Sown Seed Update

A quick update on the sown seed, plans and plants on plot.

On Plot:

• White, Red and Yellow Onions
• Large Garlic and Tasty Garlic
• Tall peas (small seedlings)
• Strawberries – recovered plants
• Berry plant (bit sickly) recovered from previous plot, can’t remember name, looks like a big raspberries
• Random Horseradish

Sown in Pots and Trays:

• Pink Onion (small seedlings grown over winter)
• Broccoli, Sprouts and Cauliflower (all just sprouting)
• Carrots (maybe just sprouting)
• Root Parsley (nothing yet)
• Celery and Celeriac (not definitely doing anything)
• Cherry Tomatoes (One growing, no signs of the others. Trying to get more seed to germinate in cling film and damp cotton pad)
• Second attempt Dwarf Peas
• Yellow Beans (just sown)
• Dill (just sown)

Next thoughts:

• Pumpkins
• Gherkins
• Melon
• More herbs
• Corn
• Flowers
• Swede
• Beetroot?

Plot update – 26st Feburary 2012 Gallery

This gallery contains 5 photos.

Vegetable Timetable

I’ve been looking at the time scales quoted for different vegetables to see if I can get a better overview idea of what may be happening when. I’ve not seen this type of complete picture before, only the individual sow and plant months for each seed type. Here I can roughly see what I need to be concentrating on now, and what might be finished when for planning some type of continous planting/rotation scheme. Looks like cerleriac and celery need starting a lot earlier then I realised! Peas and tomatoes too I should get going on.

As I buy the exact seeds I can make this a little more accurate, including when I sowed them and where, and what is going in after and when they will need starting.

Winter Has Come – COLD!

As I predicted back in November, winter has arrived in February. With Arctic winds coming down and from the east. It got down do around -30 in Poland, and -12 here, but things seem to be surviving. I’ve even seen bulbs yesterday that had been growing like it they thought it was spring, actually still going and starting to flower! I’m more confident now that the garlic and onions will survive till the real spring. I’m not sure how long this winter blast will last, but I am slightly worried that this is a sign that winter will drag out and spring and summer will be delayed or be a wash out.

Winter that never was?

The weather continues to be strangely mild. This appears to be confusing all the bulbing plants into sprouting like its spring. God know what it will do to them if we suddenly get a hard frost!

Checking the plot, everything looks good. The onions and garlic are all sprouting and growing. I hope they know what they are doing, else I could lose the lot in a frost!

Winter Update (what winter?)

The weather is bizarre this end of year. It is almost December and we still haven’t had a frost and the temperatures are more like early autumn! I’ve see blackcurrants and strawberries still, flowers and daffodil shoots! Everything is a bit confused.

Up at the plot, lots of the onion and some of the garlic have sprouted. I don’t know if they are supposed to and what will happen when the frost does come, do they think it is spring? The weeds are making a really come back effort in this weather. Much of the areas we dug have now got small weeds scattered every where. I am hoping they are just confused too and will get killed in the first frost. We should give it a rake and hoe over at some point, but worst case, I don’t think they will get established enough before winter really comes. My prediction is that winter will hit in February. I really don’t know what the result will be.

70% Cleared and Overwintering Onions Planted

The plot is not roughly 70% cleared and dug. Just a strip in the foreground and the top end to go. The overwintering onion sets have been planted. They took up roughly a 3-4 metre square area. I worry that I’ve planted them in the area of the worst soil. It was quite a pain digging space to plant them in the lumpy clay soil. I surrounded them with poles to mark them. It should rain all this week, so I’ll check them next weekend to see if they still look ok. I’ve never done onions like this before, so I’m not sure if there is anything particular I should have done to help them survive the winter.

The soil nearest the composting area is still quite full of weed roots, which is why I didn’t plant them there. However, it is much softer and looser and would have been better for them, if I had thought ahead.

Wood Supply – Raised Beds

I feel very fortunate to have discovered in Bristol we have the Bristol Wood Recycling Project http://www.bwrp.org.uk/. When we get time we need to get down there and sort out wood for raised beds. Ideally I’d like us to have one large strawberry bed and a couple for blueberries and cranberries.

We really need to get on top of getting a shed, pretty soon the weather wont be good enough to be out building and painting it, and it would be really good to have it up before winter.

Sunny 1st October! (Binary Day 01/10/11)

Its the 1st October and its been a beautiful sunny weekend. Would be perfect to be putting up and painting a shed if we were ready and had one, hope it doesn’t suddenly change when we do.

Its been a pretty cold and wet summer again this year, I can’t remember the last consistent one, but and again there is bizarrely record breaking hot weather late in the year! It feel like summer has just arrived, only soon to be taken from us when autumn kicks in. Our potted tomatoes that have struggled all summer are at last starting to ripen, and for once no real sign of blight With our first year on our new plot coming. I wonder what the weather will do. We should prepare for rain no doubt!

Composting Area – Builders Bags and Pallets

Here’s the new composting area. Builders bags were a great idea, the are really large, strong and fold away when you’re not using them. We laid down some weed suppressing sheeting over the area since it is going to be really hard to weed or dig the area whilst the compost sits here, and the pallets hopefully help everything secure and off the ground.

The second pallet is ready for the second builders bag, which is almost full already! The idea should be to transfer one lot into the other once they have rotted down enough to fit into one bag. Then start the empty bag a-new with fresh composting material. We have a third bag (bought at three for two), but we may just get away with not needing it.

Because of the huge job we have to clear the plot, there is no way we are going to worry about what is annual and what is nasty in the weeds (mostly nasty!). Despite what people say time and time again, there is no way we are going to attempt to separate them and any case, I challenge the assumption that you need to be so careful and that you can kill them off and rot them down just fine, we’ll see whose right get at the end!