Wellrooted - Gardening and vegetable growing diaries from the West Country

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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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
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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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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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
Needed some rain.

Apr 26th 2010

By: Doug

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The showers over the weekend were welcome because the garden was getting a little on the dry side. Nice to be waiting for rain rather than sun for a change!

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!

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Experiment Update

Apr 23rd 2010

By: Paul

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I have been away this latest weekend but I just had time to check on the progress of my hydroponics experiment. As well as the plants that sit in the rock wool cubes, I also have the same species of plant in soil which are in the greenhouse and also in the cold frames. This is a very good method in determining which plants do better in certain environments. So far the corriander has been the most successful in the hydroponics system, growing about 5 times faster! The basil and pepper plants seem to be growing at around twice the rate of their soil counterparts. The tomato plants are slower than the plants we have in the soil though.

Here are the soil versions of the corriander, basil and peppers:

The runner and dwarf beans are now growing at an impressive rate after propogation and will be ready to put into the raised bed very soon. The tomatos in soil are behind them.

This is the corriander in the hydroponics:

Pauls Garden
Good for the Veg.

Apr 19th 2010

By: Doug

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Wow, another weekend of fantastic weather.

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.

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