Mark's Veg Plot

Protecting my Strawberries

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Willis) — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 15:00:00 +0000

My Strawberry plants have lots of flowers now, and the fruits are beginning to set, so I'm hoping for a much bigger crop than I had last year. [Wow, I might get a whole one pound this time!]

These fruits are only tiny now, but I know that once they get going they ripen pretty rapidly.

I also know that if I don't protect the fruit the birds will steal it as soon as it is ripe, so I have made myself a fruit cage. It consists of three of my mini greenhouses with the plastic overs removed and pelaced with a net held down by bricks and big stones:

There is enough space inside for the plants to stand well away from the net, so that little beaks will not be able to poke through and peck the ripening fruit.

It looks like an effective arrangment, but Blackbirds are devious creatures, so I'm not being complacent!

Problems with the Gaillardia

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Willis) — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 15:00:00 +0000

My Gaillardia plant is looking sick. Although it is putting up flower stems now, many of the leaves have gone brown.

It looks almost as if the leaves are burned. I know we have had plenty of bright sunshine recently, and more-or-less constant strong breezes, but I don't think it has been that hot. I think our maximum daytime temperature must have been about 20 or 21C. And I have been very good about watering.

I have another theory. Could it be acid burn? I mean acid in the sense of Fox urine? Maybe this plant has become a territorial marker for the nocturnal animals. Do you think this is possible / likely?

Just to give you something a bit nicer to look at in this post, here are a few pictures of some young lettuces:

Marvel of Four Seasons

Green Oak-Leaf

Delicato

Valdor

Fristina

Pancalieri (an Endive, not a Lettuce)

Peas

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Willis) — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 15:00:00 +0000

Well, after a long time of waiting, my pea plants are just about to produce their crop. A classic of bad timing, since we are going away on holiday next week!

This is the sum total of my Pea-production efforts this year - two pots, containing about a dozen plants all told:

Amazingly, since these are effectively "Rescue Peas" (having originally been intended for eating as peashoots at the age of about 2 weeks), the plants are the healthiest ones I have ever grown. I think maybe it is because of the good ventilation they get. In the past, my peas have been much troubled with powdery mildew, which I know can be exacerbated by poor air circulation.

It won't be a big crop, that's for sure, but I reckon it might score well on the VSR scale. The pots don't take up much space, and the peas are likely to be much nicer than any peas you could buy in a shop, because they can be eaten within minutes of picking.

So here we are - the first pods are visible now!

Despite having decided NOT to grow peas any longer, because of a succession of poor harvests, I think I might change my mind and repeat this method next year.

Two days later....

Those pods certainly grow rapidly!

Tomatoes - a progress report

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Willis) — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 15:00:00 +0000

My tomatoes are looking very strong now. Many of them are about three feet tall, and some of them have their first flowers, though no fruit has set yet.

I have started feeding them now, because they have been in those pots for a few weeks now and the nutrients in the compost will have been considerably depleted. I use "Tomorite" proprietary tomato-food, though later in the year I will try to make some home-made Comfrey Tea (although my comfrey is looking very sparse this year, so it probably won't amount to much!)

This is a flower on "Cherokee Purple". It's a very complex flower for a tomato - almost "double".

Do you see how the upper leaves of the plant in the photo below are curled inwards, almost bunched-up? I used to be worried when this happened, but I researched it and found that this happens when the nights are too cold for the plant's comfort. We humans do the same when we are cold: we wrap our arms around ourselves and clench them tightly. No real harm is done, and the plant will unclench in due course.

My favourite colour combination

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Willis) — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 15:00:00 +0000

As most of you will know, I'm not a great one for growing flowers (though I am doing more in that area than previously), but I am very much aware of the aesthetic value of foliage. At present I am very keen on the yellow/purple colour combination.

This is it in small scale: Golden Thyme "Archer's Gold" and purple Oxalis "Burgundy Wine"

Here it is again with Variegated Sage and Purple Sage:

And here it is in larger scale: Golden Dogwood / Cornus Alba "Aureum" and purple Cotinus "Royal Purple"

Can you get too much of a good thing?

Diana's Aquilegias

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Willis) — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 15:00:00 +0000

Last year I sowed some Aquilegia seeds kindly sent to me by Diana, whose blog is Kebun Malay-Kadazan Girls. She wouldn't tell me what colour they were, so I have had to be patient and find out for myself. It was worth the wait!

