Petits Haricots

well, it is only radishes, but it’s the first harvest of sown this year veg [we still have some broccoli and leeks from last year]. They are only grown as a line marker for other seeds – in this case carrots, as the girls, particularly BB walk over bare earth and emergent seedlings.

Under cover

today I potted up most of the cucurbits and about half of the toms. most of those left won’t get potted up – they haven’t made the final cut. I’ll take them to colleagues at work, and if anyone thinks they may survive the journey to legoland I’ll be happy to take them. peppers need potting up soon too, but the aubergines that survived Chris’s neglect don’t yet.

Chris worked hard to finish clearing out the greenhouse, and is going to revamp the staging in time to empty our conservatory before we need to semi dismantle it to fi it.

Fruit bed

still a slight misnomer! this year it still has strawbs and minarette fruits, but also the legumes. The broad beans are doing well. No flowers yet, even though the ones in the fields on the way to work are in full flower. I guess the farmers were more organised than me – it being their livelihood! Something’s nibbling the peas though. not too dreadfully, will keep an eye on them. doesn’t look classical slug though. I also popped in some florence fennel today. Back to fruit, I think I might espalier a bit the minarettes – well, the bits that I should have pruned already! We have lost 3 of the original 8 – 1 never grew, 2 died last summer. Anyway, will maybe get some more, but some side branching like we did for an archway in Leeds sounds a good plan. I did some weeding of strawbs as well.

The girls plot.

they helped me weed a little bit, and the onions are sprouting. of all the sunflowers, only 3 have made it to planting – which is very disappointing! We gave everything a good water though. They also did a bit of encouraging with the other jobs.

when chris finds wherever it is ‘the frantic gardener’ has disappeared to, I will do some garden blogging on there!

Anyway, this year, having reflected on the prime cause of failures last year I decided that

1. I wasn’t going to sow more than I could pot up/plant and keep on top of

2. Since we are incapable of weeding the amount our garden needed, we needed a gardener or mulch. Both of those being expensive, we needed a friend with excess cardboard boxes.

3. Must Feed and Water more regularly

SO this is the feedback for number 2. So far the broad beans seem to be growing very happily through the cardboard. They haven’t been particularly munched by anything and they look nice and healthy.

The potatoes have also been planted through cardboard. Considering we haven’t quite finished planting them all – a great oops, but it is earlies – I have no feedback yet. Today I planted out the first brassicas – early purple sprouting – into holes in the cardboard.

I’m not entirely sure if this is sensible/ will work. But last year so many plants choked in weeds, or got planted out way too late or never because I couldn’t face reclearing the ground that this HAS to be at least no worse!

The obvious positives are a bit less weeding – just thorugh the planting holes until what is in there is the biggest and strongest. Also, the cardboard should act as a good mulch in the summer, minimising the watering.

The obvious negatives are the increased places for slugs to hide and other non beneficial creepy crawlies. That it may somehow inhibit growth – possibly airflow?? Not sure.

Anyway, when have chatted up very helpful friend with too many boxes, the squashes and poss sweetcorn will also be planted through. Sweet corn often makes accessory rootlets from stem though,, so my have big planting holes!!

Anyway, we will see!