Vegmonkey and the Mrs.

I posted a while ago that a lot of out Spring sown onion sets were bolting. It turned out that only a handful went to seed. The rest have happily filled out so much that 80% or so are ready to harvest. I’m going to leave them for a week or so, then pull them up. The plan is to fill the space with carrots - if all goes to plan, the ground will have served us twice in one season, and we’ll be eating some nice Christmas carrots! Either way, i can’t wait to start eating them, particularly the delicious looking red ones…it’ll be a while though as we have loads. I am going to make a point of learning how to plait them correctly this year, rather than just hanging them up individually in the shed, a la last year.

This theory of using the ground twice in a year is a bit of a ‘Mantra’ for us here at Vegmonkey and the Mrs.  We have already grown a crop of early potatoes and Japanese ‘Senshyu’ Onions in the bed closest to the house, and it now has sweetcorn and courgettes growing well…and it’s only mid July. Also, as i posted yesterday, the second lot of cauliflowers have gone into the space the first lot came out of.

They key i think is having the foresight to plant the seeds and have things ready to fill the space. I’ve ended up with an excess of tomato plants and a spare courgette, which is never bad!

The Japanese onions i planted ages ago are all starting to come good.  The tops have flopped over and yellowed, and most of the bulbs have swelled. I was in doubt a while ago as to whether or not to bother with these, but i suppose that nothing needs the ground until now, so it seems worthwhile.

The ones above are the ones which began to have seed heads growing on them (bizarrely a few are no bigger than the sets we planted!), we’ve harvested about another 10 or so since them which were a lot bigger, and had the beginnings of a papery coating.  The only problem with the Senshyu variety is they don’t keep long.

As the maincrop onions are getting near edible too, it seems we will have onions right up until Christmas, which is nice

There are sooooooooo many blogs out in cyber-growing-land!

There are a lot in America, most infact, and the majority i have seen are either ‘flower growing’ gardening blogs or ‘general’ garden blogs with a little fruit and veg thrown in.

I suppose this makes sense, America is a big country, which in turn means lots of gardens.

But i want to read fruit and veg growing blogs.

I know blotanical is useful for finding blogs, but i really do have no desire to grow anything that will not ‘produce’ for me, (just a personal preference) and the website doesn’t allow a specific search for this.

So the purpose of this post is to highlight decent fruit and veg growing blogs in the U.K.  Simple as that. (There are lots of fabulous non-U.K. based blogs in my sidebar…but that’s a post for another day!)

Fork In Hell - An neat little allotment blog based near us, in Gloucester.

Fresh as a daisy - They describe their site as a ‘Veggie Garden Experience,’ which is alright by me.

Growing our own - Another Gloucester allotment, focused on fruit and veg growing.

Manor Stables Veg Plot - A much larger project…and still mostly focused on veg!

Nomegrown - A large plot and a back garden in St Albans.

The smallest smallholding - I’d love this much space and chickens!

Souper Allotment - Adventures getting started with an allotment.

I’m sure there are more that are equally as super, but these are the ones i read regularly. I’d love to hear of any others that i might like, but it’s where to find them! The best place i think is other people’s blogrolls… perhaps we need an award system similar to Mouse & Trowel for veg blogs! Any takers?

This is the first year of us attempting to grow potatoes. Due to the lack of space we have plumped for a variety called ‘Ulster Sceptre,’ which is a first early. ‘Ulster Chieftan’ and ‘Swift’ were the other options i thought about but the former has relatively poor resistance to disease (not usually a problem with earlies as they aren’t in the ground long enough) and the latter i think is too common!

The first step to home grown potatoes is debatable. Chitting involves putting the seed potatoes in a light frost free place such as a covered greenhouse or a windowsill so that they begin to sprout. The purpose of this is to give them a head start so that when they go in the ground, they have more of a chance. The sprouts appearing should be green - not white as this indicates they have not had enough light, and should number no more than 3 or 4. If they do appear too early or are white, according to www.gardenaction.co.uk they can be rubbed off up to 5 times before it has any adverse effect on the sprouts that replace them, which is interesting. Timing is everything! However, through reading i have done myself and discussion with other gardeners, it seems it is only necessary if you want a really early crop. It’s also interesting to note that commercial potato growers don’t chit at all.

I am using an old apple holder whatsit that was no longer needed by Morrisons to chit mine in as i didn’t have the foresight to save egg boxes. Silly, i know!

Potatoes should be planted in early March. I am going to dig a trench about 10cm deep, and place the potatoes in the trench about 25cm apart with about 50cm between each row. This will then be covered over by hand, so not to damage the sprouts.  The recommended distance for earlies is 30cm by 60cm but i really do not have the space to plant any closer, and don’t mind the smaller potatoes that will result.  As the potatoes grow, they will need to be earthed up - the RHS describe this as the drawing up of soil around the plant to prevent the greening of tubers by light and to prevent the onset of blight. I am aware that i may have to build some sort of structure to enclose the soil around the plant as it grows, as the beds aren’t hugely deep - a chance to buy more tools methinks!