I had great difficulty in getting any photos of them that I was happy with. The stems of these plants are very slender, and the blooms blow about in the slightest breath of breeze - and it has been very windy here most of the time. Anyway, I think these photos demonstrate adequately the beautiful colours of these lovely flowers.

Recently I have developed a great interest in this plant variety, and am beginning to learn more about it. For instance, Sue, from Our Plot at Green Lane Allotments, recently wrote an informative blogpost explaining about the variability in flower colour of Aquilegias, and how seeds may develop into a plant which has flowers of a completely different colour to its parent. Now I understand why Diana wouldn't tell me what colour the ones she sent me would be!

Diana, I hope you are reading this. Thank you very much for those seeds!

STOP PRESS! (Late addition, just before heading off on holidays...)

Tulips

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Willis) — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 15:00:00 +0000

The two pink Tulips that "accidentally" bloomed in my garden were lovely while they lasted:

But (to quote a well-known sketch from Monty Python's Flying Circus) they are now ex-Tulips; they have ceased to be; they are bereft of life; they rest in peace...

I just hope they re-appear in all their finery next year.

By the way, having seen Monty Don talking about this on Gardener's World, I have now removed the heads of these Tulips to stop them trying to form seeds, and therefore to conserve their energy for next year.

Beetroot and Parsnip

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Willis) — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 15:00:00 +0000

In my "Roots" bed, the last of the Radishes was harvested at the weekend:

They have been good; very good; but they were only ever intended as a catch-crop to make the most of the space until the other crops got going.

Earlier in the year, the germination rate of my sowings of Parsnips and Beetroot was not very good, so I sowed another batch to fill in the gaps. My intention had been to have a sort of staggered double-width row of each one rather than just a single line of them, because I thought this would make best use of the space. That didn't really happen:

What you are seeing there is Beetroot on the left, then a line of widely-spaced Basil plants (put in to replace the Radishes), then the Parsnips, and finally (at the right) the Turnips. The Basil plants went in immediately after the Radishes came out - I don't like to leave any space un-utilised! As you can see, some of them are Green Basil and some of them are Purple.

Here are some close-ups of the Beetroot "row". This part looks OK, with a decently staggered row in evidence. (Note Basil plant at right)

Here you can see the difference in size between the two sowings.

I'm sure the need for the second sowing will turn out to have been a blessing in disguise because it will mean I have Beetroot available for harvest over a longer period than would otherwise have been the case. The photo demonstrates quite well how when sowing Beetroot you usually get at least two plants in each "station" because what we think of as seeds are actually clusters of several seeds. For this reason it is normally necessary to thin-out the seedlings once they get big enough to handle easily.

The Parsnips are still pretty small, but that's to be expected. They always grow very slowly, and they won't be ready for harvesting until September / October at the earliest.

The ones in the photo above are at about the best size for thinning out. After thinning they should be about 4" to 6" apart, to allow the roots to develop to a decent size. If you were to leave them as close together as they are in my photo they would still grow OK, but each root would be quite small. I generally reckon it is better to have a smaller number of larger Parsnips rather than lots of small ones, since the latter are quite fiddly to prepare for culinary use.

When thinning seedlings - Parsnips, Beetroot, Carrots or whatever - remember to water the soil about half an hour before you intend to do the job. Moistening the soil will reduce root disturbance stress for the ones that are to remain. And don't forget that the thinnings, especially of Beetroot, are often nice to eat as salad ingredients.

My Carrots are looking good too, though nowhere near ready for harvesting:

That wooden planter is now almost exactly two years old, and it's looking pretty weathered already. I don't think it was made of top quality seasoned timber! When it was new, in June 2011 I wrote in a blogpost "The prize was a lovely timber "Bamburgh" table-style planter, made of sturdy timber and guaranteed to last 15 years." Oh yeah?

Holidays

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Willis) — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 20:04:00 +0000

Many of you will know that Jane and I are supposed to be going on a cruise down the River Danube from Linz in Austria to the Black Sea.... This is a trip that she won in a competition. The recent appalling weather conditions in Europe have dumped a huge quantity of water into the rivers, which are now at record high levels and many countries are experiencing serious flooding. Parts of the Danube are closed to navigation for safety reasons. Our cruise is therefore being radically altered. Instead of sauntering sedately down the river (mostly at night) as planned, we will now be using as floating hotels a series of the tour company's ships moored in a number of different cities along the way, and visiting many of the sights by coach. OK, this is a little disappointing, but in the circumstances I think we have to be grateful that the trip is going ahead at all - and spare a thought for the thousands of unfortunate people who have lost homes, possessions - and in some cases lives - in the floods.

With the aid of Blogger's Scheduler facility I have prepared a number of blogposts which will be published while we are away (hopefully!), but if you're wondering why I'm not being interactive for a while, you now know why!

I'm sure I will have lots to write about on my return (and a fair few photos to share with you), so for the time being... "Au Revoir"!

Mark.

P.S. Here are a few photos to keep you amused for the time being...

White Rose

Cotinus "Royal Purple"

Flower-buds of Hardy Geranium

Harvest Monday - Turnip "Atlantic" etc...

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Willis) — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 15:00:00 +0000

This week I harvested the last of my current batch of Radishes (the "Cherry Belle" ones):

These had been growing as a catch-crop between the rows in my Roots bed. It's just as well they have finished now, because the other plants are beginning to get quite big.

At the same time as harvesting the Radishes, I pulled up the first of my Turnips:

My row of Turnips is a mixture of 3 varieties, but I'm fairly sure these are "Atlantic". It is a newish variety similar to the well-established "Purple Top Milan", but it has a flatter shape.

Only two so far, but they are real beauties, and there are plenty more coming on.

On the seed-packet they are described as being sweet-tasting, which was definitely true. They had a very strong taste too - something you seldom get with Turnips that have been out of the ground for a long time. We ate them glazed in butter, along with some young carrots, as an accompaniment to an Asparagus quiche (yes, using home-grown Asparagus).

Lots of herbs were harvested this week too. For instance, on Friday, Jane made a lovely salad with Melon, Cucumber, Tomatoes, Mint and Chives. Talking of salad, here's another batch I picked this week. We ate it with steak and jacket potatoes.

I also got another batch of Rhubarb yesterday. This is in the freezer now, awaiting the right moment to use it.

This post was originally intended to be just about Turnips, but since I have ended up writing about several other harvests as well, I think I had better enter this post to Harvest Monday, hosted as ever by Daphne over at Daphne's Dandelions.

Scotch Bonnet

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Willis) — Sun, 09 Jun 2013 15:00:00 +0000

Regular readers will know that I am very fond of growing chillis. As it happens, Jane and I don't eat vast quantities of chillis, and we don't particularly like the "Scorch the tips off your taste-buds" type of chilli. We prefer tasty chillis with a medium amout of heat. So why then, you may ask, am I growing a Scotch Bonnet chilli? Scotch Bonnet is VERY hot, verging on the volcanic.

Well the answer is - I felt sorry for it! Last Autumn I saw this rather gangly little plant being sold off in an End-of-Season sale at my local Garden Centre for a mere 50p, and bought it.

At the time when I bought it, it had precious few leaves, but it did have three green fruits, which subsequently ripened to a beautiful bright red colour. The fruits were used in a batch of chilli oil I made as a gift for my brother-in-law, and Wow, were they hot! I would have considered my 50p well spent if that had been the end of the tale, but since then I have nurtured the plant, feeding it every so often with Baby Bio plant food, and it has grown to be enormous. A couple of days ago I took it outside in the garden for some fresh air and sunshine. Just look how big it is now!

This plant has produced a VAST number of flowers - literally thousands, I would think. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you view this), most of the flowers have fallen without setting fruit, but even so several fruits have set:

Curiously, the fruits seem to be in little clusters rather than evenly distributed around the plant:

These fruits are a long way from being ripe, but just think how many Scoville Heat Units they are eventually going to clock up between them!

Jane said to me "Why are you growing chillis that are going to be far too hot for us to eat?", and my reply was that it's because I like the look of Scotch Bonnets, even if I don't like the taste/feel. They are very handsome and photogenic. Here is a photo of the first one to ripen this year. In a few weeks time my plant will hopefully be covered in these:

In order to photograph that little red one, I had to push past this much bigger green one:

What's not to like??

To Bee or not to Bee, that is the question

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Willis) — Sat, 08 Jun 2013 15:00:00 +0000

At first sight this may appear to be a Bee.

I thought it was a Bee at first, which is why I was interested enough to photograph it. Bees are a rare sight in my garden at present. However, when I looked closer, I saw that it was not a Bee, just a fly of some sort pretending to be a Bee.

I'm not sure what sort of fly it was - can anyone tell me? - but it certainly knew how to pose! The bright yellow Dogwood leaf shows it off very well.

