Vegmonkey and the Mrs.

As last year we didn’t get anything planted until about the middle of April, we thought we’d start nice and early this year with a few things going into the ground, a few into outdoor pots and a few into seed trays in the mini greenhouse.

In the Brassica bed, i’ve put a row of turnip seeds straight into the ground and planted 8 Brussel Sprout seeds and some ‘All Year Round’ cauliflower in pots in the mini greenhouse. The seedlings should grow nicely if i remember to water them, ready for planting out around mid-April time. I am conscious the Sprouts will take up the space for a long time so have decided to put them out the way at the back. I’ll only be putting in 5 plants, but it’s nice to be able to choose the healthiest.

The Legumes bed had nothing new in it, but as the picture at the top shows, the Feltham First Peas are slowly coming through. Interestingly, the same variety i planted under cover at the same time have come on better, so that shows my cold frame is actually working. The picture is meant to look like that by the way, i spent a little while out in the garden this morning experimenting with the aperture settings on my camera. A nice effect i think.

In the Cucurbits bed, we still have the overwintering onions, which to be honest, i’m not sure will come to much, but nothing needs to go in the space so i may as well leave them alone. We planted the chitted ‘Ulster Sceptre’ Potatoes in here too. There are three rows, each with 4 tubers. 3 tubers have also gone into each of the 2 ‘potato buckets,’ shown top, as an experiment to see which produces more and bigger potatoes. In the third potato bucket, i planted 3 ‘Wilja’ tubers that i picked up at Dundry Nurseries at the weekend. These are a maincrop, so will be ready a lot later than the First Earlies.  The plan is that the potatoes and onions are harvested, and the squashes and courgettes go in. This makes the most of the space and allows us to grow more.

In the Roots bed, i have planted a row of purple carrots, a row of orange ones, two rows of parsnips and about 60 onions sets (30 Setton, 30 Red Baron). I have not covered any of them, so am going to keep my eye on the weather forecast to avoid a frost. I’m fed up with the faff of removing and replacing fleece covers morning and evening! The Purple Sprouting is still sitting proudly in the middle of this bed, so when that comes out mid-April, i’ll successionally plant the rest of the onions and another couple of rows of each carrot. I think 150 onions in total will be enough for us, so that is what’s going in! We have decided against Leeks this year as i think carrots and onions are much more fun to grow and we use them more!

Finally, some sweetcorn went into pots to see how it germinates, and a lot of lettucy bits, but that’s a post for another day when we start seeing the first signs of a few leaves.

Rhubarb is something i really wanted to grow this year, but that will have to wait until i have more space. I know the garden centres have some plug plants for sale already but what’s everyone else got in?

Tags: brassicas, cucurbits, four year rotation, legumes, roots, what to plant in March