Hurrah!

I have sown celaric because it needs so long to grow to a decent size, tomatoes Marmande and St Pierre, aubergine Long Purple, courgettes Jemmer and Green Bush and  Marconi peppers.  I know that I will be looking closely every day until I see them coming up.

I also started to chit my potatoes.  International Kidney – or Jerseys as I call them, Charlotte as I love their waxy texture and King Edwards.  The King Edwards are always a bit hit and miss in my dry sandy soil if they don’t get enough water.  I have had good crops the last two summers as it has been so wet.  I bought far too many tubers so I am going to try something I haven’t done before.  I’m going to pot some up in bags and leave them in the polytunnel and see if I do get any earlier crops.

This afternoon I cleared a bed that was full of ivy and nettles so that I could transplant some beautiful roses.  They are an old english variety of deep purple and are in the wrong place at them moment.

However, what I need know is a cup of tea and a lie down!

I found last year that if I weeded them early in the year and gave them a sprinkling of 6X they grew very strongly. I have repeated this to see if it will happen again.

I have an early, middle and late variety and so picked for about 8 weeks last year.  The later variety are Connovers Colossal and they really did live upto their name.

The posts are to stake the ferns at around October half-term. This is when the south westerly winds start to blow and because the ferns are usually about 8ft tall they act like sails,  filling with the wind and blowing all over the place.

For the last two years we have had asparagus beetle – a very tricksy little critter.  When it sees the shadow of your hand approaching to get it, it rolls around the stem or drops to the floor where you can’t see it.  As we are organic growers, the only way to deal with them is by hand collection and squashing!  We did get them under control as we had very few grubs and I am hoping that the cold weather this winter has killed off any hiding in the old stems.

I inspected the peas in the polytunnel and so far no mouse activity.  Next weekend is when I start to sow seed using a propagator on the kitchen windowsill.  First things in will be tomato seed.  I can’t wait.

What are you looking forward to in the next few weeks?

I haven’t got time to visit each blog regularly and see what new posts there are.  Can someone please explain why you don’t use feeds?  It would be much easier for your readers.  Or this one anyway!

When I went in what little stuff that I had  was not doing too badly.  The spring cabbages are a little droopy but they will recover and there are some winter lettuces that have sat there since October and will be great.  The rogue parsley and red mustard are of course doing quite well.

I did sow beetroot, rainbow chard, mizuna and peas in the tunnel.  I expect the peas will have been dug up tomorrow by the mice.  I have tried all sorts of coverings and protections but nothing seems to work.  I am afraid it might have to be the traps this year if I end up sowing them more than twice.

I don’t like the ideas of soaking them in smelly stuff so has anyone got any other ideas that I could try?

They are replacements for my current bed of about 6 globe artichokes that have been in for about 5 years and are now getting a bit tired.  They will however have to do one more year until these young plants are in and growing.  Next year!

I’m looking forward to something like this.  To grow them properly have a look at Allotment Blog.

So what are the secrets?

Good soil – I always manure before I plant them

Plenty of water

This year there was a warm autumn that went on for some time

And every time I watered I alternated the type of feed, first weak tomato feed followed by weak worm liquid from my allotment neighbour Andrew’s worms.

The two things different this year were a warm autumn and the feeding regime.

This winter I shall be mostly eating sweet potatoes!  How about you?

At the moment my garden and allotment are covered in frost , even down here in the south west of England, and are not really workable. But I am snuggled up at home reading The Ivington Diaries by Monty Don.  He manages to capture his love and real need for the garden as part of his well-being.  He talks about his thousands of photos of the garden and how he likes to look through them and I realised that I have taken hardly any even though I have been trying things out for eight years here and down at the allotment.

So here goes – only it’s too cold today!