I have hardly seen any Bees this year, and those that I have seen have been Bumble Bees. More Hoverflies are beginning to appear though, so hopefully they will do the pollination task that normally falls to the Bees.

This particular chap seems to want to look like a Wasp.

So no Bees, but just "Wannabees"! Presumably making yourself look like something with a sting in its tail makes you less attractive to predators or something.

Chatham

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Willis) — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 15:00:00 +0000

Recently my work took me for a few days to the town of Chatham in Kent, about 30 miles SE of London. Chatham is a town associated since long ago with the (British) Royal Navy. It is a place that Lord Horatio Nelson would have known well. Until recently there were big navy dockyards there. These days I don't think there is much maritime work taking place there. However, there is a tourist attraction called the Chatham Historic Dockyard, in which old ships and maritime artifacts are displayed.

Since the place I was working was very close to the Historic Dockyard, I booked into a hotel right next to it, in the hope that I might be able to see some interesting things.

This is the hotel.

In the interests of avoiding the possibility of libel action, I won't mention its name, but anyone who has stayed here will know which hotel I'm referring to. After, all, who could possibly forget such an architectural gem? Actually, I think if our esteemed Prince Charles had ever set eyes on it, this would certainly be one of those places he allegedly refers to as a "monstrous carbuncle". I think it has nothing whatsoever to commend it.

The hotel stands next to the Mast Pond. This is an artificial lake formerly filled with sea-water in which timber for making ships' masts was seasoned.

Apparently seasoning the timber in salt water rather than in air made it more supple and less prone to snapping in a gale. Today, the pond is disused and evidently tidal. At all times that I was near it, the pond was simply a stretch of mud, full of things like this:

I did think this walkway across the pond was quite photogenic, even though I didn't really understand its purpose. Maybe people used to walk out over it to inspect the masts being seasoned?

On the opposite side of the Mast Pond to the hotel is the carpark for the Historic Dockyard. Around its periphery stands an array of old workshops and warehouses. Today they seem to be empty and disused.

One of the few vehicles in the carpark was this old bus. I wonder if it takes tourists around on tours of the area, or whether it is just a display?

I tried to get to a place from which I could see ships, but the site was fenced off and all the gates were locked. I just occasionally got a tantalising glimpse of the masts of a sailing ship, or the turrets of a 1950s frigate.

I did manage to get fairly close to an old RNLI lifeboat:

Failing to see any ships at close quarters, I had to content myself with examining the miscellaneous array of old bits and pieces arranged round the edge of the carpark. This is something we Brits seem to do well. We have such things in the carpark of EVERY tourist attraction. Exhibit A: a pile of rusty old chains (maritime chains, you understand).

Exhibit B: (You know what this is of course..?)

A helpful notice advises the visitor that it is (was) a Punch and Shear machine - for making holes in, and cutting metal (for ship repair work). Most impressive! (But dull. I wanted to see ships.)

So near, but still so far:

Back to the hotel then... At least it was a beautiful sunny evening, so the walk wasn't totally wasted. This is what often happens in my line of work. I go somewhere which sounds nice, but actually all I get to see is a hotel and a training-room. At the end of the day's work there is little opportunity for proper tourism (even if I had the energy - which I often haven't). Oh, and to make matters worse, the hotel in which I stayed this time had a very poor WiFi arrangement, so I wasn't even able to do much blogging! (This is reason why I haven't been able to read, still less comment on, many blogs these last few days.)

Stand by to repel boarders!

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Willis) — Thu, 06 Jun 2013 15:00:00 +0000

Anyone (in the UK) see the opening of the new Mary Rose Museum? [Note: the Mary Rose was the flagship of King Henry VIII's navy, back in the 16th Century, but it sank with most of its crew during a battle against the French in the Solent. The reason why there were so few survivors is that the ship was rigged with anti-boarding nets to prevent enemy sailors getting aboard. Unfortunately the nets also prevented the crew escaping as the ship went down.]

I have had to rig "anti-boarding nets" around my big Woodblocx raised bed, because despite it now being full of plants, the darned badgers/foxes/whatever are still furtling around in it every night. I'm naturally worried that they will damage the plants. Now that I have installed the 6-foot poles for the cucumbers it is not practical to cover the whole bed with a net, so I have put a barrier about 2 feet high all round it.

