I started my gardening this year on the 7th Jan. Apparently January and February is the time most people are depressed, but for the gardener it’s a time of excitement and anticipation! I am really excited about the garden this year.

First Job was to plant my garlic in pots in the conservatory. – Garlic was by far my best crop last year and I hope for another fantastic crop again this year. As usual, several different varieties planted this year (all supermarket bought). I am convinced they are exactly the same as the expensive seed versions form the garden centre! I have found the best method for me is to grow in trays of six or 12 indoors in January then put outside to get frosted and plant out after the last frost. If your late you can always stick them in the freezer overnight to cheat!

I am late with the giant onion attempt but it’s not going to stop me from trying. I will be planting seeds very soon. I am going natural this year with no artificial light or heat. – I was getting carried away!

The chickens are doing well and have survived the wet winter so far. We have a couple of new arrivals to add to the flock. I had the incubator out over Xmas and Two lovey big Black Orpingtons were the result. – 2/6 probably no too bad for January hatch rates. One is a cockerel so is being raised for the table! Not looking forward to the day…

I havent decided on what to grow this year yet but I usually just spend a few hours browsing seed catalogs and see what I end up with. I am keeping it simple this year and going for mostly trusted varieties with maybe one or two novelty varieties thrown in for good measure.

Would love to hear what you are growing and your plans for this year – Get in touch using the comments system below!

Happy Gardening,
Doug

So far I am growing,

• Numerous chili varieties,
• Numerous Tomato varieties,
• Draft French Beans,
• Dwarf Kenyan beans,
• Dwarf yellow beans,
• Peas,
• Butternut squash,
• Pumpkin (Dills Atlantic Giant)
• Runner Beans,
• French Beans,
• Celery,
• Salad,
• Courgettes…
• Onions (Ailsa) – See Dougs giant onion attempt 2011!

All progressing well even though I did need to re-sow my tomatoes and chilis due to a freak hot April day in the greenhouse. – they all got toasted!

Pictures will be soon to follow.

Doug

This year’s thoughts so far…

Firstly, not enough lettuce. Perhaps  next year I should dedicate a couple of smaller tubs to salads. Be good if they could be moved from the greenhouse later in the summer to allow for a longer growing period.

Remember to Plant Giant pumpkin in a place it will fit… Perhaps in some one else’s bigger garden! It is now about 5 ft long and growing very fast indeed.

Less tomato’s in a tub.  They seem a little overcrowded this year. I must also remember to be more vigilant in removing the branches before they get too big. Just think of all that wasted energy that could have been tomato’s!

Courgettes need no love in order to grow well! Plant and leave alone. They will be fine.

Chili plants and peppers need slug pellets even in the greenhouse. How do they get in???

Plant Aubergines earlier.

More strawberry plants.

Plant onions further apart, they get big! – No need to use sets, seeds seem to produce better onions.

Parsnips and Beetroot are great to grow – Maybe a few more next year.

Leave room for leeks.

Plant Kelsae and Ailsa Craig seeds in January.

Remove some branches from the tree over the plot.

First things first, I must first introduce a new member of the family… “Parsnip” She is an amazing little Springer spaniel, just 11 weeks old.

Now back to the garden. In the little bed the Beetroot and parsnips are doing really well. I suspect i should start to pull up some soon but I have never grown beetroot before so don’t know? – I will have a look tonight. On the right you can see some of the sweetcorn planted out last week. They are growing well but maybe planted out a little late. Far right is the so called giant pumkin (not so giant right now).

In the greenhouse the tomato’s are looking really good.  Alot of flowering right now so hopefully there should be a good crop this year. The peppers suffered rather badly from slug attack so i have resorted to organic slug pellets (something I usually try to avoid) They are recovering well. The greenhouse is also providing a steady crop of lettuce which together with the pea tops, graden herbs and beet leaves make for a delicious salad.  The greenhouse Courgette plant is amazing and I get new courgettes every single day. I can barely keep up with the picking! The butternut squash plant has been traied over the potting bench and has started to flower.

Toms in the conservatory are a little further on than the greenhouse.  I really should have used bigger pots as it makes it much easier keeping up with ther watering.  They are starting to produce some nice looking toms, The variety in the picture below is an Ailsa Craig.

Back out in the garden everything is doing well. I had a first crop of Broad beans this week which was a nice treat. They never go very far though, What I thought was loads was just enough for one dinner…

Picture of the big bed. – Onions are doing very well indeed and the runners have started to produce those beautiful orange flowers! I am really looking forward to the first peas that should be ready some time this week. My pea hedge worked pretty well in the end.

We are also starting to get some really nice strawberries and the slugs are not eating them! I suspect this is due the the Newts or Frogs from the pond getting to the slugs first! I am really starting to like my pond!   I am sure the Rhubard could spare a few leaves for a crumble this week.

Heres the pics,

The Apache Chilli in the first pic has grown so much in the last couple of weeks. (See my last post for a pic two weeks ago)

Tomato’s and onions are growing well and the Apple tree has started to bear fruit for the first time.

Courgettes will be on the menu by the end of the week.  Radishes and Lettuce are in full flow and I have been using the beetroot thinnings and courgette flowers in salads! Delicious.

We were lucky enough to get acouple new arrivals to the garden this week.  Firstly a spearmint plant kindly given to us by our friends Claire and Dom. It’s going to get a good spot in the new herb bed.

The other is a Apache Chili plant that I bought from a local garden centre.  It’s actually an F1 hybrid. I don’t usually buy Chili plants and I don’t usually buy F1 Hybrids but this one just caught my eye.

In the garden things are still going well, in the big bed the onions are still going up and the broad beans are in flower. I have thinned the row of kelsae and Ailsa Craigs so they have plenty of room to grow big. I also planted the climbing French beans out this weekend.

