The Gardening Adventures of Firsty McStub

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. 

Ok imagine the first photo is the left, then the middle then the right hand side.  Iykwim!!  Will be having the patch till about the middle of the first picture as I don’t want to be too close to the big tree.  To the left of that will remain a wild area I think.  The current patch is to the right of the 3rd picture behind the wall bit.

my beds started off as the traditional rotation, but I’ve kind of not kept to that.  Mainly the reason is that I think I’ll try and move the veg bed to another part of the land (just over the path) so I have some more room.  It’s amazing how you can look at somewhere and think "that’ll be more than enough room" and it’s nowhere near!  So next plan is to have the bit I’m at now as the soft fruit bit next year.  Planning to get some more raspberry canes, more strawberries, a gooseberry bush and maybe some red or whitecurrants too.

The big job will be sorting out the veg bed for next year now though.  That whole area has rubble underneath and of course loads of weeds.  A big job, but if I do it a little bit at a time I’m sure it will be fine by next year.  If I measured it all ok I’ll have 12 beds of 2.5m x 1.5m and I want a greenhouse too   Shall keep an eye out on freecycle, need a shed too.  James foolishly said to me he’d made a cold frame at school so he’s got a job

Will sort out some pics soon. 

there was a lot of weeds

I’m using a very small portion of the land at my rented farmhouse for veggie growing.  I’ve been wanting to grow veg for ages, ever since I watched River Cottage for the very first time (I’m sure that was before I ever moved to England so ages ago!!) but have nevre had the space to do it.  My old house was a terrace with a dark back yard with not much growing space, I did try a couple of years but didn’t ever get very far and tbh it gets downright depressing to see how rubbish I am at this thing I want to be so good at.  Last year I had a year off from beating myself up about it but this year I was going to go for it.  Before we moved to this farm I had plans for an allotment, but now I have the space and don’t really need one any more.

So there’s a patch of ground 6m x 4m that I thought would be perfect and I started weeding it in April.  I didn’t get very far with it all and wondered about just buying some grow bags and seeing how I got on with them.  However at the beginning of May we came back from a couple of weeks away (to HUGE amounts of weeds) and I decided to really go for it and try and sort the little patch out.  It took me some time but eventually it was all clear and I have 5 beds to grow some stuff

So bed 1 has potatoes in.  I put them in a couple of weeks ago and I’m desperate for the first showing of them.  I keep rummaging around and I think I’ve found that they are at least growing (I’m so paranoid!) so I’m going to leave them now!!  I extended this bed the other day to make some room for some Calabrese I wanted to grow so that’s in there.

Bed 2 has peas ands beans in.  Got some seeds from Kris so there’s some Kentucky Wonder Pole beans and some Valentine Dwarf Beans.  I’ve got some other beans too but I can’t find the name of them on the packet as it rubbed off.  So they’ll be a surprise   Also sowed a row of carrots in amongst them all and I reckon I might be able to squeeze a squash plant in among them all too.

Bed 3 is a little one as there’s a small tree growing there.  It has some strawberry plants, radishes, swede, beetroot and cabbages in.

Bed 4 is onions, leeks and carrots.  I have a growbag at the end of it with some tomato plants in.  I had high hopes for the Sub Arctic Plenty since we’re in Scotland, but atm it’s lookign really unhealthy

And finally, Bed 5 has courgette, summer squash, pumpkins and (hopefully) sweetcorn.  I really want to grow sweetcorn, dunno why but I do.  I started some off in peat pots and they have just not thrived at all.  Ina last desperate attempt I’ve sown some in the ground and I’m hoping it might just work.

There’s 2 rhubarb plants I’ve inherited and we’ve had some of that already.  I managed to get a raspberry cane and a blackcurrant cane cheap at asda so I’ve planted them hoping they might work.  Also have a blueberry plant in a pot I got cheap at homebase.  It really needs a bigger pot, but I’ll need some ericaceous compost or summat as it needs acid soil I’ve read.  I also have a small plastic greenhouse which I’ve shoved a growbag at the bottom of.  In that there is one beefsteak tomato plant, one Aubergine plant and one pepper plant.

And I think that is it!