The most effective bit will probably be this - a length of plastic clematis netting (until recently used for protecting my peas). Since it is fairly rigid it was easy to fix it in place with some of the aluminium poles from my Build-a-Ball kit:-

Since I don't have enough of the clematis netting to go all the way round, half of the bed is protected by netting draped over more aluminium poles and held in place with clothes-pegs:

Well, it doesn't look very pretty, but it might just keep the veggies safe! How high can badgers jump??

Now I have this nightmare about getting up in the morning to find an angry badger trapped within my "cage", trampling all over my plants in its efforts to escape!

Libertia

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Willis) — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 15:00:00 +0000

I have a famous plant in my garden. It is a Libertia. This particular specimen was one of those used in a display at the Chelsea Flower Show a few years ago. Jane won it along with two others, in a competition. We gave away two, but the third one lives with us still. If you want to read about the garden in which this plant featured, you can find the details HERE.

The beautiful, three-petalled, bright white flowers of this plant look almost like orchids:

They grow on thin stems about 3 feet tall, which shoot up from the midst of an unruly clump of spiky leaves:

This year the plant has at least 25 flower-stalks.

In the past it has only produced about 5 or 6 each year. I put this improved performance down to the maintenance I did on it last year - I pulled out all the old dead brown leaves. If you tug them sharply they detach right from the base. Previously I had pulled out a few of the leaves (mainly for aesthetic purposes), but this time I was thorough, and it seems to have completely re-invigorated the plant.

Indoors we have a genuine orchid - well, two actually, planted at opposite sides of an oval pot. These were given to Jane last year by our daughter Emma as a Mother's Day present. At that time they were flowering, and they looked lovely. They had white flowers. When the flowers died (and the plants officially became mine as opposed to Jane's!) I cut the stalks down to ground level and put the plants on a windowsill in a spare room. Every so often I watered them and misted the leaves with a fine spray. Now some more flower-stalks are growing, so I have moved the plants into a more prominent position, in our Living Room.

The orchids are the ones with the broad leaves. I'm not sure what the other plants are. They seem to have been intended just to contribute foliage. They certainly didn't have any flowers last year. The orchid flower-stems are growing very rapidly. This is what they look like at present:

Those look to me like flower-buds, so hopefully we will soon have another fine display.

The Fritillaries make themselves at home...

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Willis) — Tue, 04 Jun 2013 15:00:00 +0000

The last of the Snakeshead Fritillary flowers faded some weeks ago

Since then, the seed-pods have been swelling

I'm hoping that these flowers will spread profusely. I have read that they naturalise well, so I am doing what I can to make them feel at home. When the flowers lose their petals, the stems continue to grow, and add another few inches in height, which allows them to spread their seed further than would otherwise be the case.

Eventually the curious triple-lobed seed-pods with split open and catapult the seeds over the surrounding area.

I'm fairly sure that this is one of last year's seeds which has just germinated. The seedling looks uncannily like an onion, but I have not grown any onions, so it can't be. and the seed itself looks very like a chilli seed!

In the flower-border where the Fritillaries are growing there are lots of these:

I feel reasonably sure that if I leave them they will grow into these, which are definitely young Fritillary plants.

Can anyone help me with the identification?

I'll finish my post with an arty photo, taken in bright sunlight.

No vacancies

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Willis) — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 15:00:00 +0000

My big Woodblocx raised bed is fully booked now. On Friday I put in two trios of poles for my cucumbers to climb. I used branches pruned last year from my Philadelphus tree. They are not as straight as bamboo canes, but I think they will be strong enough and they look more attractive. It is nice to be able to use materials which have been the subject of zero transport miles, and I'm all too conscious that bamboo is imported to the UK from the other side of the world.

At each corner of the bed I have planted a Pepper plant. Most of these are Sweet Peppers of the variety called "Garnet", grown from seeds sent to me as a gift by Stephen Shirley from Victoriana Nursery.

So the contents of the bed is now:
3 x bush tomato "Maskotka"
3 x cocktail cucumber "Iznik F1"
3 x cocktail cucumber "Melen F1"
3 x Sweet Pepper "Garnet"
1 x Hot Pepper "Cyclon"

Nearby, in one of the other beds, my Turnips are beginning to swell. Some of them are about the size of a full-grown Radish now:

My Turnips are a mix of types, but something tells me that one is a "Purple Top Milan"! I really hope they don't all mature while we are away on holiday. Once they get going the roots swell pretty rapidly so maybe we'll be able to eat a few before we go away. By the way, this holiday I'm referring to is one that Jane won for us. It is a 12-day cruise down the River Danube from Austria to the Black Sea. It should yield a fair few photo opportunities!

