Its A Success

I decided to try turnips this year to see if we as a family who have never eaten it before would like to add it to our diet.

Well I harvested the first lot today and used both the turnip and the leafy tops (mainly the younger leaves) for dinner this evening.

I roasted the turnips with chard also from the garden and sauteed the tops then tossed them in with spaghetti. we had the lot with stewed lima beans. And like it says in the title it was a success, everyone enjoyed them. They were surprisingly sweet and the tops were reminiscent of pak choi.

We'll try them raw next time in a salad or tossed with fried vege rice, haven't decided yet.

Sacrificial Curcubits?????

Woke to a very wet garden and more rain teeming down, all this was finished though by 08:30 am and was replaced by gusty winds up to forty plus.

Today I attempted to build a mini greenhouse to enclose my sweet peppers and aubergines but the forty plus winds showed me the structure needs tweaking.

So onto job number two; decided to plant out my winter squash, pumpkins and courgettes they simply could not be left in their pots any more. So with my heart in my mouth I planted them out in the gusts, I feel as though I am sacrificing them to the wind gods. At least tonight the gusts will be dieing down but are forecasted to return tomorrow evening to last through out tomorrow night, I do hope I do not end up with egg on my face and I'm afraid it gets worse as the tomorrow the tomatoes will be sharing their faith.

Finally I got round to potting up some herbs that have grown out of their pots, some lime basil and Vietnamese coriander.

Oh and here are few flowers that were in bloom today, hope you enjoy them as much as I did.

Time To Get Of My Laurels and Get Cracking.

I have finally started to plant out my brassicus plants yesterday. After building the last frame for netting I planted out my romenesco x 4, cabbages x 3, cauliflower x 3 in the smaller bed which will be interplanted with Chinese leaves plants when they are a little better and can handle a slug attack. In that bed I also planted a nasturtium, calendula, borage and a cornflower.

In the larger bed which already has my early pak choi and mizuna plants flourishing, I began to plant out the kale and early purple sprouting broccoli. I also planted out a nasturtium plant into that bed, when I was done the netting went over both beds to protect them against the cabbage white butterflies.

Yesterday I saw my first native ladybug for the season it was a 14 spot (I know it looks dead but it was only playing dead because I moved it out of the way of danger from my garden fork, it soon toddled off).

I also found when I was sieving the compost to add to the beds a very large wireworm which went to the birds.

Hee hee!! and check out this bumblebee who was enjoying the water aven flowers.

Today I woke up to a fairly wet landscape but the light rain stopped at about 08.00 leaving behind some sunshine and moderate winds.

I have decided as of today to forgo starting my sweet corn in pots and plan to sow them into the bed dedicated to them after they have chitted (I don't normally chit these seeds but thought it would work better if I put them into the soil once germination had started). So after soaking them for a few hours I then placed them onto some damp paper towel in a covered tray and left them in a warm place to begin germination. In the mean time I have prepared the bed they will be going into by mixing in some compost an BFB and covering with some plastic to keep the soil warm. As soon as the seeds begin to chit I will plant them out but will leave the plastic in place as a cloche till June month. Why have I decided to go down this way instead of the preferred method of 3" pot for three weeks then plant out first week of June, simple answer really: I'm tired of faffing with pots.

I would have like to have gotten some more done but life and the weekly washing got I the way ;) I hope to get a lot of jobs done tomorrow but more high winds are forecasted so I'll see if I could risk planting out the cold sensitive plants tomorrow.

A Simple Update

So Saturday after two days of rest from the garden chores I picked up where I left off and returned to the task of digging and preparing planting holes for the curcubits, etc. The ten remaining holes for the squashes and pumpkins took me all Saturday to do. Each pole represent a hole of which there is 14 in total.

Sunday morning saw me constructing a fenced barrier against fox cub damage to my vege plot see previous posting, the only thing is I did not have enough fencing to encompass the squash and pumpkin area, I hope the plants won't be to interfered with when I plant them out (so far they have left the cardboard alone). Later in the afternoon found me digging six more holes, this time two more for the tomatoes, three for courgettes and one for a patty pan summer squash.

The kid's spring flower pots and planters have been moved to a quiet area behind the greenhouse and their six old wellington boot planters which were sown with morning glories, sweet peas and nasturtiums have been put into their final place in front of the play house.

Monday I potted around planting out flowering plants into the flower bed. The garden looks filthy as we have been having some high winds which have dumped all the old dusty flowers and some young leaves of the surrounding oak trees into the garden, causing the place to look like it needs a good sweep.

Had hope to start planting out the squashes and tomatoes but with the high winds dropping the air temperature by a few degrees I though it would be wise to keep them in the greenhouse till the end of the week when the ground should be saturated by forcasted heavy showers and the winds should have also died down somewhat.

The thyme I under sowed the brassicus plants with have started to germinate.

Here are a couple pics taken on Monday:

Tuesday morning saw me at the museum with my youngest for story and craft activities but the afternoon found me cutting the lawn which was followed by its second dose of feed. I also got round to staking the taller plants in the flower and herb beds to prevent them from being flattened by any heavy rain that may fall.

Wednesday this morning showed evidence of rain fall during the early hours of the morning but it was not a lot. There has been a fine drizzle since 14.00 which i s getting heavy but very slowly. The garden could do with a good drink so hopefully the heavy showers do fall later this evening.

The turnips I was growing for winter harvesting will be ready way before then (the one in the photo is only the second biggest). I'll probably sow a fresh set to grow for those winter months.

About midday I happened to look out the window and was lucky to see my first sighting of swifts for the year :), there were about five of them but they didn't hang around and so I was not able to procure a video shot of them to show you.

I've been practicing with the camera in taking macro shots here a few taken today: