Vegmonkey and the Mrs.

Everything in the greenhouse is coming on nicely. I overwatered some of it, resulting in green slime on some of the trays and the slugs nibbled some, so i repotted the seedlings that looked the healthiest. There are now quite a few healthy, growing tomato (Ailsa Craig) plants in bigger pots, to give them room to put down their roots.  We grew tumbling tom last year but the Mrs. didn’t like the consistency of the tomatoes. I didn’t really mind as i usually only eat them in stuff, rather than on their own. The brussel seedlings and all of the herbs are coming on too, although the basil didn’t like it in there very much.

I had to go and buy some more compost from the garden centre round the corner from my house, but the bag was enough to do all of the repotting, and i had some left over. I decided to plant a little more spinach in some battered terracotta pots that were lying around, so the rest of the compost went in there.  We always end up never having enough Spinach.

The compost bin is getting full. With hindsight i would have chopped things up a lot more before putting it in the bin, but i think it will need turning over soon or it will never produce the ‘black gold.’ At least the bin blends into the garden better than those horrid tardis black ones that just stand out. I suppose if they do the job, they suit.

Also at the back of the garden are the potatoes (Ulster Sceptre) which are sprouting, and being earlies, should be up and running soon. I’m happy that we won’t be getting any more frosts, but am thinking this rain could do with stopping soon if the pot’s are going to have any chance of surviving. Above the potatoes are the ‘Winter’ pansies that we planted absolutely yonks ago! I think a sign that it has been the coldest Easter for over 40 years, is in the fact that the pansies are still producing buds and flowers…

After spending most of my waking hours playing with the design of the blog, tagging old posts and being at work, i haven’t managed to take many photographs or do much more out in the garden apart from these above and below. When we moved into our new house we had no more need for the obligatory Argos wardrobe that everyone seems to have these days when they are young and poor. You have to make it yourself and the doors never seem to close properly!

So when the chance of a ‘new’ wardrobe that we could renovate for the bedroom came, we jumped at the chance…and the cold frame idea was born.

Now the words ‘I’ve created a monster…’ have never rung so true. Creating a flexible object like this in a tiny lounge in our old house ended with lots of sawdust, quite a few offcuts, and a hasty rewrite of plans.

I ended up using one of the wardrobes doors as the back support and one of the wardrobe sides as the front support. They were joined by 2 arms (short pieces of inch inch thick wood cut to size), one on either side, fixed with right angled shelf brackets for sturdiness. I attached these in using 6 screws per bracket. The coldframe was then varnished to protect it against the elements.

The lid was made from the shoe rack and top rack of the wardrobe. I attached them with a couple of hinges to the main structure. The perspex was a git to cut - i ended up scoring and snapping it into shape! That was then screwed to the top using some of the leftover struts, a little polythene was stapled over the ends and a couple of hooks were installed to hold up the lids against the wall.

Ironically, i then filled it with wood and logs in preparation for last winter as we had nowhere else to store it all. It is now empty apart from some nicely developing peas which i’ll post about soon.

I suppose this could be made by anyone with some simple DIY knowledge and a few tools. The main things to remember are to angle the top enough to catch the sun’s rays and to place it in a part of the garden where these are best received.

We bought some perspex last weekend and finally finished the cold frame, by screwing it to the lid. The cold frame used to be an old wardrobe in a past life. We’ve got sweetcorn and chilli plants hiding in there somewhere, as well as lots of tomatoes.

In the foreground, are lettuce, radish, spinach and endive that we have started eating. The best bit is you cut them, then they grow back! The wicker criss-cross trellis is used to divide the garden, so our little space looks bigger!

I’ve just got to stop sowing seed so thickly, as i end up picking out and eating all the thinnings!