Old Peas? shove ’em in

Got all excited today, 2nd March as the sun was shining with warmth at last.  Began to fantasise about sowing an early crop of mange tout but my only mangetout seeds are newly bought and if they fail when it inevitable chills again, it’ll be a shame.

So rummage rummage in my seed box and there lies a large bag (too large and full) of old pea seeds.  How old?  well at least 5 years, if not more!

Thought 1.  dig a shallow trench and throw them in, in great concentrations

Thought 2.  Try a seed tray in the greenhouse first, germination will be faster and less chance of being pillaged by mice.

 

I’ll report back…

Sowing seeds in great hope

As soon as there is a sniff of warmth in the air, then I’m off, all excited, sowing seeds.  Inevitably colder weather returns and it is all in vain.

But that hasn’t deterred me from planting some sprouting potatoes in the greenhouse which were lurking in the kitchen.  and some asparagus crowns bought from Wilkos.  The last lot shivered in cold wet soil all winter in the open garden and only two plants remain showing any life in them. Pathetic spindly stems appear, to be consumed by slugs.

These crowns had shoots on them and these peek out above the soil. The slugs have already nibbled two!

Yesterday I sowed some Amsterdam early carrots in the greenhouse. we’ll see what becomes of them.. and some other seeds.  they are Franchi but I’m not sure what they are!  I think they are red oakleaf lettuce but I’ve sowed a mini row to see what might come up.  Slugs are a problem in the greenhouse.  need to get some beer pots out.

I brought the heated seed tray inside, cleaned it and switched on – hooray, it still works so in there are some coriander and some basil.  For compost I dug around the largest ash tree where there are piles of leaf litter, riddled it to end up with a fine sowing medium. hope the seeds think so too.

Over a week ago I tried sowing some basil in pots of soil scraped off the top of mole hills.  Either the soil was full of mini slugs which I can’t see, or the seeds are old, or refuse to grow in such conditions- I don’t know.

Greenhouse jobs

Spring is around the corner so  time to enter the greenhouse and see what’s happening.  Geraniums under environment fleece..hope they make it.

Rescued land cress from the garden where the rabbits had taken a fancy to it partially rescued and thinking about growing.

Parsley which conveniently self seeded itself growing well and being used – hooray!

Then I remembered the old seeds I’d thrown in a tray on cotton wool in the spring.  It seems I ended up with some carrots and parsnips.

The soil was a bit parched but that didn’t matter – it seemed to be a good enough medium to store the root veg in.  No evidence of carrot fly either!

On to washing the glass..

Last year was a bad year for tomato blight so some disinfection and thorough cleaning was attempted.  The winter sun managed to shine through the cleaned panes offering added warmth.  A reward for labours.

Next job was to dig up some of the weeds and try and experiment.  I bought 3 asparagus crowns from Wilkos for £2.  Worth a try.  So I dug a 6″ trench as instructed on the packet and laid the dense bunches of asparagus roots carefully on some compost with chicken manure.  Must remember to keep watering them.

The ones I planted outdoors maybe 5 years ago continue to disappoint in terms of yield.

Then, carried away by this urge to plant something I stuck in another trench 3 potatoes already sprouting from a bag I’d bought for Christmas which turned out to be green and largely unusable. Maybe I’ll end up with some very early potatoes? – ever optimistic.

Bulb planting time

I bought some crocus and daffodil bulbs from Wilkinsons. Quite a good selection and not a bad price.

Every time I plant bulbs..I forget where I have planted them.  I find out in the spring though.  So sometimes I find as I dig holes to plant in the Autumn, there are already bulbs there!

This time I thought if I  photographed where I have planted them, I might fare better.  Yes, I know I can stick in plant labels but  they tend to get lost over time.

So here we go

These are crocuses planting sites, directly underneath the kitchen window. On top of the soil I scattered some 3 year old (bag never opened) Strulch

Strulch is a mineralised straw mulch for organic gardening with Slug and Snail Deterrent.  It was well rotted by the time I opened the bag. It’s a straw based product but looked rich in organic matter so we’ll see how it goes.  I’m not so sure about the slug deterrent!

 

 

Tomato Blight – some recovery

Advice I sought on tomato blight recommended throwing the whole lot out, disinfecting the greenhouse etc etc.

I started with this strategy but then..when I got to the last few, which had previously shown such healthy looking growth, I just couldn’t. Maybe they might recover?  The Tom Thumb  plants didn’t look quite so badly affected either so maybe I could keep those?  I know.  Tomato blight is a fungal infection so it would mean the spores remained in the air, probably until next year to re-infect.

Interestingly a trip to son and wife in Cardiff, who I had given several plants to before the blight struck, seemed unaffected and there plants were proving to be good croppers.  They were semi-outside in a small makeshift greenhouse.  No blight!

 

 

Tomato Blight

Ah the tomato seedlings looked so healthy to begin with.  Such vigorous growth which I hoped would progress to produce a juicy crop of shining red tomatoes.  The plants flowered.  I tried helping the fertilisation along a bit with a pastry brush.

All was well until….

 

Tomato Blight

Aggghhhh. Tomato blight.

A quick bit of research suggested that I should throw the whole lot away, burn the plant material and give up.  Meanwhile the plants I’d given to son Matt and his wife Frankie were producing good red tomatoes in Cardiff. So I guess it is around here that the tomato blight spores lurk.

I tried picking the green tomatoes early, in the hope that they’d ripen inside but that didn’t work either.

