With the aubergines sending out their first set of true leaves, it’s time to pot them up. They have been removed from the cold propogater, potted up and placed onto a warm window sill. They are tiny, compared to the tomatoes to whom they are related. Then again, I did sow them a lot later. The plants themselves are delicate looking, and it’s probably going to be a while before they end up in the poly tunnel. All being well, they will get a wiggle on, get a bit taller and stronger.
Window sill shuffle is happening once more. The tomato plants, the first batch, had been sat in the four tier blowaway for some time. They have largely been growing quite vigorously, were becoming quite large for the small green house. There is a second, more diminutive batch remaining. The larger ones have now been transferred to the wendy house, the larger green house on the plot. They are still fleeced, as I really don’t want to take any chances at all. They are eventually going to go into the poly tunnel, once the red duke of york potatoes have been dug up. That might not be too long, since the leafy red and green foliage is quite rampant at the moment.
Five of the remaining habanero plants that are at home, have now taken the place of the larger tomatoes. There are still about half a dozen smaller tomato plants, that have yet to get a wriggle on.
One of the plot neighbours kindly gave us some cabbages today. Naturally, we had to sink them, and this became Ma’s project. She had already moved around some self seeded kale, so these went it with that. Didn’t lime them, or pop cabbage collars, so fingers crossed they will be okay. They were however netted over, to stop flying foes.
Whilst the larger chillies are now in the poly tunnel, there were still eight habanero plants loitering on the window sill. Of these, three are now of an appropriate size to be transferred to the polytunnel. We have today taken pumpkin, chocolate and orange habanero down to the poly tunnel. These have been potted up into larger pots with some multipurpose compost. Pots have had some slug tape stuck around the edges, and the plants watered in. They are draped with fleece, as there is still a chance of frost until the end of May. That said, the poly tunnel was at 30 degrees today, but there is still going to be a dip at night time that could nip them.
In the last two weeks, the Red Duke of York potatoes have taken on a life of their own. They have been fleeced as there is a chance of frost until the end of the month, Whilst the poly tunnel might reach the heady heights of 30 something degrees, it can still suffer a rapid drop in temperature at night. So all the shoots have been tucked up under fleece. And they really have taken off. They took a while to take off, the clay is horrible, and it was still quite cold when they were first sunk.As the weather picked up, and April was relatively calm; we didn’t have that many showers. The shoots have become more vigorous. My next thought would be when these are going to be harvested. These are to be taken up at the appropriate time, and tomatoes to be plugged in. The tomatoes are getting taller still in the 4TB. I have had a handful of RDOY potatoes previously, those were outside in the clay. Inside, there is a distinct difference. I have yet to furtle beneath the soil, I don’t want the potatoes to be really very diddly. Might give it another week to fourteen days, before seeing what lurks beneath.
Remember that imperial purple chilli flower, well, it may well have set. I had to check in the poly tunnel that the plants were still there. Plus there was an aphid infestation that needed removal previously. Lo and Behold, we have the tiniest of purple haze fruit. These start out purple and go a beautiful red, like other cayennes. Funnily enough, the cayenne plants have got a couple of pepper white flowers on. The purple haze has a couple of other flowers forming too, so we may well end up with at least a couple of chilli fruit at some point.
I don’t remember sinking cauliflower plugs, but I must have done. Was pottering around, having sunk gladoli, and saw the white curds of a cauliflower. Naturally, I had to tell my mum about it and she was the other side of the plot pulling up weeds. She then decided to harvest it, and ear marked it for her to have it in her stuffed chappatis tomorrow. It’s not huge, just a little bigger than my hands. But the curds are okay, tightly packed together. There were a lot of leaves, and these were chopped away. Not bad, and hopefully we will be plugging in more cauliflowers at some point.
There are three apple trees on the plot. Two of them, the braeburn and Worcester pearmain are relatively new additions on having being planted last year. The falstaff is something of a resident. In the past, the falstaff has fruited, and last year we may have had about a dozen red apples. That was lovely. the apples were nice. This year though, all three are in blossom, lovely pink flowers, that suggest a possible bountiful harvest. I was very surprised to see the braeburn in full blossom, I had only seen buds about a week ago. This has to be the biggest tree as well, in comparison to the other two. The worcester pearmain is the smallest. With May only just starting, I am conscious of the fact that here in Birmingham, we get a frost right up to the end of the month. This means, that in the next three weeks, if the temperature drops, and the flowers have not set; then it’s good night Vienna for them all. The blossom looks rather robust, however, so we shall exactly what happens.
Last year Loldeantimber and I sent a hand made trug to Gardening Leave in Ayr. A trug that would help them to continue the sterling work that they do. Gardening Leave work with veterans using horticultural therapy, so having a trug would be rather useful!
It was lovely to see a harvest of broccoli, mine looked a bit off colour in comparison! Fabulous to see the trug being loved and used for what it was designed for. I really hope that they get lots more bountiful harvests.
You can find further information about Gardening Leave here and also their honesty pledge
I was sat in the Coventry University edible campus garden-it was between teaching classes, I needed some sunshine and solitude of the green kind-and saw that their plants were green, leafy and blossoming. Bit more than mine, and I did have a pang of horticultural jealousy. I am however, glad, that the plot is in the same stages of development. I was able to compare the blooms in the edible campus garden with the ones on the plot.
With the fruit trees blossoming, i was starting to wonder about the rest of the fruit plugged in. I only took a briefest of looks at the redcurrants, having seen that the gooseberries were starting to flower. I have had the two redcurrant plants for about three years. They were bought as twiglets, from poundland. In that time, they did nothing, so I bought some slightly older ones. Reason being, as I was told by another plot holder, they need to be three years old before they fruit. Lo and behold, the poundland plants have formed flower buds of a kind. The sort that are very easy to miss, if you don’t poke or prod into the foliage.
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