Talking of Radishes... What do you think of these?

These are "Cherry Belle".

Some of them are about the size of a small Turnip... :)

On the strength of the pictures of (yet more) radishes, I am entering this post for Harvest Monday on Daphne's Dandelions...

Growing great guns

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Willis) — Sun, 02 Jun 2013 15:00:00 +0000

Our weather is slowly, slowly, ever-so-slowly warming up, and we are getting plenty of rain, so actually my plants are growing well. Lots of the shrubs have much more luxuriant foliage than in previous years, and many of the veggies are looking well-nigh perfect. Few of them have any of the ragged bits and insect nibbles that they normally have at this time of year. Perhaps there are fewer pests around than normal.

This bed has clumps of Parsley in the foreground, a row of Tenderstem Broccoli behind, then some Brussels Sprouts and finally the Shallots. (If the photo looks fuzzy, it's because of the netting!)

The Broccoli and Shallots will hopefully mature in July and then be cleared away before the Sprouts get too big.

The Shallots are looking particularly luxuriant:

The sets (bulbs) are splitting and forming clusters of new bulbs.

The peas have shot up about two feet in the last couple of weeks.

If you look closely, the first flowers are visible:

The Tomatoes are also looking big and healthy:

One or two of the plants have their first flowers now:

The Asparagus responds very quickly to the rain - after a rainy day a new batch of spears pops up very soon afterwards. See how many you can spot in this photo...

I'm not actually harvesting much at present, (mainly Radishes, Asparagus and herbs of various sorts), but everything looks so full of potential that I'm hoping for a much better year than 2012 was.

****************************************************************************
P.S. The blog called "Bagriculture" that I mentioned yesterday has now moved to a Wordpress blog called "Containable".

Making the best use of space

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Willis) — Sat, 01 Jun 2013 15:00:00 +0000

When you have limited space in your garden, I think you need to make best use of it. One way to do this is to sow or plant a "catch crop" - in other words a quick-growing crop that will mature well in advance of the main crop you are growing. This is also sometimes called "inter-planting" or "under-cropping".

Here I have planted some lettuces in the space between my rows of Runner Beans. It will be a few weeks before the foliage on the bean plants gets very dense, and I hope the lettuces will be ready before then.

I have applied the same approach in the next-door bed where I have two circular teepees for growing Climbing French Beans (aka Pole beans).

In this case there is only one lettuce in the central area (though it is a Green Oak Leaf one which can get pretty big), but I have put Parsley plants at the base of each cane too. The French Beans are my old favourite "Cobra", by the way. The teepee nearest the camera in the photo above has yet to get its beans. I plan to populate it with heritage beans sent to me by a friend, but I'm having problems with germination rates and have had to re-sow.

Rather than waste the empty space between the two teepees, I have filled it with six Endive plants.

These ones are "Pancalieri", a variety appropriate for Spring sowing. They will probably mature some time during July.

I've shown you these before, but they fit today's theme. They are rows of Radishes in between rows of Broad Beans.

Of course, when you really have run out of space in your vegetable beds, then you can resort to growing stuff in pots and containers:

I am a great advocate of container growing, mainly because containers give your garden plans (especially layout) such flexibility. You can move stuff around at will, exploiting or responding to the weather conditions - for instance bringing pots under cover if frost is threatened, or putting them out in the full sun when justified. And of course, your growing space can grow in little increments (barely noticeable by the OH maybe...?).

Any of you who are similarly interested in the potential of containers might like to visit a new blog I have found that is devoted to this subject - Daniel Bourhill's "Bagriculture"

Planting Cucumbers

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Willis) — Fri, 31 May 2013 15:00:00 +0000

Well, the cucumbers are in, for better or for worse. I (and no doubt they) would prefer the temperature to be about 10 degrees warmer, but... I really want the cucumbers to be well established before we go away on holiday. We are going to be away for 12 days, and I don't think the cucumber plants would have been happy to sit in their little pots until the the end of June.

My plan is to have two sets of three cucumber plants - one each of "Iznik" and "Melen" - growing up teepees in the big Woodblocx raised bed. I planted three cucumbers a few days ago, putting them under my biggest bell cloches, but since I only have three of those, the plants that have gone in today will have to manage without. No more of this namby-pamby "I'm spending the night indoors" malarky!

