigolds have sprouted in the propagator and I’m waiting for the French ones to catch up with them – I’ve also sown a couple more companion plants in the form of Borage and Lovage, but nothing happening with those yet.

Fridays payday was met with a small frenzy of buying. I’ve invested in a QUALITY fork (which is so nice, I almost dont want to get it dirty!) and a 100 ltr water butt which should arrive today – Best value was with Argos (I dont/cant drive so I pretty much rely on deliveries for larger items – Argos also do a very reasonable grow bag with cheap flat rate shipping but I have to wait until they are in stock again – I’m having to get smaller bags to tide me over and struggle home with them on the bus, which is better than the 45 minute walk home with 8ft bamboo canes I did the other week! – You should have seen me last year with 6ft canes tied to the frame of my bicycle! I was so glad i got home alive that day ).

Hopefully in about 2 weeks I can really start planting with my early potatoes and onion sets. While I’m waiting I scattered some spinach and radish seed which hopefully will come up and be harvested in time for the beans and potatoes to take their places. My set onions are ready to go and my potatoes are chitting nicely on the windowsil…. Not long now!

Last year I did some very basic companion planting, putting garlic, onions and chives near my carrots to confuse and deter the pests of both – which did seem to work well. This year I’ll be adding to that by growing basil and oregano near to (or in with) tomatoes which is apparently a 3 way friendship as they all help eachother and allegedly improve the flavour of the tomatoes too.

Also I seeded some propagator trays in the conservatory today with some nasturtiums which attract pests away from crops by being more attractive to them, as well as encouraging things like hoverflies which are predators to our little aphid ‘friends’. I did a couple of trays of marigolds which are listed as a ‘magic bullet’ in the garden. They attract hoverflies again, deter pests and help with most plants as a companion – they even have some kind of pesticide properties in their roots which lasts for years after the plant has gone – they even inhibit the growth of weeds and couch grass (which i remember being the bane of allotmenteers!)

With a resume like that, they look like quite the ally and I will be planting marigolds everywhere I can possibly fit them in.

I’ll also be trying some lavender dotted around – It’s probably my favourite natural scent, bees like it and it can be used to make lavender bags for the wardrobe or for pillows (according to naturpathic types it helps with sleep and healing) and also you can make lavender cookies – which sounds too weird NOT to try and make

I’ve found that growing my own produce encourages me to be a more adventurous cook – My carrot cake last year was the best i’d ever had and the squash pie I made went down well at home and work too – Its not something you would ever see in the shops, so I stifled my laughter when a colleague was reticent to try it and asked if it was made with orange squash!

This year I plan on repeating the things that worked well in my first season, cutting back on things that grew well but I didn’t really use (namely Chard!) and opting out of cabbages. I’d gotten some cabbage seedlings from my brother as well as growing some from seed directly sown onto the soil. The problems were mainly that my partner and I aren’t overly keen on cabbage (!) coupled with my lack of knowledge about just how big they got! In my minds eye I pictured them being roughly the size of shop bought heads of cabbage and because I didn’t want them ruined by birds and caterpillars I netted them at about 2 feet high. This worked well at first.. until the cabbages got really big and the cabbage white butterflies noticed them. They got under the net somehow and when the cabbages were big enough the butterflies managed to poke their nethers through the net and laid eggs on them that way. I’d always liked butterflies before, but that changed when their wiggly kids were eating my crops! It felt like I lived in butterfly central. I began a foolish vendetta and even broke my own rules by buying a pesticide – It was all pretty futile, in the end I gave up and the thought of my cabbages being contaminated with insecticide and caterpillar poo just left me to add them to the compost bin at the end of the season.

I may try again one day but I have learned my lesson and will net brassicas properly in future. This year I will be growing some purple sprouting broccoli, which is much more popular in our kitchen and will be netted using a bamboo box frame instead of a cobbled together wire hoop & net creation, which is still intact in the shed and may be used for strawberries this year instead.

This year I will be growing a lot of basic foodstuffs, potatoes, chives, garlic, onions (red & white), beans, sugar snap peas, radishes, pumpkins, squashes, carrots (red, yellow and orange), strawberries, tomatoes and courgettes – All of these I did last year with good results (although I had some issues with my toms) and for the first time I’ll be trying sweet corn & purple sprouting broccoli.

I’ll also be growing some herbs and some things I that aren’t necessarily for eating, but after looking into companion planting, they might be good friends to my crops.