Aubergine varieties: Dancer, Diamond,Tres Hative de barbentane, Black Beauty
labelled and ready to bask
I wasn’t going to sow aubergines this year. After last years mixed results, I was feeling a little put off, However, I am going to use my previous growing experience, as a learning experience and take away the key findings and conclusions. This year, rather than putting them directly them into the ground, I will keep them in pots in the same way as the chillies. They will once more be in the poly tunnel.
The varieties:
Diamond
Dancer
Tres Hative De Barbentane
Black Beauty
Last year, there were some mixed results. All of the varieties were planted into the ground. Some of these grew into lovely luscious plants, with rather pretty purple flowers. There were also some rescued aubergine plants, from a garden centre, that did actually manage to produce some rather interesting fruit. The plants grew well, they were tall, and rather robust. I think the key however, was the restriction of the roots. So this is what I will be doing this year. I know it’s a little late, I should have perhaps sown them about a month ago. There are four varieties, and about four of each have been sown. I’m hoping that they will germinate, and then we shall see exactly how many we get. I don’t expect to be keeping all 16 would be plants. That would be a lot of aubergines, I might have to share the seedlings if they manage to grow.
Did try to plant and cultivate herbs once before. But the plants were small, and I didn’t take perhaps the best care of them. So we are trying again. In the last week, Ma and I have planted rosemary, silver and common Thyme, oregano, spear mint and sage. Ma did try and dissuade me from not planting silver thyme as it looked sad compared to the common one. We have both.
At home, the Rosemary seems to thrive in the clay, so that is my rationale for sinking it on the plot. I don’t particularly mind i if any of the plants spread out, even with the mint. That at least means the ground is cultivated.
Ma rather likes rescuing spinach and chard, and here we have it. The Spinach is rescued, and we have found some chard for her to plug in. It’s a bit hard to resist, when she waves the tray at you, says your name and does that wide eyed thing that only mums do. She has been somewhat worried over the last few days, that the rain might bring the slugs and slimers out to kill the new plugs. For the moment, they are still there. My on concern, is that she planted them into open ground and this is going to make them very vulnerable on a plot where open ground isn’t necessarily a good place to be if you are a new plant.
I don’t mind spinach and chard myself, it’s a reliable crop that makes for interesting onion bhajis and pasta bakes. Along with cauliflowers and cabbages, spinach and chard make their way into the ‘Indian’ Food that ma cooks. The spinach that she has rescued, she tells me that it’s perpetual spinach. In her eyes, this is proper spinach. Mainly because it has large, broad leaves with quite a thin spine. This makes for me leaf, and less stalk. The other time of spinach that Ma is hoping to get onto the plot, is Mustard Greens. I need to look into getting the seeds what ma calls proper, proper indian saag. What she really wants, is that yellow flowered stuff that farmers sow on an industrial scale on their fields as a green manure.
Chard is a good substitute, and seems to also do well when left to it’s own devices. Not sure what variety we have here, but I do remember having both Vulcan Chard and also bright lights chard. The former, has lovely bright red stalks, with the latter having stalks that can be bright yellow at times. What I don’t have at the moment is Kale, but there are a few cabbages knocking around.
Red Duke of york coming through with a pernicious weed
tatties ready
one variety
the other variety
Finally. The spuds have been looking at me for some time. Calling at me, to be sunk on the plot. Today, is Good Friday, and I like other folks on the plot, were going to sink spuds today. Off I went, with compost-trundled along in the wheelbarrow-bags of seed spuds and hand tools. There were also some ear phones and maroon5’s V on shuffle. I was on a mission.
First thing first, I had to fill a few of the beds with MPC. Much of the soil that they had been filled with had sunk after last season’s growth. Also some of the beds had been filled with leaf mold, and this had to be topped off for this year.
This years varieties:
Red Duke of York: First earlies
Kestral: Second earlies
Lady Balfour: main crop
Pink Fir Apple: Salad
International Kidney: Salad
In February, I had sunk Red Duke of York potatoes in the poly tunnel. A tad early, yes, and with the clay that the poly is sat on; have taken a while to get through.
