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Blisters we planted really late, but the salady things were planted in the shady side of the greenhouse and have sprung up like wild things. Course it helps living in the sunny south west. Did you net and slug pellet Blisters?
Haile, we take our toms out for a week or so, gradually increasing how long they're out for each time. Is your veg plot the one you put pics up of a few days ago? Our plot is mainly quite windy, hence the salads behind the greenhouse, but yours looks to be nice and sheltered, I'd say they'd be OK after the weekend...no doubt FB will be along soon with more ideas.
Woohoo - first tatties from the garden - 12oz of Rocket lifted from a tub.
5 minutes from garden to saucepan and onto the plate in a few minutes time
Morning all!
Been extremely busy with coursework and numerous stressy incidents in my life, so not much time to pop by these parts!
Anyway, looks like things are progressing in everyone's little patches of green. I was a bit later getting started, but am now harvesting the first bits of baby salad leaves, and very tasty they are.
Second early spuds are coming on apace; carrots, turnips, peas and various other types of leafage are doing well.
Two courgette plants are now planted out - currently covered by makeshift fleece "tents" because it's so blimmin' windy where I live and they're still small. But they seem to be growing and strengthening up well.
One of the main problems I've found is that because we don't have any room for a greenhouse we have to germinate a lot of stuff indoors on windowsills.
Because our house walls need repointing (leaving it until I've got a job again), we have no cavity wall insulation and it's been wet up until recently, a lot of seeds seem to have rotted due to slight damp before they even had a chance to germinate, so very little in the way of french beans, too late to re-sow winter squash seeds, and I would have preferred at least one extra courgette plant, but hey...
But on the whole, the stuff that is growing is growing well!
Pity I've got too much work to do today to go browsing for plants at car boot sales.
Might have a little visit to the shops later this week though.
Oooh I sense a wedding
ANDDDDDDDDD im going to be the a daddy , 2 pea pods showing
Ooh, haile, that would be ace!
I'll PM you at some point today (and hope to goodness the bloody RW email functions doesn't play up)...
Toms and courgettes received with thanks - they look really good, healthy plants.
Potatoes have put on a bit of a spurt what with the sun and then the rain - beginnings of flowers forming now...
Picked our first raspberries today.
3 of them.
We'll be having fruit salad with tea...lots of ripe strawbs, 3 redcurrants and 1 black currant. Between four of us.
I asked my son to pick me some thyme to have with the tomato soup I'm making for lunch. He came back with rosemary.
Aww, bless!
Our thyme's looking lovely and healthy, with loads of flowers right now. The plants are well-established after a couple of years, as is my oregano.
The other amazing thing is the two-year-old flat-leaf parsley seeds. Everyone always says how difficult parsley is to germinate and grow, and yet these nearly-out-of-date seeds germinated no problem at all!
I'm taking a load of teeny-weeny basil and parsley plants into my departmental office at uni - a lot of the reception staff seemed very keen to have some!
Ahhh...spreading the plant love. Ain't it good?
ourdoor toms are flowering so they should be setting soon
spuds are flowering so not long.........
all we need now is some heat back and the garden will go nuts with all the water it's had recently
Had my 1st taste of my spuds this weekend just,fantastic
Rocket,Mizuna,Parsley,Corriander in abundance.
Going to pick my 1st Broad beans this weekend & everything else is just looking great.
we ate the bean tips at the weekend - very nice - cook like spinach. at this rate I might eat more of the plant than the pods!
Helloooo
can I join you ?
had a bit of a mad idea of growing some veg for my own Greek salads around easter and bought a few seeds, kits, plants and assorted paraphanalia (its so easy to spend loads in garden centres isnt it ? ...then I discovered Wilko!)
anyway after a few false starts i have finally planted out the spring onion, carrot, beetrrot, red onion seedlings etc in pots and planter bags - Im not hopeful about the carrots and beets - theyve been sitting in my greenhouse waiting and ive read today that neither like being planted on as seedlings
I have planted some garlic chives with the carrots - supposed to confuse carrot flies - and a couple of garlic plants so will have to wait and watch
a couple of questions if I may - I still have 4 sweetcorn plantlings - now about 6-8" tall in my greenhouse* i am thinking of putting them in upturned half growbags - can I plant courgette plants in with them - or would they be better planted alone? how big do courgettes get?
