Rosalins Veg Blog

It really isn’t a good idea to go on holiday when it is seed planting time. This year it was ‘needs must’ as my nephew would have taken a very dim view of it if I had missed his wedding in order to coddle my ‘darlings’. In any case in any normal year the end of April should not be too much of a problem.

I sowed my seeds in tiny individual pots this year

These seeds were sown in tiny individual pots in a heated propagator to give them a good start in life. However it was SO  cold that I had to bring the thing into the kitchen to get any life out of them at all!! They were visited and watered and talked to, but to no avail until it warmed up a bit outside.

Then my ‘little star’ was born. Last year I’d had disasters with butternut squash, but there he was sitting there in the tray. Small but perfectly formed.

How come a delicate squash can germinate when tomatoes refuse?!

Quite how he managed to germinate first when the tomatoes and peppers refused to come above the soil I will never know!! Then of course I had the problem that I was going away.

Just before I left, the tomatoes and peppers decided to make an appearance after about 5 weeks of sulking. They were minute and I was going away imminently. I just had to ‘pot them on’ and hope with fingers crossed. My dear neighbour did his job and came and carried on the visiting  and cajoling and watering and they have continued to grow – a little bit – though they are still definitely sulking and I am too embarrassed to show you photos of them! Pathetic is the description – but not dead. The hope is that with the marginally warmer weather and longer days and now I am safely back home again, I can actually coax them into behaving in a more normal manner. I’ll let you know how I get on in future blogs.

Getting the seeds for the next season is always exciting

It’s so frustrating not being able to get out and garden. It makes me realise how much I rely on my ‘outdoor gym’  for exercise and therapy. The one lovely thing that helps me keep out of the winter blues is to plan my next season’s veg. First I sit down and log what I already have and work out which seeds may actually germinate if they are a bit ancient! Then I work out what I need and order it. While I’m waiting for them to arrive, I plan on the computer how I am going to arrange them in my veg beds. I have several small beds, rather than one big bed and I try my hardest to rotate the crops. Sadly we like beans and peas so much, that I sometimes (like last year) try to squeeze far too many beans and peas into the plot! We will be eating runner beans for several months to come.

Then then the really exciting moment comes and the packets of seed drop through the door! I lay them all out as if they are precious jewels and savour each packet. Each year I try at least one new type of seed. You win some and loose some! Last year I had several ‘failures’ but let’s face it, it wasn’t the best season for experimenting, so I am attempting one or two of my ‘failures’ again!

I hope that the contents of many of my vegseeds above will feature in my monthly blogs ….

Fingers crossed!

It’s been a strange old year for my beans!! We love ‘em, so I planted plenty of them. Two varieties of runners (Moonlight and Scarlet Runner) and also several varieties of climbing French beans as they seem to freeze better and we love the flavour. I tried a new method of poles. I just put very long poles in a line deep in the soil. No string, wire or twine. ‘It won’t work’ said one of my best gardener friends. Well she was wrong! It worked really well, saved me ages tying them all together in wigwams or rows and has withstood the recent gales very nicely thank you!

Eventually we have had a bumper crop of runners. I was trying to decide which variety faired best on our soil but both have had their strengths. The Moonlight have produced well consistently and have not become tough towards the end of the season, but the Scarlet Runner has cropped more heavily especially towards the end of the season, though with a tendency to quickly get too long and tough if you don’t catch them young. So perhaps I’ll grow both again.

On the other-hand, my French bean were all a complete disaster. Most of them were chomped early season by an army of slugs and snails. Something was even eating my eco friendly slug pellets with gusto. We tried beer traps with a modicum of success, but as the gardener’s mate drank the remainder of the beer with as much enthusiasm, we didn’t keep up the experiment!

The French beans are far too nice to give up on yet. I can see I’ll plant just as many next year and hope that this time I can catch the munching mini beasts before they demolish them all.

Ahh the joys of gardening …..

My entire crop of French beans!!

My vertical poles did the trick nicely!