What's growing now

It's the back end of November. The days are shorter and the light not so bright during the daytime. Last night was the first real frost of the year.

We've eaten all the potatoes we grew this year (there's four adults in the house to feed now), only a dozen or so tomatoes ripenng on the kitchen window sill, beans and the first sowing of pointy cabbages finished. So what's left:

In the garden:

• Lots of celery - great germination and planted out about 36 seedlings which have now become a forest. We eat quite a lot in salads and stews and just to munch. I've put some in the freezer for winter cooking.
• Brussels sprouts - doing brilliantly this year. We've already had several meals and will have some tonight. There are two groups, one planted out from their modules a little later so are further behind. So we should have plenty into the new year.
• A few kale plants - looking rather sad because the cabbage white caterpillars devasted them early on, but are now pushing out a few leaves which will go in stir-fries.
• A lovely patch of rainbow chard - provided many meals already and looks like they will continue through to the spring.
• Peas - an experimental late planting in the ground where some potatoes were lifted.  They are doing surprisingly well and producing some lovely, pest-free peas, though not more than a spoonful for each of us. Lots of flowers still. Next year I'll plant a whole lot more. They are frost-resistant.
• A broad-bean sprouted in the compost - so I thought I'd give it 11 more for company. I don't usually do autumn-sowing because they come up quickly and early in the spring anyway. But we'll see. Another way of using the space after the potatoes have been lifted.
• Rhubarb - is already sprouting, so covered with a good mulch of garden compost to protect from the frost and give them a boost.

In the greenhouse:

• 5 pointy cabbages in the soil where the tomatoes were earlier - 1 Dutchman and 4 "Tinty" red ones. These have been great outside all year and these late sowings into small pots seem to love their new home.
• Two little gem lettuces remaining from two troughs sown earlier. They have been doing well all summer (outside during the warm months) with successive sowings.
  
• Two troughs of mixed lettuce seedlings
• Trough of spring onions
• Trough of Charentay carrots - small but tasty.
  
• 2 large pots each with 3 Pentland Javelin potatoes saved from this year's harvest. Planted these yesterday. I usually plant up a couple of pots just after Christmas, but the weather has been so warm (except for frost last night!) I thought I'd jump the gun and try to get some earlier spuds (especially since we've finished all the store).

In the conservatory:

We have a large, very light conservatory which isn't heated, but is warmer that the greenhouse during the cold winter months. Good for starting off seeds.

• Pot of parsley seeds. The summer outdoor sowing didn't take at all, they were rather old seeds, so hopefully these will come along better. But they are very slow-growing.
• Tray of Ailsa Craig onion seedlings.
  
• Radishes - haven't grown these for a while. All the seeds germinated and are looking happy so maybe Christmas radishes?
  

Spare bedroom:

• 7 tomato plants on the window sill! I really don't enjoy shop-bought tomatoes so would love to find a way of growing them through the winter. Last year I made (at The Shed) a planter with a trellis for growing a clematis and flowering plants and in June replenished it with garden compost. In addition to the flowers up came 7 tomato seedlings. They looked pretty healthy so I potted them up and had them in the greenhouse for a while. A couple had flowers and one had two tiny fruits.
  As the weather got colder I brought them into the conservatory, but it was too cold. So I took them upstairs where it's warm and gets more sun in the mornings. I also draped some LED Christmas lights around to give more light. Initially they produced a lot of flowers which I dutifully tickled up with my Mum's paintbrush, but they didn't take. The two tomatoes are growing steadily though! There are a few more tiny buds, so maybe.....
  
  

 

 

Spring?

The warm weather continues - 15deg C and sunny today. The nights are cold and a big, bright moon - but no frost thankfully.

Its tempting to start sowing, but we've been caught like that before! However, broad beans are frost resistant and its good to get them going early. Sowed 8 pots of 6 beans in each. They should be fine  in the unheated greenhouse. These are seeds saved from last year's harvest - masterpiece green longpod.

The peas I sowed a couple of weeks ago have just started shooting also the Navarro lettuce and the Bedford onions in trays in the conservatory.

Composting Week

It's International Composting Awareness week! 
Not sure if the timing is someone's quiet joke given it's UK Election week. But it is actually part of the United Nations Year of the Soil - see www.soils.org.uk/international-year-soils-2015-0 - which is raising awareness of the importance of sustainable soil management as the basis for food, fuel and fibre production and essential ecosystems. It's also highlighting the role of soils in adapting to climate change for future generations. So pretty important.

At Froggarts Cottage we take composting very seriously. We have three 6ft square wooden compost bays built on soil and we use them in rotation. So we are using one to put the new vegetable matter in, the second is covered and processing nicely turning it over every couple of months and the third, now full of pretty good stuff, we use for topping up the veg beds, greenhouse and for re-potting things. It takes about 18-24 months to generate good compost for use.

We also have a couple of those "dalek" plastic compost bins which we bought for our previous house (with postage-stamp garden). We use those for rotting down leaves which take longer than other waste. From time to time we'll mix some well-rotted leaves into the main compost.

The only difference I can see between our compost and what you buy in shops is that ours still has weed seeds in. I guess the commercial stuff is heat-blasted to get rid. In fact our compost has a better mix of soil to vegetable matter which makes it better for potting or sowing big seeds like beans. Some of the shop stuff just looks like wood chips.

What do we put in? Grass chippings, weeds (but not couch grass or bind weed which I consign to a fiery end on the bonfire), ashes from the bonfire, trimmings from herbaceous plants and shrubs, vegetable waste from the kitchen, egg-shells, shredded paper, card egg-boxes, toilet roll middles and other light cardboard. Occasionally we get a boost from passing horses or a bag from the local stables.