Those plastic bell cloches have been extremely useful, especially this Spring with the conditions being so cold. I have had them for a couple of years now, and I remember that they only cost me £9.99 for the set of 3, which I think is good value. I have kept an eye open for more of them, but I haven't seen any. Stewarts make some that are a similar size, but they are made of much thicker material and they cost a lot - £12.99 each I believe, and I'm not prepared to spend that sort of money.

The raised bed is beginning to fill up now. You can see that the "Maskotka" tomato plants are putting on weight. Although I had not originally intended to do so I decided in the end to stake them, because they got blown about very badly in the gale-force winds we had the other day.

In a few days I will put in the poles for the cucumbers to climb. I may see if I can muster enough natural wood poles, which look much more attractive than plain old bamboo - and the cucumbers will be able to grip them better too.

At some stage I'm going to have to remove the netting over this bed, but not until those plants have got a bit bigger and are able to survive the nightly snufflings of the local badgers and foxes.

The garden looks better in the sunshine

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Willis) — Thu, 30 May 2013 15:00:00 +0000

Well, in my opinion, everything looks better in the sunshine! Here in NE Hants we have been really lucky with Bank Holiday weekend weather so far this year. The May Day holiday weekend was perfect, and this past weekend (the Late Spring Bank Holiday) has been great too. How did that happen? Normally Bank Holidays are cold, wet and windy.

Just to prove my point, I'm posting today some photos taken that weekend, of plants with sunshine on them.

Thyme "Archer's Gold"

This fern is in its element - dappled sunshine

When that fern opens up fully, it will look like this:

Tulips - nearly over now, but still colourful

Asparagus - here pretending to be a sun-dial

Strawberry

Herbs - mostly Sage and Chives

Red-veined Sorrel

Bronze Fennel

Bank Holiday tasks

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Willis) — Wed, 29 May 2013 15:00:00 +0000

Here in the UK Monday was a public holiday - we call such things Bank Holidays - so we had a long weekend, and (wonder of wonders) we had a couple of decent days' weather too. I spent a fair bit of time gardening (no surprise there then).

No.1 task was to get some of my chillis potted-up. I have been hoping to do this task for quite a while, but the weather has been against me. I have been bringing the chillis indoors each evening, because our night-time temperatures have been down to as low as 3C this past week. Once I put the chillis in their big 10" pots the bringing-in routine is no longer a viable option. Anyway, this is what I did:

The first task was to evict the potatoes from the plastic coldframe where they have been taking it easy all this while. They joined their colleagues al fresco.

I then transplanted 9 of the chillis from their 5" pots into big 10" pots, and put them in the plastic coldframe. Hopefully this will provide enough protection to allow them to survive the cold nights.

Right now they are looking extremely promising, and I really don't want to lose them, but I am hedging my bets and keeping the rest of the plants in small pots and I shall continue bringing them indoors at night until I'm convinced that the "main crop" ones are OK with being outside permanently.

Having taken care of the chillis I then turned my attention to beans. I planted out 14 Runner Beans (10 "Scarlet Empire" and 4 "Firestorm"), placing them at the feet of those canes I erected the previous weekend.

I plant my beans fairly deep, with the level of the soil just below the first set of leaves. This gives them good stability, and puts their roots deep down into the soil where they will find maximum moisture.

As with the chillis, I have some spare beans, which are spending their nights inside a plastic mini-greenhouse, just in case... I have not yet planted the Climbing French Beans, because they are more tender than the Runners, so I'm leaving it as long as possible. By next weekend I think they will be too big to remain in their pots, so they will be planted then, come what may!

Next task on the list was to add some more supporting strings for the Broad Beans. We had a couple of very windy days last week, yet my beans survived, so putting in the string supports was worth the effort. You can see very clearly in the next photo the difference in size between the beans in my three rows:

Notice the rows of Radishes in between the beans. I'm not sure if they will get enough light, but it's worth a try, because Radish seed is very cheap. In the Spring and Summer almost every gardening magazine you see comes with a free pack of Radish seeds!

The first row of Broad Beans (Aquadulce) has flowers on it now:

So bees, get to work please (if there are any bees left...)

Some plants LIKE rain

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Willis) — Tue, 28 May 2013 15:00:00 +0000

All plants need a certain amount of light and water in order to live. Generally though, most of them prefer a little rainfall and a lot of sunshine. Because of this there are a lot of disappointed plants around at present! There are a couple of exceptions to the rule however, such as potatoes.

