The Planting Out Continues

I'll just start shall I......

Thursday - with my rickety hot/ greenhouse still standing I decided it was time to plant out the sweet peppers and aubergines in their new home. Gave one of the aubergines to my neighbour with the strict instructions not to actually grow an aubergine if I didn't succeed :) I interplanted them with french marigolds to repel greenfly, a red curly basil, pot marigolds and coriander.

I also planted out the two cucumber plants and sowed two more seeds in situ. The plants weren't properly hardened off and I have been wrapping them in a fleece blanket each night but they are beginning to show signs of cold damage. I hope they pull through and that the seeds germinate, might even sow a couple more in the greenhouse as back up.

And now there is more space emerging in the greenhouse I have finally potted on my ochroes and moved them into the greenhouse (ignore the mess I'll sort it out, I promise). They were potted into a mixture of compost, rotted rabbit droppings and bedding with a generous dose of blood fish and bones. Then today I remembered I had a special mixture of rotted rabbit droppings and bedding rotting down further with some lawn clippings which I was to use to pot up the ochro, duh, haven't really got anywhere else to use it so it will have to be thrown back on the compost heap.

Friday was a dud day - zilch in the garden done.

Saturday (today) - I walked into my greenhouse and the ochro was sulking even though I was mindful to open the door before the sun became to intense. The plants were visibly suffering from the heat in the greenhouse so I pulled my finger out and sewed together the two net curtains I purchased in a charity house approx two weeks ago, leaving a gap for the window to go through which will allow me to open it easily. Then I draped it over the house and what a difference it has made, in the autumn it will simply go in the wash.

When that was done I sorted out any watering that needed doing and then cracked on with planting out or potting on of plants. So the remainder of annual salvia were planted out among the three brassicus beds. I also planted some borage and pot marigolds in and around the beans bed and pot marigold at the edge of the globe artichoke bed and brassicus bed.

I really hope vege plot should look pretty this year as I really stuck to my plan to get lots of flowers into and around the beds. I have also left most of the selfsown poppies, calendulas, nigella, fever few and others to just get on and do what they do best, that is look pretty.

The young globe artichoke plant was planted out in its final position. I prepared the soil with more rotted rabbit dropping and bedding with a another generous helping of BFB (really wish I had remembered about the forgotten bagged stuff) anyway hope it grows away beautifully.

At the edge of one of the beds which has perpetual spinach, chard, lettuce and spring onions already in it, I planted the five young red orach plants that grew from the ten seeds I sowed. These plants selfseed really well I'm told so I want them to do so into the brick path where in the future I could leave them to grow in the corners to look pretty as well as to have lazy grown food :)

Some coriander seedlings were also planted out into the corner of the tomato bed, again to encourage the seeds to fall into the brick footpath for easy/ lazy growing of the herb.

The sweetcorn experiment is off to a flying start with two seedlings emerging hopeful more will appear soon.

In between all the planting I got some weeding done and potted up the last of the brassicus seedlings which I'll plant out either tomorrow or Monday and I gave my surplus plants to my neighbour.

All in all got most things I wanted to do done and enjoyed being outdoors in the lovely sunny weather.

Take a look at what started to bloom today and the bees have already found it but I wasn't fast enough with the camera.

A Ricketty Greenhouse????

Another warm sunny day, oh lovely.

I got the all my beans planted out today; the runners, the dwarf and climbing french beans and the borlotti. The dwarf beans were planted in the tomato bed and won't need harvesting till the pods are ripe ad dry, so as to reduce the risk of them getting wet and remaining damp nearer harvest time I thought it would be a good idea to grow them under the same cover.

I also planted out the chard seedlings and my second set of lettuce. Now I need to sow the third batch.

I have lots of flowering plants to plant out as companion plants, today it was some more sunflowers and some of the salvia that were planted out, both went into the bean bed and a couple were planted in the asparagus beds edge and the edge of the swiss chard row.

The last thing I got done was to build and erect a mini 'hot/ green house' which I plan to grow my aubergines and sweet peppers in. I'll plant those out tomorrow. The sweet peppers already have flowers and I have been pollinating them with a paint brush (think they are suppose to be self pollinating but I thought it wouldn't hurt to help them along as they are not being visited by any pollinators inside). Both of sets of plants may also be a little pot bound so I hope they grow away once I plant them out.

Check out what's in flower:

Kella the Builder

Another glorious sunny and warm day, yah!!!

I finished erecting the rest of my wigwams for the legume bed, it might be a little cramped but since I added lots of kitchen waste to the soil in the form of trenches I'm not worried about the plants running out of nutrition and the shredded paper in the trenches should aid with water retention. The only thing is air circulation, if it turns out to be a wet summer the plants may suffer with mold if everything stays to damp but if the summer is a dry one they should be OK, here's praying for a great summer as predicted by the MET.

The next structure I built today was one of two planned frames for netting my brassicus plants against the cabbage white butterflies lying eggs on my plants. I just have to drape the netting over it.

The last structure I began construction on was my outside covered tomato bed (see my posting in A4A on its use in 2008, if you scroll down I describe further on how I constructed it). This time I dug individual pits and half filled them with a mixture rotted small mammal bedding, droppings and lawn clippings from last year, I then sunk my bamboo posts into the ground to a depth o 12". I was able to do eight of the twelve poles, the last four will be done when I have cleared the rest of the bed of last years perpetual spinach and this years early radishes.

Other jobs that got done was the potting up of a couple more of my cabbage seedlings into coir pots. On the surface of the soil I under sowed the seedlings with a few thyme seeds each, which should germinate and according to some thoughts out there it should help to prevent cabbage root fly (I assume the strong smell of the thyme should confuse the fly). At best it would look pretty when in flower and attract beneficial insects like bees to help pollinate other crops and maybe hover flies who would leave their young behind to hoover up pests off the brassicus plants.

The rest of the summer savory plants were planted out in the legume bed now that the poles are in place.

On the germination front, the parsley, runner beans, french climbing beans and the borlotti beans have begun to germinate.

Went into the greenhouse this morning and was greeted by an open flower of a ....??? (can't remember the name will check again tomorrow and edit it in) squash and not a mature male flower in sight:(, so I have removed the flower and the immature fruit to prevent the plant from wasting energy. I think I will have to plant out my squash and pumpkins earlier than the third week of May like I previously planned. Will most likely start to prepare their planting holes tomorrow with the aim to plant out by next weekend. Will probably fleece and cloche the plants for a short period to help acclimatise them further.

The poor collard doves were worried endlessly as the girls joined me in the garden today for quite long periods. My eldest also found another broken egg in the grass, it must have fallen during the night as I only saw one when investigated this morning after she left the nest when I entered the garden. Hopefully it will still be in the nest tomorrow morning.

This lovely iris was blooming, it is one of a few plants that have survived the garden's makeover. Now that all the heavy digging and weeding is practically over some of missed tubers since last summer have begun to reemerge but this year is the first year any have flowered. I'm quite pleased as I thought they were long gone.

Also I saw this very pretty moth first by the flower beds then was later able to get a photo of it by the herb bed, it was very flighty so the picture doesn't do it justice. I just identified it as a Pyrausta purpuralis.

The Sun Has Put His Smile On, Hip Hip Hip Hip Hooray!!!

Oh what a beautiful daaayyy!!!!

Yep you guessed right it was a beautiful sunny warm day today just as they forecasted.

The morning started with evidence of ground frost even the water I put out for the birds was frozen over.






After getting Nathifa off to school I went outside to get a little gardening done. There were two main jobs I wanted to get done today.

1. Was the sowing of some seeds that could remain in the greenhouse to germinate. I was not able to get all done (I still have to care for Na'imah from time to time, LOL) but got most sown even with a little help from the little miss.

The seeds I sowed were:

• Lettuce by 4 varieties; Little Gem, New Fire Red, Buttercrunch and Pandero.
• Par-cel, this is herb with a taste halfway between celery and parsley. I have never used it before and it can also be used in companion planting.
• Turnips, another new one for us to try and again if we like it, it will add to out winter croppers.
• Pak choi, a mixed coloured pack.
• Mizuna, another Chinese vegetable that I am used to eating as part of salad bags but plan to let it grow larger and use in stir fries like pak choi.
• Sunflowers were sown by the little miss and will be used for their prettiness and to attract pollinating insects (which is another aspect of companion planting).

2. My other job was the splitting of my chive clumps in the kitchen herb patch/ bed. Chives may start with just a few bulbs but every two to three years the clump can become congested and so to keep the plants healthy its good practice to split the clumps into smaller pieces and replant. This is the same for most clump form perennial plants. I shared my surplus plants with members of the Maidstone Freecycle Group and replanted the original number 0f fourteen clumps.

Now for a quick germination update:

• The teasel germinated on the 27th of Feb but yet to show their leaves just signs of a root going into the soil.
• The lemon grass began to germinate yesterday.
• And the melons began today.

Last but by no means least here is picture of my garden's first daffodil of the season, it started blooming two days ago.

Wow!! Winter is Sure Serious This Time

12th February, 09 - Well they did forecast heavy snow but I thought yeah right! three snowfalls in one winter in the South East ain't going to happen, but like I said in the title Winter is Sure Serious This Time :). It started at about 18.00 with sleet and its now 21.21 and there is already about an inch on the ground with lots more falling steadily. We'll just have to wait and see what tomorrow brings, as its due to have light rain showers for an hour or two from 03.00, but don't it look pretty :)

Friday the 13th of February, well there was evidence of the rain falling during the wee early hours of this morning as there was quite slushy snow to walk through on the school run today.

The back yard still looked pretty and their was evidence of the local bird life as well.

I have sown some flower seeds today, once they have grown successfully some will go into the herbal flower beds and some will be used as companion plants in and around my vegetable plants.

http://www.minifarmhomestead.com/gardening/companionplant.htm

The seeds I have sown are;

• Thyme - to be planted both in the herb bed and at the edge of the footpaths surrounding the vegetable beds.


• Echinacea - to be planted in the flower beds.


• Rudbeckia - to be planted in the flower beds.


• Salvia (annuals and perennials) - perennials in the flower beds and the annuals as companion plants in the vegetable beds.

I have also planted a couple seeds of the Torsha plant a.k.a Luffa. this plant loves it hot and humid so I plan to grow it in the greenhouse in a container. If the summer turns out to be a scorcher (fat chance) I will bring outdoors.