Wellrooted - Gardening and vegetable growing diaries from the West Country

A week away.

Jun 2nd 2010

By: wellrooted

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This weeks update with lot’s of pictures! Things have been growing well, we have had a fantastic cycle of rain then sun then rain then sun. Nothing like it to make the garden grow!

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.

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Dougs Garden
Heat

May 23rd 2010

By: Paul

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It has been a weekend of un-seasonable warmth, more than the usual for this time of May. My main jobs have been trying to keep the plants from wilting and dying in 35c heat within the greenhouse. Apart from that, I have been making progress at my Grandad’s place putting in more rows of carrots, onions, lettuce and some other bits to try and secure a continuous supply throughout the summer. My Dad spent most of the weekend building a new waterfall for the middle garden pond!

I did a bit of thinning in the Raddish area of the bed, they went well in our meal that evening.

The potatos at the back of the bed are starting to overpower the place a bit!

The Squash and Courgette now sit inside other of the diy boxes which I have filled with soil, this should give them loads more room to grow.

This shows the extra new lines of seeding in the second raised bed at my Grandad’s place:

The temperature was usually around 30c but peaked at 35c!

The cucumbers seem to like the heat though

And as always, with their continuous supply of water and nutrients the hydroponic plants have gone crazy. I have had to tie the tomatos out of the way of the pepper plants as they were completely swamping them!

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Pauls Garden
May-hem

May 16th 2010

By: Paul

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May has been quite a busy gardening month for me, what with expanding into my Grandad’s garden with all of the extra plants that I no longer had room for. A lot of the time was spent building the new boxes and beds and I ended up adding more to the box that went under the existing perspex arch.

I have put 6 of my ‘gardener’s delight’ plants that I had left over in this one. I used small green cable ties to fix them to the bamboo and these are in turn tied to the top of the arch.

This raised bed is going to be used mostly for beans.

Back in the other garden the original raised bed is looking good. Lettuce, carrots, raddish, potatos and onions all doing well here. I also saw some spare space in between the carrots and added an extra row of spring onions.

I have added two extra growbags to the greenhouse shelves each containing 2 x cucumber plants and 1 x aubergine. I have tried cucumber outside before and it didn’t do so well so I’m hoping that it will be more successful in the greenhouse.

I now have some nearly red strawberries on the way and should be ready for picking soon!

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Pauls Garden
Monday update

May 10th 2010

By: Doug

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Been really busy this week so Lot’s of pictures and not so much talking! – What a relief!

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!

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Dougs Garden
Expansion

May 9th 2010

By: Paul

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I had been speaking to my Grandad the other day and he suggested that I also use his garden for my overflow of plants. Needless to say I didn’t need to be asked twice. He has a good bit of space in his back garden which is south facing and has a giant wall at the back for shelter. It also contains an apple tree which usually produces a fair amount.

My Grandad used to do a lot of gardening and there are loads of decent tools and contraptions lying around which are really useful. This perspex arch was already on the back wall.

I have made another box to go underneath it.

Back in the original garden the squash and corgette are doing great.

The ‘Demon Red’ chilli bush has a few flowers now too.

The hydroponic tomatos have made massive progress and have now overtaken their soil counterparts. The have just started producing flowers so tomatos should be just round the corner hopefully!

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Pauls Garden
My first crop of the season!

May 5th 2010

By: Paul

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Only some Corriander – but a good batch none the less. These were cut from the hydroponics…

Pauls Garden
The canvas is complete

May 4th 2010

By: reluctantgardener

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A few busy days in the garden and the canvas is now complete and ready for some colour and maybe even some vegetables.

The wife woke up the other Sunday and immediately joined the “Good Ideas Club”. She wanted the remaining fir tree in the bottom centre flower bed taken down and dug up. Great, another Sunday down the swanny.

So after making her breakfast in bed…again, it was out with the gardening tools and a bit of elbow grease and I started to tackle the tree. To be fair it didn’t take much or that long. I trimmed off the lower branches to give me easier access to the trunk and then I started to dig. After a few minutes I pulled the whole tree to one side and out it popped. Result. I tidied up the flower bed and stowed the tree in the garage for a later date drive to the dump.

Another job for the morning was to cut a half foot border either side of the lawn up against the fence to stop the grass growing through to the neighbours gardens. The result was a much tidier looking finish to the lawn. That took me about 30 minutes so I was on a roll now. Out with the mover and trimmer and the grass was given a good cut after which the back garden looked a treat.

I’ve also dug in some manure to the bottom flower beds to try and put some life into the soil and have also put some weed and feed down on the lawn to try and get rid of the weeds and help the almost bare patch of grass grow back a bit.

All in all not a bad few days work and the bottom of the garden is now looking very neat and tidy and ready for whatever the wife wants.

The finished canvas

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Guest Posters, The Reluctant Gardener
Sit back and watch

May 4th 2010

By: Doug

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I do like May. Sometimes March and April can be really hard work in the garden. Having only moved into our cottage in January we had so much to do! May is time to slow down a little and watch everything grow. This is the month the greenhouse lives up to it’s name and starts to go green!

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.

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Dougs Garden
RIP Green Bush, Tomatos reach their final location

May 2nd 2010

By: Paul

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The Gourgette ‘Green Bush’ has died! I’m not really too sure of the cause though, it has had exactly the same treatment as the ‘Midnight’ which is doing great but has just keeled over – the stem has gone yellow and the plant can no longer support itself. Ah well, it will free up some room for something else.

The top left in this picture is the ‘midnight’. Also in here is the bigger pepper plant from last year and the ‘demon red’ chilli plant.

We have also now setup our final tomato locations. We have 2 x grow bags in an ‘L’ shape in the corner which hold 6 plants. The grow bags sit on big plastic trays and we then slot metal brackets through the bags. Once the brackets are in you can push the ends together at the top and slide down a bamboo stick. The brackets keep the bamboo stick completely steady and will also provide extra support for the plants when bigger. It’s a great system and I’m really happy with it.

We have put 4 x ‘Gardener’s Delight’ and 2 x ‘Ailsa Craig’ varities in these bags and I’m hoping that this will provide our main tomato produce this year.

The tomatos were very ready for planting!

In the small cold frame I have moved all of the current ‘california wonder’ peppers, corriander and basil plants.

Just about everything we planted in the raised bed is now coming through nicely…

Here is a comparison between corriander grown in soil and grown in the hydroponics. They were both planted at the same time. As you can see it likes the hydro environment a lot more!

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Pauls Garden
Last year was a mess!

May 1st 2010

By: Paul

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Found some pictures the other day of the state of the raised bed from last season, I’d forgotted how much of an over crowded mess it became!

Beans were successful though…

Pauls Garden
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