I do worry that some of the waste from bought-in vegetables may not be too healthy. I never put in potato peelings - there's too many bugs and viruses - and since the allium leaf miner I don't put in onion or leek peelings either. Those bugs may well have come in from foreign farms. Obviously using waste from bought fruit and veg means our compost isn't organic.

There are lots of theories and advice about composting, but generally it all works out OK if you keep it mounded up, not too wet or dry and turn it over every couple of months. Let the bugs, worms and bacteria do the hard work!

Allium Leaf Miner

In report by the RHS into "Top 10 reported pests of 2014" Allium Leaf Miner appears for the first time.  This report appeared today in Horticulture Week with a graphic photo of the damage Allium Leaf Miner does. http://www.hortweek.com/allium-leaf-miner-hits-rhs-top-10-pests/plant-health/article/1334304

We've been plagued for the last 4 years (see previous entry about onion pests) and despite not sowing leeks or onions for a couple of years and covering with fleece its still managed to ravage our leek crop in 2014. I'm wondering if I should dig up all the chives. We have a couple of clumps of chives which seem pretty healthy, and I love to eat the purple flowers in my salad, but maybe they are harbouring the nasty bug.

Apparently this bug first appeared in the UK in the East Midlands so we're in the thick of it. However, I'm a bit jealous of a local allotment-holder who has rows of lovely leeks.

Allium Leaf Miner

After having had a few good leeks in a lamb casserole a couple of weeks ago I was disappointed that the main crop were looking a bit weedy. They weren't getting fat and started to show bumps and breaks in the stem. So I checked them over - yes the dreaded Allium Leaf Miner again.

For pictures and advice see the RHS site >>

We haven't grown onions or leeks for 3 years to try to clear the soil of pupae but they seem to be endemic now. I planted a second batch of leeks in a different part of the garden and covered them with a fleece tunnel during August & early September when the adult moth is supposed to fly. So far they look OK (need a bit of weeding though).

Leeks - plus chickweed & leaves!

Leek Bed

The evenings are getting lighter and today was a lovely warm spring day so I was able to spend a pleasant hour and a half after work hours digging the "leek bed". The leek bed was originally a large greenhouse - which the previous owners took with them leaving a sizeable and well-dug bed surrounded by flag-stones. It's next to the smaller greenhouse which they left behind, so is ideal for salads, beetroots  - and leeks. Mum is very fond of leeks and likes to help with separating the small leeklets grown in the seed tray and hands them to me to drop each one into its own hole made in the soil with an old spade handle. This is pretty tedious work made easier when shared.

Well that's a way off yet. Actually we haven't been able to grow leeks for a few years because we suffered from the dreaded Alium Leaf Miner. Our leeks, onions and shallots were going rotten in the ground and eventually we discovered little white larvae and horrid brown pupae. These can live in the soil and emerge as moths to infest the nexy year's crop. So we decided to give the onion family a miss for a few years. We're going to try again this year.

Our leek bed kitchen garden during early summer

Buying seeds and potatoes

Time to check the seed store and buy new seeds needed for planting this year.

We always save bean seeds and have a good supply of Broad Beans and Runner Beans from last year's harvest. (We're using the Runner beans saved year on year from seeds that Mum bought in 1982.) However last year the French Beans just didn't get going. I tried saved seeds and two different purchased packets and they were all pretty  pathetic so I'll have to buy more this year (Blue Lake).

Also need to order potato tubers. We usually plant Sante and Pentland Javelin and a couple of other varieties to try out. The last few years I've managed to save some of our own - but last year's harvest was so poor we don't have much in store. I have kept some Desirees which didn't do too badly although they were all very small. They are already sprouting in their cardboard box. Back in November I planted a few Sante in big tubs in the greenhouse. They are only now beginning to break the surface of the soil so we won't be harvesting for a couple of months! This year I've decided to buy Sante, Orla and Setanta and plant the saved Desirees.


As well as potatoes I've ordered:

• Marrows - green long bush which we harvest small and use for courgettes and let 3 or 4 grow to marrows for chutney.
• Brussel sprouts (Bedford)
• Lettuces (Tom Thumb)
• Parsley (Moss curled)
• Beetroot (Boltardy)
• French Beans (Blue Lake)

We're still not planting onions, leeks and shallots because of the alium leaf miner. see December 2011 post "Know your onions and their predators ". They devastated our newly-purchased shallots last year.

Weekend chores

The weekend was sunny at times after a light frost and ver calm but on both afternoons it rained so there was only time for a bit of tidying up.

The brussel sprouts are looking better now - although some have been eaten by slugs and are stumpy and bare. I hoed around them but didn't have time to stake them up. Our neighbour at the top of the hill has a large plot with all his brussel sprouts standing like soldiers each with a nice stick holding them up. Earlier his onions were beautiful - all big and uniform and no sign of the deadly allium leaf miner that has ruined our onions and leeks last year and shallots this year.

I cleared out the Cuore D'albengo tomatoes in the grenhouse which didn't do as well as those in the conservatory and tidied up some space ready for big pots of potatoes. The potato yield this year wasn't good so we're going to need some extra ones to get through till next year. We usually grow some in pots or bags from February but thought we'd give it a go right away. They'll be protected from weather and pests in the greenhouse.

Know your onions (and their predators!)

This is a photo of a fine specimen we grew in 2009. Last year we had no onions at all. All the onions (Ailsa Craig) and shallots (saved successfully for many years) went rotten and soggy. We put it down to the very cold and wet summer. We had plenty of leeks though. In previous years we'd had a really good harvest which kept us in onions all year. They kept really well hanging on strings in the (unheated) conservatory.