 

Fruits showing blight

I cleared most of the plants out..all save a handful that I couldn’t bear to.  the tom thumb pot ones didn’t appear so badly affected.

Gradually, over the next few weeks, miraculously, they began to recover and I am beginning to reap some red tomatoes at last.

At Llandogo Village Stores Roger Brown has a lean -to greenhouse with many healthy looking blight free tomato plants bearing clusters of cherry red tomatoes, growing in Grow Bags

Is that the answer?  I asked him and very helpfully he explained that tomato blight is quite prevalent in this area.  he grows a blight resistant variety called Mountain Magic from Thompson and Morgan seeds with success, verifying that they tasted good too.  Maybe I should try those next year.

Another friend commented that she treats her plants with Bordeaux mixture though I am not sure how organic this is.

 

 

Composting

There are several compost heaps in the Jungle.  One contains mostly chicken manure from when I clear the shed out.  Another has weeds which look compostable piling up, ever higher near the old goose shed.  Grass clippings get thrown on both of those too.  Then there’s the shrub/branch pile which gets burnt occasionally.

Finally there’s the good old Forest of Dean District Council compost bin.  We’ve had it years.  Into this I pour the house vegetable waste that the hens won’t eat, about a bucket full a week. Sometimes, if I remember, I top it up with some chicken manure when I clean the hens out.

Son and partner in London have a wormery which produces miraculous silky smooth compost.  All odourless of course.  I wondered about this..maybe that’s what I need.

BUT.  Just been to empty the bin again and found all these creatures, crawling all over the bin, clearly enjoying their warm humid environment, dripping off the top.

 

Brandling worms naturally growing in the compost bin

Worms, lovely worms.

When I opened the top there was a large nest of them squirming about but by the time I’d got the camera, they had started to move away

 

A nest of brandling worms enjoying the decaying vegetable matter

What is strange is that for all the vegetable waste that gets poured from the top, very little in comparison appears to come out from the bottom!

 

 

Radish Surprise

I’ve been unsuccessful with growing radishes -one of  the most simple of all vegetables to grow – they either fail to germinate (slugs I suspect) or germinate, grown then bolt, rarely producing any root swelling.

I have tried in the greenhouse too.  I did get a few radishes from there but only a handful.

Later on in the summer I tried growing them in the raised bed.  Again they germinated and grew but failed to show off any actual radishes to eat!

Feeling despondent I was clearing out this bed a couple of days ago when I found this. It was a whopper.  I imagined the radish bulb itself would be hard, woody and inedible but this wasn’t the case. It is hot, very grateable and wonderful in salads and coleslaw.  I bet I can’t reproduce that growth next year!

Old seed success

I found an old packet of Franchi  endive seeds in the seed box.  The expiry date was 2012..so a viable proposition to get them to germinate?

I decided against sowing them directly into the soil and instead tried the earlier method of cotton wool soaked in water.

Amazingly nearly every seed germinated!  This was a huge surprise and left me with a tray of very densely populated seedlings, all vying for position in growth. I have transplanted three trays worth out, but the seedling roots were firmly adhered to the cottonwool so not sure how they will emerge out of that mat of cotton.  We’ll see.  At the moment they are in clumps of 3-4

then one of the transplanted trays..you can see the bits of cotton wool poking out!

May 22nd 2016 Growth spurts

Taking a break because there are some hefty  showers winging their way across from above.  It rained quite heavily yesterday and we shouldn’t really be working the soil but with limited time, what can you do?  The old gardening tips used to suggest  that you use duck boards across the bare earth, to  spread your weight as you walk across and try to access the rows.  Or you can do what I did, allow yourself no more than two footholds in the soil.

It’s getting towards the end of May and I haven’t sown the brassicas yet.  Help!  Once the old strawberry bed had been dug over, I’ve sown a row of long radishes, leeks, purple sprouting  and  curly kale.  The beetroot had a sow by date  of last year so not sure how successful the germination of those seeds will be.  Are  beetroot varieties related to parsnips? the seeds look similar and I know old parsnip  seeds give disappointing germination rate results.

The ‘sown in the greenhouse’  carrots and beetroot look okay. The carrot rows look slightly happier than the beetroot seedlings but I can see new growth appearing from those.

Then there’s the  french beans I  transplanted after starting off in the greenhouse.  One tray had been sitting just outside the greenhouse for a week  and a slurry of slugs had begun to munch their way through them.  I am trying to keep an eye on slug  damage now they are in the veg patch  but with all the recent rain, they are bound to sneak out when I am not looking

peas at the front, then climbing french beans (I hope – oops,didn’t label them clearly enough).

Another transplanting experiment was with the kidney beans. These were my own seed  and began germinating in the greenhouse well enough, until one day I noticed some bare patches in the  tray, and swollen kidney bean seeds with their first green growth munched off at the soil surface!  Aggghhhhhh.  I’ve rescued about 8 of them which should be enough plants for two people and they are now in the garden, awaiting poles to climb up.

there are a few slug nibbled holes I know but  they’ve survived so far.  The wall behind seems to harbour a whole army of slugs and snails.

And finally the courgette plants.  These germinated well in the greenhouse and made good progress after repotting them in the chicken manure rich compost.  Every year, when I plant them out into the garden, they seem to falter on their growth for a couple of weeks. These look okay though, perhaps because there has been less direct sun and heat, only  damp cloudy conditions?