In the Greenhouse everything is moving along.

I am doing an experiment with some Iceberg Lettuce’s that I have planted in the Greenhouse.  The brown soil on the left is from a local beech woodland. It’s beautiful stuff and I am hoping it can make a permanent replacement for expensive bought compost! I am really disliking bought compost lately and I never manage to produce enough of my own. What I hate most is finding bits of plastic bags and rubbish. Who wants to grow stuff in that!

The small bed is also showing signs of life.  Carrots, Parsnips and Beetroot are coming through. I have also cleared another small space in front of the compost bin.

Finally got round to planting the Rhubarb in the garden!

That’s all folks!

Tomato’s, peppers and Courgette and Radish’s are growing well (pics below).  Amazing how you notice them grow if your away for a day or two.  They look like they have doubled in size!

Finally my “Black Enorma” Aubergine seeds have germinated and are growing nicely. I am growing to plant a couple of them into the Big tub in the greenhouse with the pepper and radishes.

Last week I made a potato planter out of some old pallets. It’s a bit rough and ready but I don’t think the potatoes will mind. I put in about eight “seeds” Some Desiree reds some early Scottish and some Tesco specials! Should provide a nice mixture. I am using a mix of home made compost and straw grow them in.

This week I planted my Pea’s out in the big bed in the garden. I am moving away from my usual bamboo cane method and am trying to create a “pea hedge” to do this I harvested some Hazel “pea sticks” from the coppice up the lane.  I then chopped the top three foot of bushy top off and pushed them into the soil. With the remaining  five feet of cane I made supports for the hedge by looping them into the ground.

In the picture above you can also see that my first round of runner beans are in!

I too have some hydroponic experiments going on! The entire root system of one of these Strawberry plant is suspended in the pond! It seems to like it.

I am really enjoying the spring sunshine. I have apple Blossom on the tree for the first time! and the Moorland plants that surround our house are looking fantastic! I eat my breakfast looking over this flower arrangement Hayley made from Gorse and Blackthorn flowers from the Garden.

I finally got my Kelsae onion plants through from DT Browns. – See my giant onion attempt!

All this sunshine and showers is doing wonders for the garden.

This weekend I planted my sweetcorn. – a new one for me so it will be interesting to see how it grows…

The Artichokes are now about an inch tall and all 12 seeds planted has germinated! They were planted in seed trays resting on my tropical fish tank. This is proving a fantastic propagation tool.

I planted my “Green Bush” Courgette and a Butternut Squash in the new greenhouse tub.

Peppers and Radish’s are growing really well in the Big tub in the greenhouse.

The “Hungarian hot wax” Chili and the melon plant are looking really good and growing well in the conservatory.

The garlic are looking very good in the Big Bed in the garden.

In fact the whole garden has had a really good week, let’s hope this weather continues!

Things have certainly started to move up a gear in the garden. Seeds are sprouting and plants are growing.

The pepper bed is finished and has been fully planted up with nine plants, five “Big Red” and four “California wonder”. I have used the space in between the rows for some radishes.  I use “rainbow mix” from thompson and morgan as they crop in about a month from sowing and it’s nice to have a good variety.

All Chilli peppers have been planted into their final pots now. They are all  a bit small but should catch up if this hot weather continues! This “Hungarian fot wax” is growing in a three litre pot in the greenhouse.

Peas are looking good and the few plants that came through from the first sowing are ready to be planted out.  Also potted up the sweet peas this weekend.

The courgettes and squash are coming on nicely. I now have, Butternut, F1 Sunbeam, Honey bear, Red Kuri squash at second leaf stage and the Courgettes are looking good too. I now have three times as many plants as my garden can take…

Apart from apple trees I have never really grown fruit in the garden. I have always been put off by the plants needing several years before they produced fruit.  I now wish i bought some years ago!  I was so taken by this beautiful goosebury bush that i just had to buy it. It should produce fruit next year.

Usually I stick to vegetables but one flower I do like to grow is the Geranium.  I usually grow from seed but this year I bought 72 plugs from Blooming direct for £10. These arrived looking fantastic and i am well pleased. i have planted them in every teracotta pot i could find and still have about 40 left to find homes for!

Geranium plugs I got an email from Blooming direct with a voucher code. Use BLOOMING5 and you will get 5% off.

In the big bed most of the onions are coming on nicely. The Hercules seem to be leading the way. I also created a new onion box in the greenhouse for my 2010 giant onion attempt!

The garden is looking it’s best so far and all sorts of flowers are coming into bloom. I know this is a vegetable growers blog but I couldn’t resist taking a few flower pics!

The garden in full sunshine. How things have changed in the last month.

What a wonderful weekend in the garden, just what we needed to recover from a slow start to spring. This weekend I got down to some serious sowing, Second round of Runners, Broad bean and Tomato were sown. Onions from seed were planted out. Potted garlic was finally planted in the Big bed.

The greenhouse although still not completely finished is coming into it’s own! – I love having a greenhouse!

I built myself a new container for the greenhouse. Its bigger than it looks at nearly 4ft long and should be a fantastic place to grow the peppers. This year i am growing “Big red” and “California wonder” I am wondering what else I should grow in there.. Any ideas?

Some of the late march sowing have started to come though this past week.  I am using last years peas and germination has been quite slow. Hopefully this hot weather will speed things along.

The greenhouse bench I made last weekend is nearly full! Time to put in some more shelves. All sorts of seedlings in progress. Squash and courgettes are looking good as are the chili peppers.

Hopefully the weather will continue though the week. There is always so much to do in the garden.

The chickens are enjoying their new run. They can now come outside even when we are not home.