19/3/2011

First blog of the year: first serious gardening day of the year, probably because it's the first warm and sunny day in ages.

Seeds in beds today: lettuce Salad Bowl, yellow and pink beetroots, spinach, spring onions (I haven't given up hope), kale, purple sprouting broccoli (I've had these seeds for who knows how long but planting for the first time this year!) and some random cornflower seeds.

Found some pink oca tubers while digging which I've planted in the veggie patch up the back near the red pear tree.

Also found some massive bits of concrete in the bed by the pond which we've turned into borders. I always wondered why nothing really thrived here; turns out because they couldn't put down roots any further than a couple of inches.

Most things have survived the winter: last year's green kale and the chard; the fruit trees are all at bud burst or later (the Cox already has leaves); the berries starting to shoot, even the ones we pruned a little late, and the new berries (another redcurrant and a red gooseberry - from the 99p shop!) are still alive.

My new thought for the garden this year is: if it doesn't bring joy, take it out and put in something that does. So the achillea summer berries have gone / are going. I need to get some more flower seeds or maybe even seedlings, save myself the grief of seeds not sprouting.

July begins

Wow, we're actually getting some hot summer weather this year. I'm trying to restrict the watering to twice a week (maybe a little more often for the plants in pots because they suffer badly in the heat) and use a can for the plants that need feeding.


Here's some plants that are doing well - the Qld Blue and the purple beans, which have now produced pods which are actually looking more like mangetout. Have to check with the boss about that one since they were her seeds. Since this photo was taken, the Qld Blues have completely climbed the trellis and are now making their way up into the wisteria above. Vigourous can hardly describe growth of up to 30cm a day!?!?! The little cucumber next them has used it as a trellis so isn't completely swamped. And it's producing at least one tiny little cucumber! Since this photo was taken I've also moved the melon down there. It's not doing much but it's not dead which is a result.


Apples and pears in progress, continuing to grow and ripen. Might get up to a dozen apples from the two trees if none of them fall off. I find this very exciting to watch my apples growing!

The teasel is doing incredibly well. Now somewhere up around 7 ft. It's doing its bit to attract insects. The bees love it, as do the ladybirds, being that it's also a magnet for aphids.


Berry harvest - strawberries are almost done now except for the Pegasus which really are a late variety. Next year I'm going to take out all the plants down beside the pond and move them to a place where it's easier to get at them. And move the plants from the path side of the pond to where the strawberries were.

Gardening Club show was on the weekend. I took some 20 plants up for sale - thai basils, aloe veras and some clippings of penstemon that had taken root. I had two geranium cuttings that I wanted to take along but couldn't find... until this afternoon. Typical!

Before we head on holiday I'm going to harvest the aubergine for dinner. I've got people coming to feed and water the cat with requests that they do the garden too in return for harvesting anything they find that's edible. So I can be sure the blueberry bush will be picked clean when I get back!!

However the tomatoes will not be ripe until we're back so I will get maximum benefit from them. Looking forward to that! Oh, and the Apache chilli plant is shooting out loads of chillis, and even the PRetty in Purple plants which are so small are producing flowers! I don't know how a plant that size will support a fruit but we'll see.

Harvest begins!

Since the end of last week, we have begun the harvest of strawberries and raspberries from the garden. With the onset of warm weather, the berries have been turning red overnight, or probably, overday. Last night we picked a big bowl and put them in the fridge. This morning our whole fridge smelt of ripe berries. So delicious!

Other garden progress: we've lost another red pear : ( so now our harvest will be only one. Amanda tells me about the blackcurrants and gooseberries she has; my redcurrant and gooseberry have produced exactly nothing. Although the redcurrant has also been affected by sap-sucking bugs.

The apples are ripening nicely, turning pretty shades of pink where they are getting some sun. They are getting bigger, too, and have a faint clean apple smell about them. I think I may finally be winning the battle against the sap sucking bugs on the apple trees. The leaves are still badly curled but when I check them now there isn't a sickening nest of creatures under there.

Of the many tomato plants, so far only Shirley has flowers. No fruit. However the bought-in eggplant has a baby fruit on it. I've planted out some cucumbers in pots and put them down near the shed with some netting hung over the fence for them to climb up. I put some Qld Blue pumpkin in pots there as well, and one into the garden on the shady side, hoping it will climb the fence. The bought-in chilli and bell pepper have flowers and so should soon have fruit. The blueberries are starting to show signs of turning blue, slowly slowly.

But in terms of what to eat, lettuce, kale, chard and chinese broccoli should be next on the list. They're all looking good. And diligent use of the slug pellets means that the lettuce has survived in the garden.

Flower surprise: sweet william is in flower. I planted these last year and they were swamped by the kale but this year they have shot up and are flowering. Sunflowers are also trying to flower despite the attack of bugs and snails. Sweet peas have flower pods on them so will flower soon. The teasel is now over six foot but not any more attractive than it was. Really, what was I thinking? No flowers on the bottlebrush yet, although Keith and Alison's bottlebrushes are flowering already. Maybe this is the year that we set ours on fire to truly replicate Australian conditions.

June... and harvest not too far away.

