Category Archives: Taking stock

classroom experimentation, success, Taking stock

You say to-may-to, I say tomato #2

Bit of a tomato humdinging special for you all today. Thought it might be useful to take some photographic evidence. I like taking photographic evidence, and it makes you all pay some welcome, loving  attention.

I have never grown so many tomatoes, or had this level of success with triffid like vines and bush habits. These are, with the exception of the Ukrainian Purple; the tiddler tomatos who had tantrums from the classroom. The weather has helped, and we have a sprawling mass of foliage and fruit. A feat of engineering is required to truss up….the trusses.

It would be nice to actually get some ripened, red and yellow fruits. So to facilitate that, I have been trimming off the excess foliage. This should help the air pass through, and stop the leaves getting sweaty and horrible; as well as prevent any of the fruits being shaded. There are some large fruits, and also some diddly ones. A testament, to the different varieties that were sown. It is very hard to believe, that these are the tiny tiddlers that were started off in the classroom. They aren’t particularly pretty, either! You would never associate the fruits cropping here, with the smooth, shiny fruits that you would find in the supermarket. I think there are some yellow and black ones in there. Again, you wouldn’t see these very often in the supermarket. Will be intrigued to see the yellow ones and the black ones. The black ones are cherry tomatoes, I think.

 

Some silent movies for you, to peruse at your leisure. I do hope that they are not like watching paint dry. You might have to spot the tomato, and look very carefully.

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A bit wonky, yes. How many of you tilted your head to the left to watch it? 😉

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The colour is a bit off. The green is starting to change, actually. Going from green to yellow.

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The plum shaped ones-the wonky ones-are ukranian purple. That was an adopted one. There is a non-wonky ones in there too.

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I couldn’t tell you, what is which variety. One day I will label. I did actually find that one of the beasts is still in a paper pot. This has in turn rooted out of the paper pot and into the dirt of the raised beds. Had to dig it in a bit without pulling it out. 

 

Shall see what happens

 

Yours in anticipation,

 

Horticultural Hobbit

Taking stock

Cob-bled

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Harvested two cobs, that appeared to have brown tassles. Was a bit hasty, I think. One cob has formed lovely little bits; the other is fairly inedible and only just forming! There was milkyness in the one that is okay. Will keep an eye on rest. Have a few more forming. A valuable lesson learned. Tassles need to be brown and crispy!

Yours in anticipation

Horticultural Hobbit

success, Taking stock

Roll Over, Oscar and Bafta: Liebster Award

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Why, thank you!

“The Liebster Award is for bloggers with under 300 followers and the rules of the award is that the nominee must link back to whoever awarded them, write 11 random facts about themselves, answer the 11 questions from the award giver, and then nominate another 11 bloggers and make up 11 questions for them to answer. It’s a great way for new and undiscovered bloggers to meet new people, get more followers and find some blogs that they want to follow.”

I was very kindly given a Liebster award from the lovely Gardeningvix at gardeningvix.wordpress.com

If I ruled the world I would…

Send every girl to school, to actualise her potential.

Where is your most favourite place?

The plot for pottering around.

My idea of fun is…

Anything which makes me smile, and my brain not hurt.

What is the weirdest thing you have ever done?

Thrown a slug and watch it bounce back. At snails place.

What makes you smile?

Young people actualising their potential, applying what they have learned.

If you could go back to yourself aged 10 what would you say?

Don’t do that. You’re meant to do something far more interesting.
What’s the most useful thing/product you have ever bought or been given?

Dibber from the p^undshop.

What is your best tip?

Work with Mother Nature, and she will work with you. No good fighting her.

What’s the best thing about your life right now?

Being able to change the universe.

How do you switch off and relax?

Read or play on the plot.
What was the last book you read?

Lady of the Rivers, by Phillipa Gregory.

