Wellrooted - Gardening and vegetable growing diaries from the West Country

Spring snow and hail

Apr 1st 2010

By: Doug

1 comment

Well looks like i was wrong last week about Spring arriving! Snow, black ice and hail on April the 1st! And I am not joking…

Here is the garden in the snow. Was a bit worried that the new greenhouse that is only half glazed was going to crumble in the gale force winds, but it seems solid so far!

Can hardly believe this is Spring. Daffodils don’t seem to mind…

The Garlic know it’s spring, about time i put these in the ground I think…

The garlic planted in the flower borders in February is really starting to grow now. Usually they would be much bigger by now! Hopefully they will catch up.

Onion sets are sprouting, about 2″ tall now. “Centurion” are leading the way. Hopefully they didn’t sustain too much damage in the hail storm.

I sowed a few more seeds this week in modular trays. In went Early butternut’s, Crimson Globe Beetroot, Golden nugget Beetroot, Courgettes and Giant pumpkin.

Really want a nice dry day to finish the greenhouse, the conservatory is filling up fast. Those beans are more that ready to be planted out but in this weather they will have to wait!

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Dougs Garden
Out with Shed in with Greenhouse

Mar 29th 2010

By: Doug

2 comments

After seeing how good Pauls new greenhouse was looking, I thought i should make some progress with my own

About two weeks ago I bought a second hand greenhouse from an old lady who was unable to use it anymore. A very good quality glass greenhouse about 12ft x 6ft. This is as big as my garden could handle. It took paul and i about 5 hours to dismantle and label up.

Last weekend I removed the old shed and cleared room for the greenhouse. This weekend I started building. I used 10cm x 10cm tanelised wood for the base that sits on the concrete shed foundations. This seems to be pretty solid so, so far so good.

The greenhouse stored in the shed

The old shed

Progress so far!

Dougs Garden
Strawberrys and Shelves

Mar 27th 2010

By: Paul

1 comment

This latest weekend was a good one in terms of progress towards the full growing season. The greenhouse is now fully installed and useable and we now have a fantastic solid workbench / shelf (thanks to my Dad for building it!). I have moved a lot of my seed propagators to the greenhouse now as well as a ‘Demon red’ chilli bush that has survived the winter indoors. It produced a fantastic yield last season and I’m hoping for more of the same.

My spring onions have all now sprouted and I have moved them from indoors to one of my cold frames which are now ontop the garage roof.

We also now have a long row of 12 strawberry plants placed in our newly created bed opposide our raised bed. I’m hoping these will be really successful.

I am also hoping to try out my hydroponics kit that has been sitting in my loft for the past year. It’s something I dabbled in last year but never really got going. We will be running power into the greenhouse soon and then I will be able to give it a go. I use a technique called NFT (Nutrient Film Technique) which is where a pump moves water laced with a plant nutrient solution from a resevoir below over a film in which the plant roots have grown. It is used a lot in giant commercial growing and something that has interested me for a while. More updates on that when I get it up and running.

Pauls Garden
The windowsill it is

Mar 25th 2010

By: Doug

3 comments

With the garden inaccessible due to the bad weather i have decided to turn my attentions to the office windowsill!

We have a few plants on the go here, firstly the now three year old chilli plant. (unsure of variety). It’s already growing it’s first chillies of the year. Grows big medium strength fruit. We keep it heavily pruned so it doesn’t outgrow the windowsill!

Paul and I also like to grow avocados from seed, this is one that was raised from seed last year. looking pretty good. Apparently it takes 15 years before they will grow fruit. Our oldest plant is about 3 years old and about 8ft tall! If anyone is interested i will post a guide. Good one for the kids or fully grown adults like us…

A few chili plants growing from seed. They are doing really well here in the heated office. only planted about two weeks ago.

The first of my gourds! This is the only gourd that has grown so far. Its a Birdhouse Gourd, if it grows as It should it will produce some amazing looking fruit that can be dried out and carved out to make a birdhouse.

Dougs Garden
Is this the Spring?

Mar 24th 2010

By: Doug

No comments

Well,

Good news is that we havent had one frost this week. Bad news is that the rain hasn’t let up once. All i have managed this week is a quick rake of my small raised bed. Not really good gardening weather!

The chickens really don’t seem to mind this weather one bit. they look funny with soaking wet feathers. I have covered one side of their run to give them a little shelter but they still just stand on the wet side. Perhaps they are not so bright after all.

