Garden Updates

My poor vege garden is practically barren in the way of crops for this year. So to start the updates off (of which there a few) I'll review a crop from last year.

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Winter Squash: Boston .

On the 16th of May on getting a squash to use in the kitchen, I found that this one was beginning to spoil.

Getting into this squash was so easy it was like cutting butter, it is by far the easiest squash to cut into out of all the other varieties I grew last year.

Sadly easy cutting was its best feature, inside I found a beautiful colour as well as a moist flesh (ok two more good features) but that is where the good features stop. The flesh was so bland, neither sweet or otherwise just bland. It did cook well, and held its shape when stewed or baked but I'm afraid it's blandness means I won't be growing it again.

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One failure after the next....

photo on the left explains why my runner beans practically failed to germinate, photo on the right show a few die hards making it to the light, only to be mowed down by slugs after the very recent rainy weather of last week.

The mangetout peas are actually doing ok, one of my few successes.

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Out of all the french beans I sowed four wigwams worth, only one wigwam had an one hundred % germination. But I am afraid these were also cut to the wick by the slugs last week. The photo on the right are the palsy germination of 18 seeds of dwarf french beans I sowed in the greenhouse for an early crop.
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While I was counting my losses, I decided to look adversity in the face and sowed my squashes and courgettes 18/05/2010.

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Taken last week my first globe artichoke, it has since been nipped off, as the plant is still quite small and I don't want to exhaust it.

Self sown plants will give me some cropping this year so I'll be leaving them well alone. (L to R) parley, chard, perpetual spinach.
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Today in the Greenhouse...

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Dwarf french beans coming along with a few self sown Tomato plants from the my compost heap .

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On the left are my sown tomato seeds (very poor germination, will grow them on in the greenhouse this year and hope for a late crop). And on the right are donated tomato plants from gardening friends.
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Hooray an almost 100% germination rate for all my squashes and courgettes, they'll be planted out soon.

Of things to come; frenchbean flower buds on the left and ripening wild strawberries on the right, the girls favourite.

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