My potato plants are looking really luxuriant at present, with tall, thick bright green foliage:

I grow all my potatoes in pots and containers of some sort, which can dry out rapidly. I often have to water them every day at this time of year. But not this year. They are loving the cool, wet conditions.

Since we are on the subject of potatoes, let me report that my Pink Fir Apple ones have finally made an appearance, seen here through the anti-badger defences:-

It's early days yet, and since these are a Main Crop variety I know I have a long time to wait. Unfortunately, it seems highly likely that we are going to get another cold wet Summer, so I wouldn't be surprised to find Blight being a big problem this year.

I often have difficulty producing good Radishes, because they don't like my dry sandy soil, and bolt at the slightest excuse, but this year they are doing much better than usual.

Last year we had much more rainfall that normal, but one crop particularly thrived on the wet conditions - Runner Beans. I had my best year ever for Runners. They produced a huge crop. So you have to think positive. I always grow Runner Beans anyway, so even if we get wetter conditions than most plants would like I'll still get a good harvest of something.

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P.S. Remember my daughter Fiona's potato-patch in Ornex, France, that I helped to prepare?

Well, here it is now. She has planted potatoes...

She's a real "Chip off the old block", that girl!

Asparagus and Radishes

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Willis) — Mon, 27 May 2013 15:00:00 +0000

My harvests this past week have been of the same veg as the week before - Asparagus, Radishes and Baby Leaf Salad. The Broad Beans or Peas will be next, but they are both still a long way off. So for the time being then you have to look at more photos of the same things!

I have harvested 11 more spears of Asparagus. It's not very many, I admit, but there is more to come, and it is just SO satisfying to be able to eat Asparagus you have grown yourself.

More Asparagus is coming on...

I haven't counted the Radishes, nor weighed them. I just know we have eaten several batches. We usually eat Radishes as a pre-dinner nibble, served with a little bowl of salt to dip them in.

There is plenty of lush green salad for us to eat now. The Rocket in it is aptly named - it grows very rapidly indeed.

I'm picking individual leaves from my Lettuces too, because I know thay will mature while we are away on holiday (less than 3 weeks away now!) and therefore we will miss being able to eat them at the fully mature stage.

I'm sure that some of my blogging friends will have harvested something more ambitious than this, so why not pop over to Daphne's Dandelions and see what's on Harvest Monday this week?

Squash and Lentil soup

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Willis) — Sun, 26 May 2013 15:00:00 +0000

This recipe is my own one, but it is inspired by one invented by Theo Randall, seen recently on TV in the programme called "The Chef's Protégé" where each of three well known Michelin-starred chefs has to select a young chef to be their protégé.

My soup is intended to deliver not only some amazing flavours, but also a variety of different textures all in the same dish. It has a velvetty-smooth Butternut Squash base, augmented by yellow lentils cooked so that they have not fallen completely, but still have a degree of "bite". These are topped with earthy, dark- coloured Portabella mushrooms fried in butter to concentrate their flavour, then a thick slice of milky Mozzarella cheese and a crisp rasher of streaky bacon to add a topping with a complete contrast of textures. For a final splash of colour the whole dish is sprinkled with finely chopped flat-leaf parsley.

To get the depth of flavour I wanted in the soup I rubbed the squash with some olive oil and a few twists of freshly ground black pepper and then roasted it until it began to blacken at the edges. I also did an onion at the same time, leaving the skin on so that the inside would be protected and go beautifully soft without getting charred.

When these veg were cooked (about 40 mins at 160C) I scooped the butternut flesh off the skins, removed the outer skin of the onion and and zuzzed them in the blender for a couple of minutes with a little warm chicken stock and a tiny bit of grated nutmeg. The resulting puree was very smooth and vividly orange in colour.

While the squash was roasting I cooked the lentils. 10 minutes' hard boiling then about an hour slow simmering until tender. These were yellow lentils, otherwise known as Toor dhal. When they were cooked I drained off most of the liquid and put them to one side for later.

This really was an incredibly easy dish to do. Shortly before dinner-time I gently warmed the butternut puree and the lentils, adding a bit of chicken stock to each loosen their texture. While this was happening I fried the mushrooms and grilled the bacon, and prepared a couple of nice thick slices of Mozzarella.

Earlier in the day I had made some bread too, so I got some of that ready also.

Finally, it was just a matter of assembling the ingredients in a suitably "cheffy" way and adding the sprinkling of parsley for garnish, before serving the dish: