The Gardening Adventures of Firsty McStub

are the tomato seeds that I thought wouldn’t germinate!  Yay!  They had a sow before date of 2006 but loads have come up so should be getting some cherry toms if all goes well.  lettuce are up, they were very keen and the courgettes are starting to push through too.  Blackcurrant twig is still upright but I think that may be all that’s going for it.  I have hope though

Made a lovely vegetable crumble tonight with loads of root veggies (not home grown though) and a rhubarba and apple crumble (although we’ve not eaten that yet, maybe tomorrow).  Aim for this year is definitely to make more seasonal food and buy food from the UK.  If I could grow most of it that would be good too, but lets not get ahead of ourselves eh?

*edit* completely forgot to post about sowing seeds we got from The real Seed Company.  love the idea of this company, so shall supposrt it as and when I can.  I bought some more tomato seeds, some pepper and cucumber which have all been sowed with the help from Alex.  Still have some peas, mangetout and sweetcorn to think what to do with!

On Sunday I went to the local allotments and put my name down for one.  I’m not hopeful it will be any time soon though, I’m 27th on the list!  However, I supppose I need to be on it to ever get one so the deed is done.

 

I’ve had a  twig sat on my desk at home for ages, it was a blackcurrant cutting we sent off for last year from Ribena and I forgot about it.  I decided to find out what I was supposed to be doing with it and found the instructions online.  It suggested keeping outside once it arrived to stop it from drying out.  I felt the twig and it was bone dry - oops.  But, I decided to plant it according to the instructions anyway and see if anything happens.  Hopefully!!  It’s in a pot so moveable when we move as will most things.

 

Now I know this isn’t my knitting blog, but I’m thinking of combining it to encompass all my daft obsessions I get.  I’ve figured that most of my obsessions tend to come round again which is a good thing and I’ll remember that next time I think about ebaying everything!  I have a stash under the bed of  some yarn, not all of it mind, but a smidgen of the grand total available in the (shhh) garage.  I sorted it yesterday and decided to get back into it.  I took some free yarn I got from a magazine and decided to turn it into a triangular head scarf thing (idea in Stitch n Bitch) and completed it in one evening - fab.  Shall try to get a pic of me wearing it.  Got a  few other UFO’s about which I’ll try and attack, I think I need one of those status bars so I can record how far I am with them all eh?

 

So on to today, back to gardening and a trip to Wilkinsons was planned to try and get some seed potatoes.  I wanted some early potatoes and so came back with a small bag of 10 ‘Nicola’ seeds.  Although on looking at the internet it seems they are early maincrop, but I suppose that doesn’t matter does it?  Says they’ll be ready in July- Aug.  Also got some lettuce seeds and courgette and a rhubarb crown/plant thing.  I need a pot for this though so will sort one as soon as.  Alex and I sowed the seeds when we got home and set the potatoes for chitting (well they already have some growth, maybe they are ok?  I dunno, last year I just shoved em in the ground!!!).  So although it’s small steps at the moment, the wheels are being set in motion.  Looking forward to eating home grown stuff again

unfortunately we moved from that fantastic farm house in scotland to a much smaller rented house in Sheffield.  So the climate might be marginably more favourable, but space is severely limited.  I spent the winter trying not to beat myself up over too many things such as home made meals every night and recycling as we were getting used to the new house, had lots of things on (getting married for one!) and well sometimes you just need to give yourself a break.  So I did.  Actually I wasn’t sure I’d do any gardening this year as I was so uninspired by the thought but recently as spring has started, I’ve become more interested.

 

So, the back garden.  It gets light all day so that’s good, but it’s small and losing last years crops due to moving is making me want to do it all in containers.  All I managed to salvage from last year was the blueberry plant, I did want my dh to bring the strawberry plants but he didn’t.  Anyway, that’s all a long story and in the past.  So this year I want to concentrate on stuff I want that is expensive to buy like peppers and won’t spend too much time and worry on cheap stuff like onions and carrots.  I can’t find all my seeds from last year which is stressing me slightly, will look more tomorrow, but I’ve ordered some from The Real Seed Catalogue.  I’ve ordered some peppers (nice early ones!), tomatoes, peas, mangetout (never tried that before), cucumbers and some sweetcorn.  I’m sure some will have to go in the ground (thinking of sweetcorn at least) but we’ll see.  Also want to get some courgette as we enjoyed that last year.  Might try and get some early potato seeds too to have in a bag that I can earth up.

 

Today I cut back some of the garden, it seems to have been neglected for ages, and it’s made a difference at least to the size of the garden.  Also planted some cherry tom seeds I found on a shelf, although they are out of date so not sure if we’ll get any results.  If we do though I’d like to put them in a hanging basket.

 

Hopefully lots to update with soon, took some pics today too so shall put them on once they are on the puter. 

so this is the first year I’ve *ever* managed to harvest anything from the garden.  I’m well chuffed.  We’ve had quite a few strawberries.  The plants from Homebase (Hapil in case I forget/lose the marker thing) have done much better than the ones from the local garden centre.  Must have had a couple of dozen and they’re not finished yet. 

I picked some peas for dinner tonight and they were yum!  I love peas.  Will definitely grow much much more of them next year.  They keep falling over, so I think I’ll try and fashion a chicken wire trellis thing for them to scramble up next time.

picked a couple of dwarf french beans and had them for dinner tonight.  very nice. 