We will also have some in large black pots that i purchased at the potato event last weekend. They have drainage holes in the bottom, and will each take 3 of the egg-sized tubers, producing no less that 15lb’s per tub! That’s pretty good going in my book. I need to remember to add some slow release organic fertiliser at planting as i always forget ‘in the excitement of planting…’

In the grand scheme planting plan wotsit, the potatoes will be occupying about a quarter of bed 2, the one that houses the roots. I have already manured most of the bed and will be ’sorting’ the PH at the beginning of the Spring. When they are removed in June, Leeks or Parsnips will go into their space, depending on which have been the most successful in the mini-greenhouse. From past experience, it’ll be the Leeks!

The only problem with earlies is that they don’t store hugely well. Might have to find some interesting ways of cooking them…potatoes with weetabix anyone?

The Early Purple Sprouting Broccoli we planted back in March is still growing, somehow surviving a battering from the wind and an invasion of cabbage white butterflies - it should by rights, be dead. However, it will hopefully produce spears around February time. Considering our small space though, it’s a lot of nothing over a long period of time.  So this is the plan for next year

Summer Purple - Sow March to April.  Harvest June to October (this is very early!)

Rudolph (sometimes spelt Rudolf) - Sow March - May. Harvest Nov to Feb

Cardinal - Sow April to May. Harvest March - April

This way we can have an early variety for eating June onwards, and a maincrop that can be grown in a large pot and transplanted in late August time, and can grow into the space previously occupied by the first plant. The third variety (Cardinal) will be planted out in the next bed, Legumes, as by the time the broccoli needs the space, all of the beans, peas and sweetcorn will be coming to an end, which it means we can have broccoli all the way from June to April….and not pay those extortionate supermarket prices. That’s 10 months a year!

During the summer, we will have to cover the brassica bed with either a large frame covered in enviromesh or fleece this year to protect it a little better.

What happened to the rain? We were predicted loads, but not much came. This gave me the chance to finish off a few little jobs that needed doing. The greenhouse (i use the term loosely) is now finished. The old shelving unit, free from www.freecycle.net is now nailed to the wall to enable it to stay in place over winter, and i have attached sheet plastic to protect the overwintering chilli plants and the last of the spring onions, which are slowly battling on.

I have planted some ‘Valdor’ lettuce, which is only suitable for Autumn planting, in there too, in the hope that it will give us some leaves for summer.

The greenhouse is stapled at the top and pinned at the sides and bottom to enable winter access for me but keep the frost out. I’ve done this in two sections so that i don’t get loads of horrid flappy plastic around me when i go to fetch some veg.

We also popped down to Dundry Nurseries ( http://www.dundrynurseries.co.uk/ ) on the way to the supermarket, and ended up buying a variety of seed and winter bulbs…and this is before all the seed catalogues have arrived!

The sunflowers, which i see as an intregral part of the veg garden at this time of year, as they are so high and add so much colour….matched only by the beans in our garden, have been both a success and a failure this year.

Why i hear you shout! Well, we planted two varieties - the standard varieties which shot up to about 10ft then fell over before flowering, and the amazing multicoloured variety called ‘Magic Roundabout.’ It is F1, but we only planted one of them, and it reached only 6ft, didn’t have a stupidly chunky stem and has produced almost 40 little sunflowers from the one stem….and is sprouting out all over the place. Definately a must for next year.

Ironic, however, is that the photo is of the generic sunflower.

We have harvested all our onions. 37 from a space no bigger than 120cm long by 45cm wide, using sets from Wilkinsons! Now that shows how easy it is to grow onions if nothing else does. I have hung them by their necks in the shed from a makeshift drying rack consisting of an old underbed shoe rack, dismantled and attached to the shed roof and walls with garden twine and nails.

Maybe next year we will tie them correctly in plaits…for now they look happy enough. When the necks start to go papery and the onions develop more of a coating, i’ll take them down and put them on top of the drying rack, for use throughout the winter.

To keep the space busy, i’ve emptied the remaining hundreds of Amsterdam Forcing carrot seeds into the space where the onions came from and covered it with a cloche. I don’t think we’ll have to do much thinning as the slugs generally do that for us. Maybe it’s time for another load of nematodes!

3 of the last 5 weeks have been spent digging out nearly 10 tonnes of rubble, earth, bricks etc. from the back garden between the house and the veg garden. The wall that separates the veg beds from the rest of the garden  is 4 bricks high, and not bad for a first attempt if i do say so myself! It needs a good clean though, to get the excess mortar off. The block paving  is a mixture of blue bricks (for the table and chairs to go on) and red bricks (for the path) - all reclaimed. They have been laid on a bed of sand and the edge bricks have been concreted in - after the pic was taken to keep the whole thing in place.

All the landscaping has taken my attention slightly off the garden, which incidentally is producing an abundance of carrots, runners, the odd early parsnips, courgettes, parsley, little cherry toms and big onions! I think tomorrow will involve some planting…before i have to go back to work on Monday, and the summer disappears…