September Picture

I'm harvesting like mad at the moment - the potatoes are in, the sweet corn almost ready and the runner beans still cropping - the weight of the plants is starting to pull the poles over!

Anyone know any good runner bean recipes?

Slugs!

The first harvests are coming in. I've been eating new potatoes and broad beans, and the youngest daughter has almost finished munching her way through the first row of peas.

I hurry home from work and dig up another one of my potato plants. These are quite large and look really yummy. Just enough time to put them on to boil before I settle down with a beer to watch the footy.

One of them has a bit of a hole in it which seems to be full of earth. No problem. I take it over to the chopping board and slice off the end with the hole in it.

Something twitches.

It's an enormous slug - one of those horrible brown ones with the orange round the edges.

And I've just sliced it in half.

Suddenly my potatoes don't seem quite so yummy.


BTW, I never knew slugs ate potatoes. Is this usual? And anyone know how I can stop any more of my spuds from being slug chomped?

Weeds!

I arrive home from a weeks holiday and the first thing I do is run down the garden to check on my patch of dirt.

Wow – hasn’t everything grown!!

The runner beans are halfway up the poles – the broad beans pods are a good six inches long (so hubby tells me) and the peas and potatoes are flourishing.

The nettles are doing really well too. Dandelions and hogweed have sprouted from nowhere – How on earth does hogweed get to be so big in only a week? It certainly wasn’t there when I went on holiday! And there’s loads of it!

And that looks suspiciously like bindweed chasing the runner beans up their poles.

Not good!

I like the poppies though so they can stay.

Winners and Losers

Some things are doing really well in my patch of dirt - as you can see from these pictures - I've even added one from a different angle this month for you to see my main successes so far - my legumes and potatoes coming on a treat! With a bit of luck I'll be eating peas and broadbeans and maybe some new potatoes in only a matter of weeks!



My parsnips and sweet corn are also doing allright, even though they are still quite small.

But I have also had a couple of resounding failures. My carrots are a disaster! They germinated but now I only have a couple of plants! I've no idea why. Did something eat them? And I have only one cauliflower plant. I put them outside the greenhouse to harden off and the slugs munched them!!! Death to slugs!!! And as for my courgettes and squash - it was really sunny here on Monday and they were sat in the greenhouse while I was at work and when I got home they were all scorched and brown. Anyway, I've planted them out so we'll see what happens.

So to try to fill the gaps I've popped in a row of beetroot and some onions. I'll let you know what happens to them :-)

May Update

Here's what my patch of dirt looks like this month.

On the left you can see my legumes - broad beans, peas and runner beans, all coming on nicely. Behind them the potatoes are breaking the surface. You can't really see them but trust me - the carrots and parsnips are germinating, as are the onions. The sweet corn and squash will soon be ready to go in and in the greenhouse I'll be growing melons, peppers and plum tomatoes.

I feel hungry already. :-)

Rotations

My loyal slave calls round and I show him the progress I’ve been making with my veggie plot. I’ve been busy planting.

“Here are the potatoes,” I say. “And here are the broad beans and peas that I’ve just planted out.”

He nods approvingly.

I continue, “I’m using a four year rotation, so I’ve divided it into quadrants. I’ve just planted a row of carrots and a row of parsnips in that quarter and there’s enough room for a row of something else and I’m going to put sweet corn and squash in the last.”

“You mustn’t plant things in the same place two years running,” he says.

“Yes, that’s why I’m using a four year rotation.”

“It’s very important that you move things around. If you plant your carrots in the same place next year they won’t do well at all.”

“Isn’t that the point of a rotation,” I say.

“I think you should use a four year rotation here,” he informs me. “Next year you should plant your potatoes over there and your legumes over here.”

I give up.

“Thanks,” I say. “I’ll do that.”

A Watched Seed...

….never grows!

It’s exciting having a greenhouse – with lots of little trays of seeds sitting there, waiting to grow …. and waiting….and waiting.

Every day when I get back from work I scurry down there to see if anything has happened – will there be any little shoots poking their way into the sunlight?

And then at last….a melon started to germinate – tiny and green…only to shrivel and die two days later. Oh dear. 

But all is not lost. I’ve bought a tray of broad beans from the local hardware store and those will be able to go in soon, along with the peas and the potatoes that are chitting nicely.

And now, at last, something else has started to grow – the first of the runner beans are sprouting, and the cauliflowers too.

So all is not lost – I will have some plants to grow in my plot.

Do You Chit?

"Have you chitted your potatoes yet?" says Parsnip Paul as we wait for the kettle to boil. (I still can't get over how big they are!)

"Err? what?"

My head is buzzing - what on earth is chitting? Better look it up in my trusty book - wouldn't want to appear foolish.

Okay, so I need to get my seed potatoes and put them, rose end up, (that's the end with most eyes) in an old eggbox in a cool light place so that they can get started. Okay. I can cope with that. Better head down to the garden centre and buy some seed potatoes.

So there I am, staring at the labels. Earlies, second earlies, maincrop? What's all that about?

I grab a pack of maincrop (cos they're a nice colour) and head home to get chitting.

A bit later on one of my loyal slaves calls round.

"I'm chitting," I tell him.

"You need to chit your earlies and your second earlies," he says. "It's not worth chitting maincrop. In fact, it's really probably not worth you growing maincrop at all. Just grow earlies and second earlies."

Oh bother. I'm chitting the wrong potatoes!