Why is the scarlet kale scarlet in one part of the garden and green in another part?

Apples and pears in progress. Unhappily one of our three pears has fallen from the tree so our harvest will be reduced by one third.

Raspberries: this year subject to aphid attach which has never happened before. Damn and blast. Still, the bushes are thick with fruit, we just have to fight the sap-sucking insects for it.

So much expense, so much careful planting and hoping, but in the end, all I got was three Pretty in Purple chilli sprouts.

The teasel. It is now approaching six foot and growing taller every day. It's not an attractive plant by any means.

More tomatoes planted out. More tomatoes potted on. I feel like I have hundreds but we'll see when it comes to fruiting whether that's the case.

Squashes all potted on: got Queensland Blue, Waltham and Jamaican grey (shall we call it). About 12 in total.

All Morton's secret and a large part of the Salad bowl lettuces are in the ground now.

Aubergine has a flower and hints of another flower so we shall have a fruit. Hurrah.

All the purple beans are in the garden now, in three separate clusters. So far surviving against slug attack. If I get beans I will be very impressed.

Some 20 sweetcorn sprouts. Only about thumb height right now but I think they grow quickly.

Five cucumbers: the Tatoma seem to be the tall ones, close to 12 inches/30 cm tall by now. The Wautoma are much shorter.

Melon: only one melon hatched and I am in two minds about what to do. I've put it outside the greenhouse and so far it's doing OK. I don't know whether to keep it in a pot or plant it out into the ground. I guess we see how the summer goes.

First of the strawberries is turning red... not long now!

Lazy

This is the time of year my blogging seems to drop off. Here's what I wrote about last week, I'll follow with what is happening this week.

Reconciliation time: time to look at the seeds planted and results produced and decide what to keep and what to put away. I chucked the tray where I’d tried to grow cabbage. Only two had sprouted and they had both managed to be eaten inside the greenhouse. By deciding to cull some pots with seed plantings that had been less successful, I made a little more room… for more seeds. Oh, and amongst the pots I was chucking out I found what looks like it may possibly be an aubergine seedling. Considering I planted maybe only one of these, I think that is a good result. I've potted it on, and will keep an eye on it.

The Qld Blue pumpkins have all hatched and so I’ve moved them into bigger pots. I also spent a lot of time putting tomato seedlings into bigger pots (tomato seedlings everywhere! I guess it’s because I used soil from the veggie patch as mixer with bought compost, and that’s where the tomatoes grew last year) and for a couple of plants, they have now graduated to being planted out (into the veggie patch).

All the biggish scarlet kales have been planted out. I planted out a few more lettuce and thinned out the beetroots, distributing the seedlings around the garden. The four miserable chard seedlings that sprouted have gone out too. (And I’ve potted on the bonus tomato seedling that grew in with them).

The biggest of the purple bean seedlings have also been planted out into the area where the peas were shredded by snails last week. I circled the new plantings with slug pellets, despite having a secret belief that these pellets actually attract slugs and snails (as well as killing them). Well I am probably right – this morning there was a gastropod conference going on by the plants but I couldn’t tell if they were dead or not. Hopefully they are dead but hubby is going out today to make sure.

Out of earlier plantings of herbs, I got only one basil plant. This was a very disappointing result so I’ve planted up four more herb pots: basil, thai basil, chives and parsley. If I get a good result this time, I’ll give away any extras to the gardening club show in July.

Also into pots were some more pumpkin seeds, these ones labelled “grey-skinned, good roasting”. They came from the pumpkin we buy from the Jamaican stall at the market. I also planted up a whole packet of sweetcorn. Probably left it too late again but I have to try. The cat, little beserker that he is, tried to eat the dried corn seeds.

The money I spent on chillies from Real Seeds was not best spent. I have got only two sprouts of the pretty-in-purple and none of the Wenks Yellow.

Now to the weekend just passed...
I hit the fruit plants with a spray of dishwashing liquid - I have it in my head that this will work against aphids and kill them. The little blighters are getting big and fat and I hate them.

The sweetcorn is taking off - looks like I will get a good crop of seedlings, but whether I've left it too late for produce only time will tell. I'm going to stick them at the back of the veggie patch when they get big enough.

In a few weeks things will look great as there are lots of flowers with buds ready to break open. Even the teasel which has turned into some kind of monster about 2m tall.

Our rosemary bush has died! The landmark for our property that has guided so many visitors to our front door has up and died after the long cold wet winter. We've offered it to Keith as some kind of barbeque fuel since he cooks on coals, we thought he could do a rosemary scented lamb roast with the dried wood and leaves. In the meantime, I'll have to keep some magic scissors in my pocket and walk the neighbourhood looking for a rosemary bush from which to snip a shoot or two to grow a new plant.

With the onset of warmer weather (some days), I'm going to have to keep a closer eye on the greenhouse and open the door in the morning to let the sun in and stop it from turning into a sauna. I know I want the plants to keep warm but I don't want them to cook. The cucumbers are getting very tall (or at least one of the varieties is) and will need potting on. The rest of the purple beans will need to be planted out somewhere (where?). I gave a few to Amanda along with my spare red kale: she has more luck with beans than I do. I also gave away a few bunches of lettuce seedlings - may as well, I seem to have hundreds and they're likely to die unless I get them into the ground soon.