My nominations

Theearthmama.wordpress.com
Outofmyshed.wordpress.com
Digginwivdebb.wordpress.com
jonesgardenblog.com

notjustgreenfingers.wordpress.com/

allotmentadventureswithjean.wordpress.com

http://craftygardenhoe.wordpress.com/

http://sophiecussen.wordpress.com/

http://allotmentgrowing.wordpress.com/

gardeningvix.wordpress.com

http://gardeningkiwi.wordpress.com/

 

My questions:

1:You  have 100 of your local currency, what would you do with it?

2:Who would win; caveman or astronaut?

3:Spade or shovel?

4: Zucchini or courgette?

5. Would you kill a slug, or lob it?

6: What is your favourite flower?

7: What would save from a sinking ship?

8: What will you never grow again?

9: What do you want to always grow?

10: If you could turn back time, where would you go?

11: Jam or jelly?

 

Yours in anticipation,

 

Horticultural Hobbit

 

chillies, success, Taking stock

Take a walk with me

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Have been meaning to do this for a few days. To me, what you see; looks a mess. There’s lots of foliage; weeds, things planted all over the place. So I wanted to make sure, that you have a good idea of what is where. Without actually taking a microphone and doing a bit of an Alan Whittaker around the plot; this is what we have. I did try this, but the video was a bit big to transfer simply! Didn’t quite get the whittaker accent right, I must say. It really does look like a jungle. There is generally no logic to what goes where. I have a rough idea of crop rotation; in that I will do my best not to plant similar families in the same place. The next thing-other than the paper and plastic thing-is to the plant out classroom cabbages. Hence the hooped beds. I realise that these may not cope with the potentially poor weather that we expect with autumn and winter. Will probably require reinforcing at some point.

 

 

I have had another rummage in the wendy and have observed:

We have two early Jalapeno’s. These are very new arrivals, I don’t recall seeing them previously. All of the bells and chillies are doing well in the wendy house. I am surprised, actually, by the number of sweet peppers that I have managed to sow and propagate. Hadn’t thought that there would as many as I have seen.  There is a frauzauber pepper. That I have no idea whether this is spicy or sweet creature, very light lime green in colour. I really would like to know which one it is. Quite a robust creature with two fruits forming. I really must get feeding them with increased frequency.

The last of the garlic was hauled up. And of course, some carrot thinnings. A pair of which, seemed to be caught in a comforting clinch. Have sown some more today, as well as some Florence fennel.

Yours in anticipation,

Horticultural Hobbit

construction, Taking stock

Even Baldrick had half a plan

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half baked plan   The only difference between that which was developed by Baldrick, and the one by me; is that his was at least cunning. Mine is for an easy life.  The last month of so has seen a field of weeds arise from the now very concrete clay. Beaten down by the rays of sun, and at times boggy by the flash precipitation that we had, the weeds are seeking to lay claim to the plot. This happened last year and the weeds took over. It was difficult to see even where the raised beds were.  It took a lot of weedkiller, and then subsequently newspaper mulch to help keep a dampener on the evil misplaced plants. All very demoralising, when trying to make to make things work.

As the plan states above, this is the starting plan, for the summer work. It can not be achieved quickly. This process will take time and hard work.

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The pictures evidence part of the achievements for today. The one the left, was a marked improvement on yesterday, where that view was obscured by bamboo cane and builders net. The runner beans planted there have been an abject disaster. The first job, was to get the bricks. Rescued from a skip. It took a while to wheelbarrow those to the plot. Then came the process of laying down newspaper, placing black plastic onto it; and then using the bricks to weigh it down. There are no doubt right ways and wrong ways to this. To use black plastic as a weed suppressant. The plastic that I have used, probably isn’t UV stable, and I should probably use green manure. I have used newspaper and cardboard before as barriers, so this is in addition to that.  Above all, the plot is about experimenting, and seeing if this works. I have yet to use green manure other than the fenugreek already sown for consumption.

Hopefully, the broad beans that you see above will be felled and then covered to decompose. There is a lot of open ground on the plot, and hopefully this will happen in the coming weeks.  By which time, it will be the autumn term, and a different plan will be required.

Yours in anticipation,

Horticultural Hobbit

chillies, Squashes, success, Taking stock, The Big Sunflower Project 2013

Summer Sortee of the Sukh Shanti garden

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That’s Peace and Happiness, before you have to go translate it…

 

 

To the untrained eye, this looks a mess. However, if you were to ask me nicely; I could tell you what most things are and where. The gallery above, is a walking tour if you like of the half plot. I will try and get some specific bed pictures up. I appreciate that it looks like a great big green mess in the gallery. Today is the first day of the Summer holidays for me, so an opportunity to see what I need to do. It goes without saying, that weeds are a problem. This time last year, we had a deluge; and the weeds were well up to ankle height. As well as that, I didn’t have so filled raised beds. They are there now, and they contain crops.

Two more raised beds have, thanks to Pops, been constructed. I had scavenged last week, bags of garden waste. Sat on the plot for best part of a week, these were emptied today in the beds. I know that these are upside down, before you point it out! The pots are on the spikes, so that hopefully no one gets hurt. It is safe to say, that having raised beds has been a boon. Whilst the clay is fabulous, full of nutrients; the position of the plot means that the whole thing gets flooded. This brings pools of water, slugs and other things that eat crops. With the battle against the weeds. The areas of open ground where there are no raised beds, have been choked by weeds. The plan is to now pull up the weeds, cover with newspaper, and perhaps even black plastic on top of that. I have been avoiding that, thinking that raised beds are enough. At least the black plastic can be planted through, the newspaper and pulled up weeds can help the clay composition.

This is going to be one of the big battles. To be clear of as many weeds as possible, and cover the ground. With the beautiful weather that we have had, the clay is like concrete. There is now way a magic fork or spade is going to slice through it. It is just as bad, when it is winter.

As I sit here, the weather lady has just delivered her forecast. For the moment at least, the nice weather will remain. A bit of harvesting was done to today. A small amount of Florence Fennel. A crop, that I had forgotten that I sown. So was very surprised to the see the dill hovering amongst the leaves of the Astia Courgette right next to it. The Florence Fennel was sautéed with the Kestrel potatoes. Lovely looking first second earlies, with pink smudges that look like little faces.

In the wendy house, you will see the vast array of chillies and bells. We have in there a huge number. We have just to name a few, Nigels outdoor chilli, lemon drop, frauzauber, spanish mammoth red, early jalapeño, purple beauty and long red marconi to name a few. Those are the ones that were at least labelled. I think a few of them, have thrown a bit of a tantrum in the wendy, having moved from the classroom. They were perhaps not used to the different temperatures. As mentioned previously, we are having nice weather. A few of the chillies, have been a little burned, and perhaps are sulking because of that too. They are watered and fed regularly. I am still not convinced of treating them in a mean fashion. The resplendent purple rainbow chillis remain in the kitchen at home. There were seven of these altogether, only one of these is in the wendy.

Triffids rise again, on the plot. Not only are there squashes, but also sweetcorn and sunflowers. I had though that the sunburst sunflowers, were relatively small. Yet these are nearly as big as me. No quite giant, but bigger than I had expected. Very leafy, and yet to form any flowers. I do believe that the squashes may take over the universe. I have long expected and anticipated the leaves getting as big as dinner plates. In my experience, that is a good thing. That is happening, yes. Now, we are on flower and fruit watch. Already, we have had a few striato di napoli and astia already, in addition to two beautiful tennis ball sized summer ball. I have never sown a yellow courgette, so this was a lovely crop. Mama H and I are still at odds over the bush baby marrow. Resting on a brick, it is as big as it should be. Mama H wants me to wait for various dishes to have been eated, before I harvest it. If it explodes, it’s not my fault, all right.

 

Tomorrow is another day, and for the moment; it is summer.

 

Yours in anticipation,

 

Horticultural Hobbit

chillies, classroom experimentation, Preparation, Taking stock

Pottering with pots

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It is meant to Spring. Yet, we have the white stuff again.