Courgettes (surprise surprise!) are coming along too.  Had a few already, but not overwhelmes as we’ve only one plant.  The summer squash plants aren’t doing so good though

The wild harvest has been the best though.  We keep getting lots of raspberries, although by the time I get them back to the house the kids have scoffed most of them.  I’m freezing little bits at a time and hope to make jam with it.  Will be nice to have a freezer bag of  them too to add to smoothies and stuff for the kids.

Today we found *loads* of cherry trees out of the back of the farm and so headed out with punnets to pick them.  I expected them to be really sour but the kids insisted on trying them and declared them delicious!  They’re really dark cherries too.  Have made cherry choc chunk ice cream tonight with them.  Going out to get more tomorrow hopefully to make some pies and maybe some jam. 

The tom plants are flowering.  My blueberries are very nearly ready I think (although only a handful there), onions doing well, most of the potatoes are ok.  French beans (normal sized ones) are growing well, but yet to flower.  Pumpkin plants are huge!  Only just pinched them out as I forgot and kept marvelling at their size!!  Sweetcorn still plodding along.  Not sure there is enough time for them to grow though.  We’ll see!

Brassica are being demolished by cabbage white catterpillars   Must net them next year.  They make me all squeamish trying to pick them off so I’m leaving them

Thinking ahead and wondering if I should get some purple sprouting broccoli plants of ebay or something.  Will feel all lost once this is over!  Well I do have the new plot to dig, greenhouse to acquire, coldframes to build and leaf mould bins to build too.  Not quite as exciting though I don’t think!

potatoes back on July 12th

 

 

potatoes now

 

 

 

 

About 4 or 5 plants have just started dying.  The only thing I can think of is that a neighbour has sprayed weedkiller and it’s blown along.  All the weeds next to the potatoes are dying too and my Calabrese that was doing so well is struggling.  All the successional sowings I did have died too.  Anyone any ideas as to what might have happened?  I dunno whether to leave them there, dig em up or what.  Don’t even know if they’ll be safe to eat now

 

just so I know where they are.  Must sort a links side bar soon.

Plastic Bottle Greenhouse Idea

(planning on trying to make a coldframe with this idea!) 

Homemade wormery

I just found a patch of wild raspberries (I think they are wild, much smaller than the ones we picked at a PYO the other day) growing round the back of one of the barns!  Food for free - my favourite!  I had a fleeting idea of raspberry jam but the kids have eaten all the ones I picked.  No bad thing though.  Pic to follow.

of the messy plot

 

Argh!  what a mess!
 

 

courgettes and squash

 

and on the other side of that bed we have

pumpkins and the sweetcorn growing.  Hope the sweetcorn gets a move on or it will be swamped by the pumpkins!

 

 lots of potatoes!!  All maris piper.

 

 

some calabrese.  Have sowed 2 more rows of 4 behind the first one.   They seem to be growing well, so I’m glad I squeezed them in.  We do like brocolli!

 

The bean and pea plot.  Needs weeding so much!!
 

 

brassicas and strawberries!  Swedes growing well as is one beetroot (bulls blood, you can see the red leaves).  One Early Jerser Wakefield cabbage growing in the background too.

 

Carrots and onions.

 

And the "greenhouse" which falls to bits everytime I look at it.  Grrr.  Have beefsteak toms, an aubergine plant and a bell pepper plant.  They seem awfully squashed together now but we’ll see how they do.  Tom plant getting huge!
 

Haven’t done much more recently.  Just a bit of watering and weeding when I get chance.  Since I’m going to move the veg over to the other bit I’m not thinking much about any winter sowings since this area will need to be prepared for making it into a fruit bed.   

I’ll take some pics tomorrow as it’s getting dark now, but the patch is looking soooo weedy.  I’m struggling to keep on top of it all.

 Let’s see, how’s it coming on.  Well the original strawberry plants we planted have given us about 1 strawberry each.  Really hope next year is better!  The 5 plants we got from Homebase seem to be faring a bit better and we have some fairly big ones growing there.

 The courgette plant is flowering and the first one is starting to grow, the summer squash flowered yesterday too.  Pumpkins are coming along nicely.  In between them the sweetcorn did grow, but not huge amounts of it.  I have about 8 plants and I’m not sure how many of them will survive  

 The beefsteak tomato plant is flowering too and I think the other tom plants will nto be too far behind.  Wish I knew what to do with tom plants.  I keep reading aboutpinching out and all that but am too scared to do anything!!  I need someone to hold my hand.  Aubergine and pepper plants are dong ok too I think.

 harvested a radish this morning and we realised no one likes them so that was good!!

 Peas are a mess!  They are just everywhere except where I want them to climb.  I’m sure they’ll be fine.  Saw the first flower on them today so that was exciting.  Really looking forward to peas

 And finally the potatoes are huge!  Didn’t realise the plants grew so big!  When I left before my hols there was no sign of them and 2 weeks later they were about a foot and a half tall.  Have been earthing them up.  Should be a good crop I think.

 Pics tomorrow if I remember and I must do some more weeding then!

Beds 2 (beans), 3 (strawberries and few brassica), 4 (onions and carrots - toms in growbag at back) and 5 in the foreground (squash, pumpkins and sweetcorn) 

 

Bed 1 (potatoes and Calabrese) with bed 2 (beans) and bed 5 in foreground.