There are berries on the strawberries, if we get some good sunny days over the next few weeks they might even ripen. Live in hope! There are definitely apples on the apple trees, maybe as many as a dozen between the two. They are fattening up nicely, although it will be many months before we get to enjoy that harvest.

So what will be the first harvest from the garden this year? Could be the red kale and the chinese broccoli. None of the tomatoes (except the shop-bought "Shirley") are near to having flowers yet (and Shirley, despite having flowers, doesn't seem to be enjoying her full sun position). The Chinese broccoli are going a bit leggy - they keep spitting out flowering stems which I'm cutting off to make them branch out. I thought they would be more like asparagus, with thickish stalks, at least that's what I remember from Chinese restaurants. Maybe I have to do some more research on them.

And spring onions - why bother? Am I cursed? I just wanted to grow something that seemed quite simple and easy and was relatively expensive to buy when you only even need one at a time (and supermarkets only sell them in bunches). When I think of all the seeds I've planted over the years that have not grown... grrr....

Worth a thousand words

This week I'm going to be a bit lazy and use pictures to show what's going on in the garden.

The oca by the shed have sprouted earliest and most out of the three batches I've planted, although some of all batches have now come up, the others much later and in smaller numbers. Maybe the shed oca were the most successful because they were the first choice tubers.

The chinese broccoli by the shed were showing signs of having been picked at by something. Turns out they are a hit with the wood pigeons so I've now draped netting over them as a protective measure.


These are two of the three Red Williams pears-in-progress. Not sure if they were pollinated naturally by insects from another tree in the area or from the pollen I brought home on a tissue from the flowering Beurre Hardy at Homebase.

You should be able to see two rows of lettuce here. The bigger ones at the back with more diverse leaf patterns are the Secret Lettuce. They are getting big enough to plant out soon.

These are the Wautoma and Tamra cucumbers. Not sure how many seeds I planted but I've got four strong and one struggling seedling.

Looking very similar to a cucumber, this is the Musk melon.

These are the Waltham squash seedlings. They took a long time to hatch but no surprise as they are really a hot weather plant and we haven't had much hot weather lately.

Scarlet kales: doing quite well. The ones I planted out are doing well so most of these will follow soon. I've also got some plain green kale coming along at baby stage in the greenhouse.


Just some of the strawberry flowers that are going to turn into a bumper crop of berries this year!

Planted on the same day but in two different sets of conditions. These are the purple beans my boss gave me seeds for. The ones in black were planted outside, the ones in the round pot were put into the greenhouse. It will be interesting to monitor the differences as they grow on.

Amanda tells me she has actual fruit on her gooseberry plant. I checked mine again today and can't even see flowers. I'm sure there were flowers there. No flowers on the redcurrant either, and the loganberry looks like it may have died!

The apple trees look like they have apple babies happening but I'll wait a few weeks before I take some pictures just to be sure. It looks like I will have a tough fight with the sap-sucking green insects over the fruit trees this year - they are sucking the sap out of the new growth on the apple trees and the raspberry bushes.

Plant fair at the local farmers' market today. I bought a verbena, a red daisy, a Moneymaker aubergine and a Big Boy bell pepper.

Bugs and Buds

Good news! There are three budding pear babies on the Williams Red. Bad news! Aphids (or greenfly or whatever you want to call them) have infested the new growth on the apple trees so it looks like it will be a battle over the summer between me and them. For today I've blasted them with fine spray to push them off the leaves and I've also removed the worst affected leaves but I don't believe for a minute it's fixed. This is going to be a nasty fight.

Elsewhere in the garden I finally have sign that some oca is coming up in the patch down under the wisteria. At least one oca, anyway.

In the veggie patch, the chinese broccoli are being eaten. Not by snails or slugs (no trails) so it must be some kind of cabbage moth kind of thing. Another battle on my hands there.

Last night at gardening club, I won a raffle prize and picked a plant - it's like a large perennial cornflower they tell me. Well it has buds on it, I thought why not.

Today I planted out Gana's peas and the biggest of the scarlet kales. I've also dropped a few of more spring onion seeds in but not giving much hope there. No sign of life on the purple beans yet and some of the tomatoes I planted out are suffering a bit. They're going to continue to suffer because the temperature is down to 5 degrees tonight.

The loganberry doesn't look happy. But I found one - just one - of the yellow beets I planted has hatched. Yippee!

All the sunflower sprouts have now been planted out. I dug up a batch of bluebells which I identified as Spanish, not English. I need to get something and work on the dandilions in the lawn, and to root out (literally) the bindweed which is starting to appear all over the place again. But it the neighbours don't tackle it too...

May begins

Bank holiday weekend, three days off work, should be an excellent gardening time if it weren't for the weather. Today I managed to get some planting done: purple bean seeds passed on by my boss; the last of the wenks yellow and pretty in purple chillis from real seeds; a row of Queensland blue pumpkin seeds and another row of the heritage yellow pear tomatoes.

Turns out there was a snail in my greenhouse. It bypassed all the other plants and headed straight for the zinnia seedlings. Bastard. Well it's now met its maker so will not be doing any more harm to my zinnias but it's possible that yet again, I'm going to have a poor show on the zinnia front this year.

Strawberries are flowering like crazy so we're excited that there will be a bumper crop this year. Still no flowers on the redcurrant though. I double checked the pear tree pollination groups and Beurre Hardy and Red Williams are in the same group. Maybe the Beurre is just having a little tizzy although the James Grieve I got in the same shipment has flowers. Maybe pears are just a little more temperamental. I would be so happy to get some apples this year! Even just a couple!

Last night it rained heavily and today I see the first poppies have come out. The rain has beaten the tulips about so they are on their way out. The cucumbers in the greenhouse are getting their first true leaves so soon I'll be able to transplant them into bigger pots. I may even try planting a few more.

And now, a few pictures from the garden last month:

Apple tree blossom: the Cox Orange Pippin

Pear tree blossom: the Red Williams

Tulip: just one of the many

Claudia's Birthday

Happy birthday to my long time penfriend Claudia, whose birthday it is today.

In honour of the event, I took a day off work. I did enough overtime last month to buy a day off so here today is my day off. The day started well, we had a hire car so took some stuff to the dump and then off to Homebase (10% off day!). It looks like we're going to paint the garden fence while the weather is good so we got some paint and some other bits and pieces for the summer DIY programme. Of course, I can never leave the garden section alone but came away with not very much, considering: a loganberry, a chilli plant "Apache" and tomato plant "Shirley". Also got some garden misc stuff - drip trays and a sack of dirt.

Back home and out into it. Raked the lawn before mowing to clear out the winter detrius and moss. Then did some planting out: 12 chinese broccolis have gone into the veggie patch at the back, Shirley got planted onto the sunny side as did the Loganberry (between two raspberry patches). I potted up the chilli and stuck it in the greenhouse, it will probably be happy in there.

Our neighbour was also out doing her garden so we swapped: I gave her some strawberry plants and she gave me some viola and "blue plant" seeds. They've gone into a dirt tray in the greenhouse, see what happens.

The little red kales pot I've divvied up and potted on individually, same with one of the tomato seedling pots (the Roma). I also did some long intended repotting, dividing the mint into several pots and tipping out the thyme pot, taking a breadknife to the roots, removing the moss and repotting it in fresh soil. I just hope I don't kill it!

The problem with the pear trees: the Red Williams has blossom all over it; the Beurre Hardy has none. How are these supposed to cross pollinate? At Homebase today I tried to steal some pollen from a flowering Conference pear in the garden section by swiping the corner of a tissue through some of the flowers. When I got home I wiped the pollinated tissue over some of the Red Williams flowers. No idea if this will work or not.

Tomorrow I'd like to get on and do some more weeding. I might go through my seeds tonight and see what is there that I either haven't planted or have planted but with no results.

Despite the niggling backache, I feel so much more satisfied with today's efforts than I would after a day at the office!

Sprout

Oca is sprouting! But only the oca down by the shed. The oca in the back corner of the yard and in the sunny spot by the raspberries have not sprouted yet. And the strawbs have flowers so the season will soon be upon us.

Lettuce play

Today I planted out my greens - lettuce "mixed", salad bowl and Morton's secret lettuce from realseeds. They describe it as seed from Frank and Karen's lettuce breeding programmes, a huge diversity in forms and shapes, different varieties you won't get elsewhere. Sounds intriguing.

Also planted are some Minibel tomato seeds and regular Kale (called Borecole on the packet). The garden Kale is definitely about to go over to seed so we'll be saying bye-bye to that very soon.

Fruit tree blossoms are almost out; there are flowers on the main raspberry (not the Lidl raspberries) and the gooseberry. I forgot to check the redcurrant.

Planted out today from the greenhouse: 12 kailaan seedlings, 6 on the sunny side, 6 on the shady side. I also planted out 3 "giant" sunflower seedlings. There's lots more kailaan to go out, just waiting to see how these 12 get on before I plant out more.

Melon seeds are germinating in the greenhouse! The zinnias are also going great guns.

We did some more clearing around the pond today and found some strawberry runners trying to grow on nothing so I've transplanted them. See how they go, it's not like there's a shortage.

Almost all the tulips are out: plain yellow, pink, bright pink, flame coloured red/orange/yellow, two tone maroon-yellow, one white-tipped pink. Still no sign of the Queen of Night yet.

Gardening Club - April

This month's talk was on colour for all seasons, and although our guest speaker seemed to have an enormous garden and budget to match, I wrote down some of his suggestions but on double checking on the internet with other people's pictures the ones I most liked were:

• Wintersweet (Chimonanthus)
• Witchhazel (hamamelis) for the great flowers in winter
• Pseudowintera colorata, a plant with NZ origins, also called Horopito
• Species tulips were recommended over other types as they last longer
• Acer auroa, a japanese maple with yellow autumn leaves
• Delphiniums
• Leucanthemum (daisies) - he recommended shaggy but I've just seen one called Goldrausch which is yellow and shaggy
• Hedychium (ginger!) which I didn't know you could grow here but he seems to be doing so. The varieties I noted were Carnival, Pink Flame, Spicatum and densifloram Assam Orange. I'd love to grow ginger so will look into this.
• Colletia cruciata, an amazing looking plant that's more like an art collage. Look it up.
• Astrantia major
• Eryngium which I like the look of but am not sure I would want to grow them as they look a little too much like thistles
• Verbena
• Helenium which seems to come in attractive bright yellow/orange/red combinations

11 April

Today I got stuck into a few areas that I've let get away, namely, the corner near the pond where the strawberries and weeds have gone mad, and the patch down near the gooseberry which has been taken over by the carnation.

The carnation has been there for several years and all it does is sprawl and produce flower buds that rot and fall off. Probably I could improve its situation by moving it, but I was fed up with it so just ripped it out. I dug in some compost to improve the moss situation and planted up some seeds: nasturtiums, calendula, larkspur and marigold. I also cut back the cineraria in the same area to get rid of some of the woody stems.

We gave Sigmund a thorough pruning - there were a lot of dead vines which we were able to chop out, leaving Sigmund much smaller than before. But Sigmund always comes back and there are leaf buds on the bare stems already so there will be leaves by next weekend.

The patch by the pond was thick with creeping buttercup and grass. I cleared some of it but will need to go back another day. I planted some seeds on the sunny side of the garden: two types of beetroot (one from Mr Fothergill, one from Morissons bought who knows how long ago) and some miscellaneous larkspur seeds also from who knows how long ago.

Blueberries have lots of flower buds so they should be very productive when it's berry season, just to be generous I put some new soil in the pots. None of the other berries are at that stage yet, although I got rid of 21 baby strawberry plants to people at work this week.

Fruit trees: the Cox has leaves on it and the new Beurre Hardy almost has leaves. The Red Williams and the James Grieve are falling behind. In fact I'm worried something go into the Red Williams as it looks like the new shoots are just producing flowers, no leaves. And I saw ants on it the other day which makes me fear the sap sucking insects are in there sucking the goodness out of the new shoots.

Greenhouse: this year's winner is the Kailaan, going great guns. But there has been germination amongst some of the sunflowers, the kale, the tomatoes and some of the basil. I'll have to remember to water more often now the temperature is picking up, don't want to encounter wilting plants like I did the other day. Some of the Kailaan is big enough that I might try planting a few out next weekend.

Daffodils are still in flower and tulips are coming out. Most common is the deep pink colour but there are one each of a cream-tipped pink and a yellow-tipped red as well. I'm tagging them this year to know which bulb is which when I'm sorting them at season end as I promised some to Amanda.

Easter

Leaf report: there are leaves on the gooseberry, the redcurrant and the raspberry bushes. The Cox Orange Pippin apple tree has leaves but the other fruit trees and the blueberries aren't there yet.


Things to eat: the kale survived the winter well and is in good eating condition, and will probably remain so until the insects wake up or it goes to seed.


Flowers: daffodils are coming out and there are buds on the tulips. The winter flowering heathers are still flowering.


Seeds : planted up a big load of seeds today.

• A whole tray of zinnias using the last of the seeds in the open packet
• Beans: fasold and opera (in toilet paper tubes since I have no peas it seems)
• Chillis: wenks hot yellow and pretty in purple (from http://www.realseeds.co.uk/)
• Waltham Squash (also Real seeds)
• Musk Melon (Real seeds again)
• Cabbage: savoy and red although there were not many seeds left in the packet

Seeds growing:

There seems to be quite a bit of stuff growing in the greenhouse. The kailaan are going great guns, I just hope when they make it out into the garden they don't get eaten by bugs. The basils are hatching and growing slowly as are some of the flowers. The yellow tomatoes are doing well and the kale is showing promise.

In the beds:

No sign of the oca yet (probably too early and not been warm enough). There could be signs that the yellow beets and spring onions are coming up but I'm not being too optimistic.

If we get any more good weather this weekend (in between the heavy rain showers) I might try and plant up some rows of beetroot in situ but where?

I've had some offers from colleagues at work to take the baby strawberry plants which would give some extra space on what was a greenhouse last year and is just shelves this year since the cover ripped itself to pieces (well it was a cheapo from Lidl).

Waiting for three sunny days in a row so the yard dries out enough for me to mow the lawn.

First sunny Sunday

Today is the first sunny Sunday of the year, or at least it seems that way.

A new year, a new greenhouse (since last year's greenhouse cover suffered some damage), two new fruit trees and some new seeds.

My Lidl pear tree (the Beurre Hardy) didn't seem to have survived the winter so I ordered two new trees from Blackmoor Nurseries. Another Beurre Hardy and a James Grieve apple tree. These are both cordons which I think means they are older than the usual and will perhaps bear fruit earlier. We'll have to wait and see on that but for now, they've been planted and are not dead.

Today I set to with seed planting. Lots of veg (at least I hope there will be lots of veg):

• swiss chard
• roma tomatoes
• scarlet kale
• yellow pear tomatoes (heritage variety: found them in Oxfam ,who are doing gardening stuff)
• tetona spinach
• sweet green basil
• thai basil
• kailaan (chinese broccoli - new this year from Real Seeds)

And some flowers:

• Various sunflowers: Giant single, Autumn Beauty and Teddy bear
• Echinacea

All in pots and all now in the greenhouse.

Out in the garden I threw in a row of Burpees Golden beetroot (notoriously low levels of germination for these so I was generous with the seed distribution) on the sunny side near the redcurrant and a row of White Lisbon spring onions (I have never had any luck at all with spring onion seeds!) by the Lidl raspberries. Over by Sigmund I threw in some cornflower seeds. These are essentially wildflowers so they shouldn't need any coddling to grow.

Already in the garden are three rows of oca: one right by the shed in the vege patch at the back of the garden, one near the spotted laurel and one up by the redcurrant (now near the beetroot and spring onions). When I was digging up some dirt to use for the seed pots today I found a massive oca clump - somehow this missed being harvested last year but has gone back into the ground to grow more oca this year.

Snowdrops and crocuses are already out in the garden. Tulips and daffodils are up but no sign of flower buds yet. The winter heathers are still in flower.

We made some changes to the planting around the pond. We've pulled out the lavender that was on the fence side and planted there "big heather" - a white flowered heather that had been living in a pot for years. And on the path side we dug up the straggly sage bush, some lemon balm plants and some other miscellaneous grassy weeds and put in some of the baby strawberry plants I cultivated from runners last year. There are still loads more in pots which I might give away at gardening club or to people at work.

The fruit trees are swelling and should have leaves visible by the end of the month. The berries are also swelling and should be bursting into leaf as soon as the weather picks up. Glad to see nothing seems to have died during the long cold winter (except the Lidl pear tree). The little heucheras are not doing very well but they are still alive.

Mid Season

This is the hard work time of year. The easy bit (plant seeds and sit back for a week, two weeks while they hatch) is done. Now there is a whole nursery fully of baby plants that are crying for attention.

However some plants are already doing their thing - as the pic of the Honeoye strawberry shows. We've had our second harvest (second ripe strawb) from this plant this morning, and still more to go.

New in town this week, hatchings from the cucumber, squash, sweetcorn mangetout and borlotti bean seeds.

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V borlotti bean triffids

I have been vigourous in my potting on of seedlings... more or less. Chillies, tomatoes, patty pan squash and the asparagus have all been moved into bigger containers to help them develop. The asparagus are doing OK. I should really do something about getting a bed for them but the area I was considering needed a run over with the strimmer (whipper-snipper) and I ran out of strimmer string today.

In the garden bed, there are now only four cabbages remaining. The sweet peas are not dying, but neither are they gaining in size. The peas I so carefully grew in the toilet rolls have been reduced to sticks by evil snails (liberal application of slug pellets seems to have cured that problem.

I need to get on top of the weeding - there are weeds taking over all over, and bindweed coming through the fence from next door. Today I took the unusual step of weeding my plants-in-pots (I'm not usually so diligent) so the poor plants can breathe a bit. (There were all a bit swamped).

It's not too far off raspberry season - the first of the berries is already faintly pink. Looking forward to that. However I think only the old bushes will fruit this year; the Lidl "from stick" canes are growing well but probably not up to fruiting much this year.

And we have blueberries! I did wonder if they were fruiting but while checking the pots today I saw that yes, there are some blueberries. And here is a picture to end on. (Sorry about the fuzzy focus).

Planting out

Last Saturday I planted six Savoy cabbage seedlings out into the garden proper. Today I went to water then and found only five!

I've planted out about 20 sweet pea seedlings in various spots around the garden. Some are doing well, some are looking a bit brown.

The oca are doing well - seven plants up at the back, and at least five up in the other two beds. I didn't earth them up; mostly because I'm not sure what earthing up is?

The leaves on the Williams Red pear are still curled. I hope it doesn't have some sort of "leaf curl" problem.

Four of the purple passion asparagus seeds sprouted. I've potted them on into individual pots but for the sake of preserving them, I had better get an asparagus bed sorted in the garden soon.

The helipterums need to be planted out soon - they are outgrowing the seed tray.

I transplanted some of the beetroot seedlings on advice from a friend. There are about 20 of them in the garden now, they're doing OK. Give them another week to see how many survive.

Last weekend I planted up more seed trays: sweetcorn, cucumbers, borlotti beans and pumpkins/squash. None of the beans I planted earlier have done much. Of the two beans I got from Amanda, one has been eaten to death and the other one is struggling.

The plastic cover on my cheap Lidl greenhouse is splitting (already). When I do up or undo the zips on the plastic roll at the front, the zip splits a bit more from the plastic, so there are huge gaps letting the cool air in.

The Honeoye strawberry has one big fat red strawberry on it. With luck, and if the snails don't get there first, it will be ripe for the weekend!

Good, bad and ugly news

Its great to come back from holiday and see how much things have grown... or not...

My great find the night before flying out was to discover that my cheap Lidl pear tree, the one I had been whinging about, is not dead! I had been studying the woody stalks branching out from the main trunk - and truth be told, I do think they are all dead. What I hadn't been looking at was the trunk itself. And there, lo and behold, is where the leaf buddage has been occuring!

There were several other happy things to return home to.

Tulips! Still in bloom, lots of them, although by now they are starting to look at bit tatty but the black and white (purple and cream) ones looked stunning at their peak. They probably had a name, I may even still have the bag with the name on in the shed, but for now I am not going to bother with names.

Oca! Tough clover-leafed stalks are now poking out of the ground, signalling that my yams are starting to grow under the soil. All three types have sprouted, but I'm only seeing evidence of two or three in each bed. Better than none I suppose.

Asparagus! Not in the trench, but the seeds planted in the greenhouse are starting to sprout. Or at least, two of them are. Only tiny now, but in three years time, they will be featuring heavily on my dinner plate.

Strawberries! It's not quite Wimbledon yet, but by the time it is, I'm sure these Honeoye strawberries will be long gone. Thankfully all the strawberry plants look to be thick with flowers, so lots of yummy red fruit to come....

Now for the bad news: the zinnias all died. I don't know why. They were looking good when I went away, but I came back and they were all shrivelled into brown plant corpses. But I won't be deterred - I will plant more seeds. I will have zinnias!

The ugly news: with the onset of spring proper and the bursting of new growth came the return of the unholy trinity: the gastropods, the bindweed and dandelions. Yes, as fast as the little seedlings are poking their heads up out of the soil, the snails are appearing and chewing them down to ugly stumps. From a relatively bindweed-free garden two weeks ago, the weaving weed is wriggling its way up through the heucheras, the strawberries, the lavender - even appearing in the lawn! Dandelions - while I've had some luck pulling plants out with roots intact while gardening after rain, I can't see I'm ever going to beat this problem while my neighbours yard is awash with dandelion puffballs and yellow flowers.

As predicted, the chard has gone to seed and been removed. This is all part of the plan, because the chard was growing over one of the oca beds, so now the oca can grow freely.

I have savoy cabbage seedlings and peas and sweet peas all ready to plant out. I think I have the tallest savoy seedlings in the world - not sure how they will heart up but we'll give it a go. Some of the tomato and chilli seeds have sprouted, and there is evidence that at least some teasel seed was still good.

It's a long weekend ahead, I hope for lots of sun so I can get lots of weeding and seed planting done.

Pink hot tulip action

Hooray! Tulips in bloom! The bright pink one that might be called Angelique, and also the Queen of Night, in its velvety black-purple. (Queen of Night is suffering a bit with aphids, I had to chase the little sap-sucking buggers off with the hose.) Around the garden I can see other tulips with reddish bulb tinges ready to go off... I may miss those as they look a few days away yet.

I'm glad the tulips survived the winter after their unexpected unearthing in December by some demented squirrel.

Other flower news - the Honeoye strawberry plant has two flowers on it. That means two potential strawberries! Not enough to make jam with but good news all the same.

The apple tree definitely has blossom pending. I sniffed at the little red buds and they smelt lovely, not appley but very nice all the same.

And now for the "It Lives" report from the greenhouse:

• 11 tips sprouting amongst the two types of sweet pea (sown 23/03/09 - fast!)
• 4 Echinacea, some celeriac and 1 lonely chilli (sown 13/3/09)
• 3 teasel, 7 zinnia, 1 Roma tomato (sown 10/3/09)

Manny is always keen to help out when he can.

My greenhouse is now almost full, as I got full swing into seed planting early today seeing as how this is my last weekend around the garden before my holiday. Today I planted:

9 x Meteor Peas (in the cardboard centres of toilet rolls - to give the roots more room to develop, Amanda tells me); 10 x beans: 5 each of Opera Dwarf and Fasold climbing (irrelevant aside: fasol is the Russian word for bean. At work there is an Italian consultant whose surname is Fasola who I now always think of as Mr Bean); a pot of snapdragons (why use the very dull latin name of Antirrhinum?); Heuchera pulchella (which I am disappointed to see is green, the whole point of Heucheras is the beautiful range of non-green colours they come in, but then I bought the seeds so I must have known what I was getting?); Helipterum Pierrot; Achillea Summer Berries (one of my very few perennials, I should grow more perennials); a selection of Rudbeckia from a multi pack bought at the 99p shop who knows when: Gloriosa Daisies, Marmelade and Rustic Dwarfs; 2 types of Cabbage: Savoy King and Red Jewel; patty pan squash Sunburst; and two more types of sweet pea: Royal family and Royal blue.

Helipterum seeds - cute little fluffy bundles!

That's just the greenhouse! I then went out into the garden proper and planted up two pots of specially sieved soil with parsnips (Avonresister: which makes me think of Blake's 7) and Carrots (Chantenay - received free with a Boden catalogue). I have already had to move the carrot pot from its intended resting place because the cat was about to mistake the pot for a nice place to sit.

Down in the patch between the established raspberries and the bottlebrush, I planted up still more seeds: a row each of Spinach tetona, Scarlet Kale, dwarf green Kale, Sweet william and some nasturtiums.