With the Easter break, I had anticipated transplanting beans and planting potatoes. That will not be happening due to the inclement weather. A third and final sowing of chillis and peppers has been made. But this will a window sill venture, as I am now fed up a little of the heated propogater. There were however ten baby seedlings that have survived from the first sowing. Covered and sat on a sunny warm window sill, it will be interesting to see if anything germinates. There are eleven different varieties. Nigel’s outdoor chilli-seeds were kindly donated by a GYO magazine grape-as well as interestingly named mammoth sweet peppers. One that I am trying again, is sweet mini red peppers. I have never had any success with those at all. There are quite a few rainbow chillies actually. One variety that is a brightly coloured variety, another one is purple rainbow variety

All in all, 57 seeds were sown into small yogurt pots with a hole in the bottom. I have sown three to a pot, which yes is quite a few. My defence is that in the past, I have had nice crops from chillies in cramped conditions. Less so, with sparsely grown ones.

Tomatos don’t half whiff. They really do. It’s an altogether distinctive smell. They are still sat there, occasionally going a bit purple. But mostly growing quite happily. I couldn’t tell you the varieties, I didn’t label them. Having pricked them out of a module tray, I wasn’t sure they’d work. Seem to be okay for the moment.

Leeks are getting further wiry, not yet pencil thick. But looking reasonably well. They do tend to keel over a little though, when dehydrated.

Will remain pottering.

Yours in anticipation,

Horticultural Hobbit

Taking stock

Penny pinching and planting

Gardening, and allotmenteering, lays itself open to be very expensive. At least in the outset, and making preparations. Flicking through seed catalogues, surfing the companies online can also mean for pennies and pounds being spent.

Seed saving, as well as swapping, goes some way towards alleviating that cost. I have benefited from a number of swapped seeds, in addition I have passed on seeds for others to try. This particularly true, of people who wish to sow heritage seeds. Many seed varieties of yore, have been forgotten, save for the efforts of studious seed savers who have diligently saved seeds to keep them in circulation. There are off course many techniques, some simple others less so, that allow this to happen. With chillies, for example, one needs asbestos gloves given how potent some chillies can be. With tomatoes, one needs a penchant for slime in fishing them out of a jam jar. Beans, can be left to dry, and plucked from a crispy pod. It is that is simple. You will also get those plants and vegetables that are wont to sow their wild oats and cross widely. So that is seed saving, encouraged and plausible.

 

In tending the plot, an interesting experiment has developed. There are some roses that are more expensive than some of their plot counterparts, bought from a mail order company. The counterparts, are from a shop, where everything is priced at one pound or from a shop where goods are priced at being a penny below the pound. You can see the statement of the obvious. There is not much in the price of these two groups of roses, approximately £1.50 would separate the roses from online and the high street bought ones. Before the snow descended, the online ordered ones were actually demonstrating some growth on the thorny stems. The high street ones, did actually look a bit sorry for themselves. They were also still covered in green protective wax, that I had thought would have disappeared by now. 

 

Previously, spring flowering bulbs had been planted. It would be a surprise if any of these actually came up now,to be fair. All, generally, from those high street shops where you spend a pound. In the past, these have been reasonably successful. There are also some blueberries and redcurrant plants.

 

As I venture into these high street shops, I do wonder about the success rate. More recently, there have potatoes, onions, different seed varieties on the shelves. A reflection perhaps of how more and more people are choosing to grow their own food. The variety does seem to be getting more and more extensive, and more value compared to the stock held by garden centres. For many years, there has always been a clamour for Aldi and Lidl with their gardening GYO offers. With Wilkinsons also proving themselves to be a useful resource. 

 

Then there is the pot making contraption, Whilst it is labour intensive, it is incredibly useful. Made me reconsider, just how much money could be spent on pots that weren’t going to be occupied for very long. With the broadbeans currently in paper pots, I hope that this will also help the rather challenging clay soil on the plot.

 

It remains to be seen, if being savvy with pounds and pence makes any difference,

Yours in anticipation,

 

Horticultural Hobbit