Vegmonkey and the Mrs.

A visit to Ryton Organic Gardens – 2 of 2

vegmonkey — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 19:49:48 +0000

Ok, as I didn’t want to write an epic post last night -although that’s what it almost turned into, I thought I’d finish it off tonight. I think so far I’ve said we liked the place but weren’t too impressed with the range or quality of the vegetables. The greenhouse/focal point in the gardens – above [...]

A visit to Ryton Organic Gardens – 1 of 2

vegmonkey — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 19:54:36 +0000

A couple of weekends ago, the Mrs. and myself set off on a jaunt to Ryton Organic Gardens. I’m not sure what I was expecting – a sea of vegetables maybe, the perfect organic garden or weird and wonderful vegetables that we had no idea existed! We arrived quite early on the Sunday and pretty much [...]

Onions strung!

vegmonkey — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 20:35:24 +0000

Rather than take loads of photos again I’m just going to post a ‘how to link’ to last years stringing efforts below: http://vegmonkey.co.uk/how-to-string-onions/ It took us about an hour to do, with the Mrs doing the tying and myself on the stripping (of undried stem!) and cutting of roots. Most of the bulbs had dried out really [...]

Leaving a few onions to go over…

vegmonkey — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 17:52:42 +0000

Two posts in one week! There’s something wrong! I’ve decided to let the onions at the allotment that have started to go to seed to continue going over and to produce some nice Alium heads. The Mrs. likes to have flowers about the place, so I suppose I should do my bit…it’s not like we [...]

Sweet(corn) success

vegmonkey — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 20:01:59 +0000

Maybe I’m jumping the gun a little, but the sweetcorn is going great guns this year. I have had real difficulty growing it in the past, with either slugs eating the seedling or them drying out from lack of water, or just a small withered selection of plants. This year I decided to go for [...]

The beans are-a-climbing

vegmonkey — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 20:04:05 +0000

Having not been able to get down the allotment as often as we want to, I was worried that the beans would shrivel in the heat we have been having lately and die. Surprisingly, a quick water once a week has been enough for them and they are starting to climb the poles erected. They [...]

Japanese Onions out!

vegmonkey — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 10:48:28 +0000

As the weather was relatively nice over the weekend, we took the opportunity to harvest the Japanese Senshyu Onions that have been growing since about October time. As usual, I bought too many, but the ones that did make it into the ground, have grown huge. I think they are much bigger than any onions [...]

Potato diseases and sumptuous peas

vegmonkey — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 18:26:04 +0000

Now I’m just not sure! I’ve dug up another 6kg of Early Potatoes and the majority have some form of scab…not sure if it is common or powdery, but the tubers are perfectly edible. The leaves themselves have what looks like Early Blight (also called target spot) – I’ve read that this needs considerable warm [...]

Harvest! Harvest! Harvest!

vegmonkey — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 17:42:51 +0000

Well, sort of…we’ve been picking lettuce, spinach and Rhubarb already this year, but have now started picking Mange Tout Peas – once one or two appeared, they’ve gone nuts and are growing like mad. The Savoy Cabbage is also growing well, but, being in the build a ball cage, it is quite difficult to access, so [...]

Why scaffolding doesn’t work in a garden…

vegmonkey — Sun, 31 May 2009 08:26:53 +0000

For the last three weeks we’ve had scaffolding stored in our garden, as the builders we’ve has in have been re-rendering the front of the house. Well, what actually happened was them ordering the scaffolding in, putting it in the back garden, then not using it for two and a half weeks. This wasn’t down [...]