There is still no action in any of the oca beds. I cut back the rainbow chard that is growing around one of the oca beds - I think the chard is about to go to seed, it's looking not very good.

I repotted the bay tree, it's been looking a little shabby lately and that could be either that it's quite rootbound in its pot or because it has some kind of insect making nice homes amongst its leaves. I chopped the poor thing back quite a bit to get rid of the insect infestation, but I think it can take it. There are loads of leaf buds all over it so it has plenty of scope to generate new leaves.

I did some weeding along the shady side of the garden; didn't get very far but then I did have an almighty battle with the couch grass and the grape hyacinth. Who planted the bloody grape hyacinth in this garden I don't know but the blasted stuff just spreads and spreads and is not particularly attractive so I rip it up as much as I can but the thinness of the stems means they are more likely to snap when pulled, in which case you've left the bulb in the ground and the evil plant can continue to grow and propogate itself.

The penstemon on the corner of the pond where the lavender used to be has been struggling a bit since I moved it. I've built a nice little wall in the dirt around it now, so that when I water it, the water won't just run off down the hill but actually pool around the roots and do some good where it's needed. I did some weeding around the pond too, but unhappily, on the path side there is nothing growing but weeds, so once they're gone the area just looks bare and empty. I threw some marigold seeds in near the penstemon, so it won't feel so lonely and exposed on the corner.

Actually, I have referred back to my planting map and identified the seeds that have sprouted in this same area and they are the nemophilia.

And by this time it was almost the end of the day and the sun was still shining so I got out the lawn mower and gave the lawn the first cut of the year!

I spoke to Amanda and she cheerfully told me that her asparagus plant is doing well. I went and checked mine again and there is absolutely no action coming out of that trench. Then I noticed some marks on the fence next to it and realised I had found the shitzu entry point! A few pieces of scrap wood slotted into the gaps should fix that. But maybe not fix my asparagus if it's had evil shitzu jumping onto it several times a day. Still I live in hope that the seeds in the greenhouse will germinate and one day I will serve home grown asparagus at the dinner table.

Notes for self on return from holiday:

• Plant more carrots, plant more lettuce, plant more beetroot, plant more spring onion.

There's something very soothing about coming home from work on Friday evening and going straight out to fuss about in the garden. I really only wanted to check the seed status in the greenhouse, but ended up doing a full walk around and water.

News from the greenhouse: seed sproutings can now be seen in the teasel, sweet pea and echinacea trays. I want to believe there are seeds sprouting in one of the chilli trays but I think that's a little too optimistic. However there are seedlings popping up down below the transplanted Penstemon which are either Aster, Nemophilia or Scabious. In that patch of the garden, there has been no sign of activity from the mystery seeds, the sunflower seeds or the larkspur seeds.

I have sorted my seeds again, this time actually labelling them and using rubber bands to attach like seeds together. And in the time it has taken me to do this, March has become April, so the "plant now" and "plant in April" piles have become one... and become large. This is a little daunting because this is my last weekend at home before I go on holidays for two weeks. All I have to do is finish weeding the shady side of the garden, plant 40 types of seeds in the garden and in seed pots, and make the fence impervious to shitzus. (Another pile of shitzu was found and thrown back over the fence today.)

As first Friday in the month, it was Gardening Club night.
http://www.communigate.co.uk/london/whittinghamgardeningclub/
Our guest speaker was John, a local gardening enthusiast showing slides of a collection of just some of the plants in his garden. As his talk was about 1.5 hours, you can only imagine just how many plants he has in his garden, and this talk was only about SOME of his collection.

I did manage a word with him in the break, asking his advice about the pear trees. He assured me that as bare root stock, dug up and moved around and only planted a short while ago, the trees may still be having a bit of a sulk, and I shouldn't be concerned that they're not budding up. It's quite normal for them to do this as they've had a bit of a shock. So long as they get plenty of water to help them establish, he said, it's very unlikely that they will not grow. Although I shouldn't set any store on getting a pear harvest this year.

The apple tree, however, is going great guns. I'm very excited by a small red cluster which may be a flower bud! I just hope that I will be here to see it. I'm unhappy at the prospect of the tulips just about to start flowering just when I'm about to go away. The first tulips may open their buds this week (some buds already attracting an appreciative crowd of aphids which I chased off with the hose today). I just don't want to come home from holiday and find all my tulip pots contain leaves and green sticks where there once were petals but the blooms have all now faded.

I'm reading a book called Allotted Time by Robin Shelton. It's about him and his mate deciding to get an allotment plot together. I'm impressed that there are people out there who took on an allotment with even less knowledge of veggie gardening than Amanda and I had in our two failed attempts at allotmenting. The book is a good read so far, although perhaps no-one but another gardener could appreciate whole sections on the pain and tedium of trying to dig over a garden bed covered in weeds. In the rain. It almost made me want to go out and get an allotment again. Almost.

It's predicted sunny for Sunday so I hope to get up early and be out there sorting the garden and getting a last load of photos done to save here so when I get back I can compare then and now. I guess you'll hear from me again then.