I did manage to fully dismantle the old shed at the weekend, it now just needs the foundations extending by 2ft for the greenhouse. I have decided to raise the greenhouse up about a foot by building a one block high wall and then mounting the greenhouse on treated timber. Should look a bit better too. I did have to uproot and replant the bay tree at the weekend, it would have blocked too much light. I really hope it takes as it is a beautiful little tree. – at least it has had plenty of water over the last couple of days…

Not much progress on the growing front. Spring really is late this year.

The garlic is now 5″ tall and I have just seen the first signs of life from the onions sets planted in the Garden. “Centurians” are coming up first.

Dougs Garden
Greenhouse!

Mar 21st 2010

By: Paul

No comments

At last my new greenhouse is complete and I can now start to build shelving ready for all of the plants to migrate from the window sills of the house. It actually turned out to be a relatively easy assembly in the end and I was very happy with the end result.

We have also added a new section, opposite the raised bed to accomodate strawberry and rasberry plants.

Complete greenhouse base

Greenhouse construction

Nearly there

Strawberry and rasberry bed

Pauls Garden
This weeks progress

Mar 16th 2010

By: Doug

No comments

I woke up this morning to be confronted with another heavy frost. When will we get some signs of spring arriving? It always seems like such a long wait and then suddenly everyting in the garden bursts into life! – I cannot wait.

I planted my onion sets two weeks ago now and I am starting to wonder if it were too early, they must have had ten hard frosts since they went in! I have been doing my best to cover them with a fleece when it’s been really cold but I have missed a couple of nights. Time will tell. I planted four varieties this year. Centurian, Setton, Stuttgart mammouth and F1 Hercules. 100 planted in total. In addition to the sets I am growing Kelsae and Alisa Craig from seed for the first time. They went in in early february and are now at the two leaf stage.

I planted my garlic outside on the 4th of March, the potted ones have started to sprout but there are no signs from the ones in the garden yet.

On saturday I found a 12 foot aluminium greenhouse for sale in the local paper. It was only £65 and cost £800 20 years ago. A very nice greenhouse indeed. I have always wanted a greenhouse!! Paul kindly assisted me and it took us about five hours to take down. we took plenty of pictures and are confident we can put it back together ? – I will keep you updated… To make room for it I am having to sacrifice the shed. No great loss really as it filled with water every time it rained anyway!

Broad beans are coming on well – maybe a bit too well to be put outside, perhaps a greenhouse candidate.

Melons are coming through. too early?

Chilli plants are doing well, just four varieties this year, Fatalia, Bird eye, Hungarian hot wax and Bhut Jolokia. (Oh and Big red peppers!)

Heres some pics of the garden taken at 7am today.

Doug

Dougs Garden
Introducing the Ladies

Mar 16th 2010

By: Doug

No comments

Well this Blog is about Chickens as well as gardens so I thought it about time I introduced the Ladies.

Emse is the one with White plumage and Mertle has black plumage. They are both very tame and have no problem being picked up and they regularly come right into the house. They are brilliant pets and have very interesting personalities!

Chickens are an amazing addition to the garden, they not only provide great compost from their bedding but they are an invaluable tool when combating garden pests such as slugs and snails. This year I even used them to rotivate the plot by moving their run around the raised bed.

For those who are not up on your chicken breeds, these are Warrens. They are fantastic pet’s and great egg layers…

The Chickens
Why Blog about gardening?

Mar 15th 2010

By: Doug

No comments

A diary is a great tool for the grower, it makes perfect sense to keep a record of what worked and what didn’t. I cannot count the number of times that I wished I knew what time I planted something last year. Next year I will simply have to look back over the blog and see!

The only problem with the blog method is that failures will be made public! – But every gardener has failures. At least others can learn from our mistakes too.

If you would like your own Garden blog on wellrooted get in touch…

Doug

Tips and Advice
Lessons learnt

Mar 15th 2010

By: Paul

No comments

I have decided that my main error last year was overzealous planting. By this I mean putting 4 chilli plants into one pot for instance or 4 potato plants into one bag. Yes, the plants grew but they did not create the optimum amount of produce. Another error I made was to plant everything at once, instead of staggering the planting. When the produce was ready, it was all ready and a lot of it went to waste. I blame it on enthusiasm.

This year will be one of restraint. I am only planting items that will be of use and I am going to stagger seeding so that I can have a longer more ‘fruitful’ season if you pardon the pun.

Yesterday, I planted a clove of garlic and sowed a ‘Ten Commandments’ gourd seed that Doug had generously given me along with 10 ‘Sweet Big Red’ pepper seeds. The shed was removed and the base extended all ready for the greenhouse build next weekend. I can’t wait, I love to build flat pack stuff!

Base build

New Shed Base

Garlic

Garlic Planted

Pepper and Gourd

Pauls Garden
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