Red Duke of york coming through with a pernicious weed
You have to squint a little, but you can see the red and green of the red duke of potato just starting to come through. I was starting to lose faith with these things, especially with the clay. Yes, I know there is a weed and algae. It does get warm in there, especially as Spring attempts to arrive. Will pass the hoe across to aerate the soil and get rid of the algae. Spotted a couple of shoots, but not many. Hopefully, a few more will come through before I put tomatoes and chillies in there.
Next time, I should perhaps scale down on the salad seed potatoes. I underestimated the amount of international kidney and pink fir apple seeds and also the space I had available to put them into. Will probably see those knobbly critters in my sleep. Plus, no one told me about the rather funny shapes and form that pink fir apple seeds take.
There is further experimentation, in that some of the raised beds contained soil topped off with leaf mold. The seeds potatoes were sunk deep into that soil, with the leaf mold already sitting on top. This was then topped off with MPC. Remains to be seen as to this will be a success or I will end up with scabby potatoes. Raised beds are the only way that I can cultivate any form of edible potato. Last years open ground experiment indicated that the heavy clay, wet weather and slug population were going to annihilate anything that was put into it.
Sinking potatoes has taken a chunk out of the number of raised beds being used this year. I have two that already occupied by garlic. I also have to keep one free for Ma’s fenugreek-She will not be best pleased, if she doesn’t have somewhere for her fenugreek. There are not four beds left, 1mx1m in size. Not an awful lot of room for all those squashes to be sown. There are however two other beds, open ground where I am plotting to have running beans. I have tried squashes in open ground and the results weren’t good.
#NABLOPOMO April 201 starts today and the theme is Grow. Seems fairly apt for a blog that centers on growing your own fruit and vegetables.
Garlic, this is something of an update. I have a number of varieties that are currently growing. These are::
Early Purple wight
Lautrec Wight
Elephant garlic
Provence Wight
Other than the odd weed, the garlic seems to be doing okay. The green shoots appear to be strong and robust. With he wind of the last 24 hours, they are probably little wind scorched today.
This crop was sunk in the autumn last year. Here in England, sowing garlic happens-in my experience-from about October onwards, and then can also be done during the following spring months. In my experience, I have found that sowing garlic in October, and in raised beds, is a more effective, and produces a reliable crop. In comparison, sowing into open ground, and I have heavy clay, has not been as effective. They require little maintenance, and are pretty much left to their own devices.
In years passed, I have sunk a lot of garlic. Mostly to see which varieties produce the most bulbous, most garlick-y of bulbs. We use a lot garlic in Ma’s kitchen, most of her cooking has garlic in it, so it is always used. I think I even have a large jar of pickled garlic, somewhere in Ma’s pantry. There are of course, also a number of health benefits associated with it.
The seed garlic that I have sown, is from The Garlic Farm on the isle of wight. I know that some growers do tend to use the sprouting garlic that they may have lurking in the back of their cupboards. I’m not sure if this is a good way cultivation, since I have never done that. Some of the garlic that we buy in the supermarkets is better suite to different climates and is commercially produced.
Came across this the other day, and having participated in the November one last year, thought why not. Especially as the theme is ‘Grow’. That, I think, lends itself to the spirit of the blog. Since there is mostly growing, of fruit, vegetables and me as a person.
Slilghtly green Bruno
Welcome to Hobbitland
gladiolus
All being well, the usual allotment adventures will continue and there will be the usual blog posts about them. Last year, It was really nice to see how far away the blog was read. It gets read far and wide anyway, which is lovely to see!
The biggest difference was that the lovely folks on the other side of the pond were reading-remember, I write in England, Great Britain, about the plot. I’m not sure that allotmenteering is the quite the same thing over there. I am sure that there are people who grow fruit and veg, just not in the same way as allotments are organised here in Britain.
As always. I shall be sharing the highs, the lows, the slug stories and the weather damage. And if you want to head about anything in particular, then all you have do is ask.
