Week 5

Vegetables looking good after the weeding.... lettuce, spinach, beetroot, onion, parsnips and suede are all doing well! 

Most of the runner beans are now too big for the cold frame so I have planted round 10 of these out.  To protect the plants from a late frost I have wrapped some fleece around the canes.   I have left the smaller plants growing in the cold frame and will plant them out when they get too large.

The early potatoes I planted a month ago are now breaking the surface.  I know that I should be mounding the soil up to cover the leaves..... that is going to involve some serious shoveling so I will be leaving that until the weekend! :0)

In the cold frame the tomatoes are growing very well - I think I will repot them into larger pots very soon.  Also the broccoli seems to be getting to a point where they could be planted out.

I have just planted some suede in a tray and have left this in the cold frame -it will be interesting to see whether the suede I sowed directly into the soil a month ago or the seed I have planted into a tray in the cold frame comes on better.

All in all I am surprised at how well this is all going so far!  If anyone has any pointers please do let me know!!

Just a quick update!  - O have been past the garden today and things are comming on very well - the only issue is that the weeds seem to be growing at a rapid rate of knots so I have spent well over an hour weeding the patch!  I have watered everything well and have also sown some additional beetroot seeds in row 10 (which I left for this purpose)...

I will be back down the garden tomorrow evening so will take some photos!

Week 4

Ok it has been a blistering easter weekend in Shrewsbury today so have got a lot done in the garden.

The tomatoes that I planted in pots inthe windowsill at home are growing nicely so I have split those up into individual pots.  The same has been done wht the broccoli.  Only 2 out of the 6 butternutsquash seeds have grown so far but those two are looking very healthy. I have now moved the butternutsquash, tomatoes and small broccoli plants in to the cold frame outside in the garden.

I planted runner beans in trays indoors a week or so go.  It must be the weather because they have shot up and are already around 9 inches tall.  I shall move these out to the cold frame in the next couple of days, but in preparation I have started the ground ready to plant them out in a week or so:

I have been informed that runner beans prefer very fertile, moist soil.  A good way to achieve this is to dig a trench 2 foot wide and around 8 inches deep.  Fill this trench with a few inches deep of compost, manure or part rotted compost then fill back in with soil.  So that is what I have done and I have also errected some of the canes in readiness (I only had 8 canes to hand but will need another 8 so a trip to Charlies is in order tomorrow!).

I have also sown some more seeds in the right hand patch:  mixed lettuce, carrot, more onion & rocket.  From the rear to the front I now have the following seeds sown:

1:  Onion
2: Carrot Autumn
3: Onion
4: Parsnip
5: Onion
6: Parsnip
7: Leek
8: Brocoli
9: Beetroot
10: Spare for more beetroot at later date
11: Cauliflower
12: Lettuce
13: Lettuce
14: Spinach
15: Mixed lettuce
16: Carrot
17: Onion
18: Carrot
19: Carrot
20: Rocket


I have mixed the carrot and onion rows because apparently onions and leeks help keep carrot fly away.  Does this work? We shall have to wait and see!

I have all seeds and seedlings covered with fleece to propect from a frost - I do not want to take any chances at this stage!

All in all a good weekend so far at the garden - dad and myself even managed to paint grans fences both sides - not a job I would like to do again too soon!

It has been a few days since I have been down at the garden, however I have been repliably informed that things are looking well.  The runner beans, broccoli, butternut squash and tomato that I planted in trays on my window sill are all doing well so I will be moving those down to the garden tomorrow into a cold frame.

I will get some photos tomorrow and will try to post them on line.  Until then, have a great weekend - it looks like a scorcher!

more seedlings

The broccoli and tomato seeds are already sprouting little seedlings on the windows!  The potatoes are also chitting quite nicely.  The weather has been fantastic today so I have popped down the gardenfor an hour to dig the trenches for the potatoes.  This was very hard work so it was a good job gran was around with a cup of tea at the end!

planting more seeds at home

I have today planted tomato, brocoli and chive seeds at home.  I have planted 3 tomato seeds per pot and have planted 6 pots.  The brocoli seeds I have simply planted in a large tray to be transplanted to pots when the plants are large enough to handle.  The chive seeds I have planted in a large teracotta pot.

The tomato and brocoli pots will be left on a window sill until they are big enough to move outside.  The pot of chive seeds I have left outside but I have covered the pot with cling film (as per advice on the seed packet) to keep the frost off.

I am going to be popping down to the allotment tomorrow to see how things are progressing... I cant wait!

seeds growing!

Some of the seedlings are breaking the surface so I now need to lift the fleece up a little otherwise the fleece will crush the seedlings.  I do not want to remove the fleece incase we have more frost.

To raise the fleece off the ground I have installed some canes accross the gound raised from the ground by 3 inches on some stakes.

I have also numbered up each row of seedlings for ease of identification and have given them a good water.

Tomorrow I am going to plant out the early potatoes!

first seeds to be sown

Now that the ground has been left for a week to break down and that the chance of a hard frost is now minimal I have decided to plant out some seed!

I have not had much time to research what I should plant next to each other so I am going to plant a mixture as I would like to get some seeds in the ground as soon as possible.  I will research this more and put into practice in the next sowing in the comming weeks.

As previously mentioned, the vegetable garden is divided into two plots.  I have decided to use the smaller strip for sowing the small vegetables like lettuce, carrot etc. and use the larger strip of land for the larger veg like butternut squash, beans, potatoes etc.  This is my plan so far but if necessary I may still overflow some of the crops from the smaller patch onto the larger.

I have all the tools ready so onto sowing I go.... Today I have sown carrots, parsnip, cabbage, onion, leeks, lettuce & beetroot all in rows in the small patch.  This has used up approx 2/3 of the smaller patch. 

These seeds will need protecting because there is still a chance of a small frost so I have been advised to cover the ground with some horticultural fleece.  I have purchsed 10m2 from a local garden centre - this is just enough to cover the newly planted seeds.

At regular intervals I have staked the ground with some small canes to keep the fleece off the ground.  The fleece is then draped over the stakes and then held to the ground with tent pegs.  I have marked each row of seeds and noted the rows on paper.

I watered them well with the hose, tidied up and then had a nice cup of tea.  I look forward to seeing signs of growth in the next week or so.

Preparation

Ok....the first job I guess was to dig over the patch of land that we are going to use for our allotment / vegetable garden and remove all the weeds.    This was no easy task - our 'allotment' consists of two strips of land.  The first strip being 2m x 8m and the second strip being 3m x 9.5m.  Once dug over I have removed all large stones and thoroughly raked over to create a nice fine topsoil for us to plant our vegetables.  The start of Vegetable growing in shrewsbury SY1.