I also have some pepper plants - red, green. yellow and a jalapeno - how big do they get - Im think patio planters - are they ok outside in a typical northern british summer?
and cucumber - i bought a palnt from Lidl of all places - it is thriving well at the moment in the greenhouse - how best should pot it on (its in a 4" pot) and how big do they grow - are they like tomato plants for example ? - i can take the shelves out of the greenhouse thingy and let it grow up to 4-5' if neccessary - but it was a bit of impulse buy - I dont have a clue how to grow them
i also have some of those potato bag things - 4 of them and some of the spuds are beginning to sprout now so may get some in a few weeks - i also cheated and bought a ready grown one from the garden centre - that is thriving in a much bigger pot but no flowers - Duke of York early I think
Have also planted up strawberry planters and they are looking good for a few strawberries - the baby blackcurrants look to yield one solitary currant (Ill fight the birds for it ) although old established raspberries are looking good
still got lots of herbs to go in some planters - cant beleive how much time planting things up takes
have already planted up some toms with marigolds for company and they look quite healthy but have a few trays of seedlings left in greenhouse so will see what happens
hopefully after the rain promised for this week it will start to warm up again and things will take off
anyway - better go and water my hanging baskets and sweet peas !
greenhouse* one of those 5ft polythene 4 shelf things not a proper glass house sadly !
Buney I do know that sweetcorns are best planted very close together they self propogate each other or something like that.
or is it pollinate???
Just plant them very close together.
I have tried them previously & never had a great deal of success until a farmer in my local pointed out the error of my ways.
The peppers will be Ok once they are in fruit as long as it's not a wet summer but from experience keep them inside & they will be more productive.
P.S Spot the closet Gardeners World viewer 'up tuned 1/2 grow bags'
Sweetcorn is wind pollinated so they're best planted in blocks rather than rows,we generally plant ours out about 18 inches apart each way and I keep intending to underplant them with squash but keep forgetting. The squash at the base keeps the corn roots shaded, which they like I think.
Can't see any reason it wouldn't work with courgettes, but they get quite sprawly.
xxx
[pads out again to stare balefully at dead crysanthemums]
There is something called a 3 sisters bed Buney. It's a traditional native American thing.
You plant your sweetcorn in a square formation (so if you had 16 plants it would be 4x4. Then you use the sweetcorn plants as supports to grown your beans (runners/ berlotti whatever) up and then you underplant with squash type plants ie courgettes etc.
I tried it a couple of years back but the sweetcorn didn't grow quick enough for the beans really but I may have started it off too late.
last year I ignorantly grew my corn in a row (gasp) and stillhad some beautiful corn- about 2 per plant, but this year I have tried to square them except some are gorwing better than others and I am using the spot where I grew rocket last year so it is awash with rocket seedlings that I am just trying to weed out and scoff.
even better - empty them out and use the contents in pots - you can get a good 4 8" pots from a growbag which will give you good depth for many things like peppers, aubergines etc.
generally I find courgettes need a bigger pot outside as they can be greedy buggers - as can cucumbers be
buney - cucumbers and courgettes can get pretty big as plants so they tend to need their own space. planting them with something else will restrict growth and you'll get poor cropping that way.
courgettes can be left to ramble - cucumbers generally need training up a wire or string to keep air around the leaves as they can be prone to mildew (as can courgettes) if they get too wet. I'm assuming that the cucumber you bought is a greenhouse variety anyway - shops rarely sell outdoor varieties as plants. I also hope it's a self pollinator as many aren't so you need at least 2 plants then!!
peppers are best in the greenhouse although I grow all mine outside but then I am on the Channel coast so generally warmer and drier. ('cept at the mo - cool and wet!)
you're right about carrots and beet - they don't like transplanting so always best seeded in situ
as kwilter said, sweetcorn need space and are wind pollinated so best planted in blocks so aren't really suitable for growbags but best in soil. I've never had much success with them so don't bother any more