About two dozen seeds were started off in damp jiffy pellets, and made quite rapid progress. In my experience, they do grow very quickly, and you do end up potting them up quite rapidly.
The seedling babies were growing quite quickly on the window sill, so did need to be potted up. Otherwise they get leggy, bend, and keel over. Cue emergency pot up. As you can see above, they have placed into small pots and are on their first baby leaves with the true leaves just about to sprout. These are greedy, sun loving creatures. So they do need warmth, light, and for now, water. The compost is full of nutrients for the next six weeks. By which time, it will be necessary to harden them off, having possible put them into bigger pots. They will need to be protected if there is a sharp drop in temperature and a frost.
I have sown two varieties here. These are sunburst, which get to about five tall, and giant sunflowers, which are something even taller and with multiple flowers.
Hopefully these will all continue to thrive and survive. Will hopefully sow a few more and encourage more pollinators on the plot.
If you have sown some sunflowers, then please let me know. Would be lovely to see what is happening ^_^
With the tomatoes thrown to their possible impending doom into the 4TB, there has been a window sill shuffle with the chllies. The larger chilli plants are serrano, cayenne, aji limo and hungarian hot wax. The habaneros bring up the rear in the second smaller batch. I have left the habaneros where they are, but others have moved to a cooler spot. Mainly because they are trying to escape their pots and I don’t really want to pot on too quickly. They get comfortable, and things start to go a bit awry. I have found, through observation, that the cramped drier conditions foster a more positive outcome. Plus it is only nearly the end of March. I don’t want to plant these out into the Poly tunnel in bigger pots just yet.
The wendy house also needs tidying before I do that too. That is the wendy house blow, when the one side did actually do up. Ah yes, I need to repair the door. I am not buying another cover. Why is it, that I always take the one door of it’s hinges? I have done the same with the 4TB….meh.
The lovely Not Just Jams was talking about how she had put her tomatoes into her insulated greenhouse, with fleece. And I thought I might risk it. Not Just Jams also that she had had hot water bottles. Think that was milk bottles with water in, that heat up naturally. And since she is lovely, and has given me a lot of valuable ‘lotment and preserving advice, thought I might try some of her ideas. I didn’t get as far as the hot bottles. If only I had nabbed some out of the recycling that went out yesterday.
So I scampered this morning to tidy up the four tier blowaway, that has housed nothing but trays and things since last summer. I also need the window sill space. In the coming month, different things are going to get sown.
I did fleece the top deck of the 4TB though, and line it black bin bag. From GCSE science, that absorbs heat and light, as does the black trays. So here’s hoping to trap the heat.
And now I am a scared. That these pampered things are not going to make it til sunrise. They were starting to sulk whilst they were just sat on the flagstones whilst the sun was out.
They are fleeced. In that I have managed to create a box with it on the top shelf. Two sheets of cut down fleece are placed at right angles to one another to cover the four sides.
Closed the door, and I shall try and sleep tonight. The poor things.
I wandered around the stands at he edible garden show and was lucky enough to bump into the lovely lady proprietress of seaspringseeds.co,uk Since I haven’t sown the dorset naga from seed, and have run out time to do so, I picked up a plug Not strictly cheating, as it’s now up to me to look after this young plant. This and another chilli variety, purple haze, were wrapped up delicately and placed into my rucksack to bring back to Birmingham. I had visions of them being half dead when I got back home, but they were okay.
I had no plans to have the Dorset naga amongst the vast collection of chilli babies that I have currently have. But seeing it, i couldn’t resist.
There have been valuable lessons learned from the experience of last year. This year, the Dorset naga and the other chillies will be in pots. I am not sinking them into the ground, to have lots of leafy luscious plants. This year, we become a bit precious about the plants. The hope is that the pot root constriction method will help plants be productive.
Looks tiny, but hopefully the plants of both varieties will grow stronger and robust.
Oh, and it will need a name. How else will it know it is being spoken to? 😉
horticultural 'obbit 