Big Day in the Garden
May. 10th, 2009 04:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jaceyWe've now got three raised beds planted and a fourth under construction. Whoo-hoo. All thanks to Best Beloved being in garden-builder mode and having some woodwormy joists spare from the barn renovation. The wood's definitely not fit to re-use for building (even if it has been treated) but it's fine for the garden. BB's happy to make new things, but less happy to maintain what's growing in them. Fair enough. I figure I can do the maintenance stuff.
The plan is to have a small but regular supply of vegetables from the garden from summer onwards. I'd like to grow fruit as well, but apart from the rhubarb (which has yielded another 3 lbs today) and four new strawberry plants, the fruit might have to wait until next year
Weeded and watered. Am in a quandry with the smallest raised bed. I planted onions from seed but I can't tell the difference between onion seedlings and grass. Bummer. I'll have to see what comes up and then decide whether to mow it or fry it. You can tell I'm not one of the world's natural gardeners, I think.
In bed number two I thinned the purple sprouting broccoli seedlings (which seem to be doing much better germinating in the garden than they did in seed trays on the windowsill). I even managed to transplant some of the seedlings into the gaps left by the straggly indoor-started broccoli plants that have already withered. (Out of a dozen started on the windowsill only three plants are looking vaguely like, you know, actually growing.) The beetroot seedlings planted outside in April are coming up just fine, but so are a thousand other weed seedlings which I can't do much with just yet for fear of disturbing the seedlings I'm trying to encourage. A neighbour gave me half a dozen straggly brussels sprout seedlings and amazingly these are doing fine so far.
Bed number three is newly constructed and filled mostly with compost and a layer of bought compost (cheapest we could find, which was from Aldi). I planted beans - boith runner and broad - in pots on the windowsil but only two runner beans out of six germinated and as soon as I transplanted them a couple of days ago they pretty well withered. one might survive. So I've set a wigwam of canes and planted more runner beans outside. The broad beans did rather better. i got ten out of twelve germinating. I transplanted them this morning. According to the packet they don't need staking, but the wind - though calm today - has been blustery this week, so I've staked them on short stakes in the hope it gives them a fighting chance. On the other side of the same bed I've planted four rows of carrots and two rows of swede from seed, And then there was a bit of a gap between the breans so I've shoved half a dozen well grown lettuce seedlings in as a catch crop.
My tomatoes, planted in pots on the windowsill in February are doing OK. I have one that's already three feet tall with three flower trusses - the first already setting fruit - but another planted at the same time under the same conditions is barely eight inches tall. So much for staggering planting to get crops maturing at different times. Sheesh. I also planted four cherry tomatoes - a supposedly prolific cropper called '100s and 1000s' - that you can grow in hangng baskets. Sadly i gave one of them a try in a basket and it immediately snapped off in the wind, so the others are still indoors and showing signs of tiny flower trusses. I'm hoping to be able to get these outsode soon.
Unfortunately the third variety of tomatoes I planted - Marmade - went very straggly in the propagator and I'm not confident that the transplanted straggly things will ever amount to much. It may be a little late to grow more from seed, but I'll give it a try.
I'm nr much of a flower gardener but I picked up some cheap seeds from Aldi - only 39p a pack - of lobelia and pansies, so I've planted them in the propagator and we'll see if they take. I can grow fuchsias, though. I've got 18 well rooted fuchia cuttings ready for the plant sale at the village hall next weekend and another three kept back for me - plus another eight or ten cuttings rooting well in water.
The plan is to have a small but regular supply of vegetables from the garden from summer onwards. I'd like to grow fruit as well, but apart from the rhubarb (which has yielded another 3 lbs today) and four new strawberry plants, the fruit might have to wait until next year
Weeded and watered. Am in a quandry with the smallest raised bed. I planted onions from seed but I can't tell the difference between onion seedlings and grass. Bummer. I'll have to see what comes up and then decide whether to mow it or fry it. You can tell I'm not one of the world's natural gardeners, I think.
In bed number two I thinned the purple sprouting broccoli seedlings (which seem to be doing much better germinating in the garden than they did in seed trays on the windowsill). I even managed to transplant some of the seedlings into the gaps left by the straggly indoor-started broccoli plants that have already withered. (Out of a dozen started on the windowsill only three plants are looking vaguely like, you know, actually growing.) The beetroot seedlings planted outside in April are coming up just fine, but so are a thousand other weed seedlings which I can't do much with just yet for fear of disturbing the seedlings I'm trying to encourage. A neighbour gave me half a dozen straggly brussels sprout seedlings and amazingly these are doing fine so far.
Bed number three is newly constructed and filled mostly with compost and a layer of bought compost (cheapest we could find, which was from Aldi). I planted beans - boith runner and broad - in pots on the windowsil but only two runner beans out of six germinated and as soon as I transplanted them a couple of days ago they pretty well withered. one might survive. So I've set a wigwam of canes and planted more runner beans outside. The broad beans did rather better. i got ten out of twelve germinating. I transplanted them this morning. According to the packet they don't need staking, but the wind - though calm today - has been blustery this week, so I've staked them on short stakes in the hope it gives them a fighting chance. On the other side of the same bed I've planted four rows of carrots and two rows of swede from seed, And then there was a bit of a gap between the breans so I've shoved half a dozen well grown lettuce seedlings in as a catch crop.
My tomatoes, planted in pots on the windowsill in February are doing OK. I have one that's already three feet tall with three flower trusses - the first already setting fruit - but another planted at the same time under the same conditions is barely eight inches tall. So much for staggering planting to get crops maturing at different times. Sheesh. I also planted four cherry tomatoes - a supposedly prolific cropper called '100s and 1000s' - that you can grow in hangng baskets. Sadly i gave one of them a try in a basket and it immediately snapped off in the wind, so the others are still indoors and showing signs of tiny flower trusses. I'm hoping to be able to get these outsode soon.
Unfortunately the third variety of tomatoes I planted - Marmade - went very straggly in the propagator and I'm not confident that the transplanted straggly things will ever amount to much. It may be a little late to grow more from seed, but I'll give it a try.
I'm nr much of a flower gardener but I picked up some cheap seeds from Aldi - only 39p a pack - of lobelia and pansies, so I've planted them in the propagator and we'll see if they take. I can grow fuchsias, though. I've got 18 well rooted fuchia cuttings ready for the plant sale at the village hall next weekend and another three kept back for me - plus another eight or ten cuttings rooting well in water.
