Penellype's 2015 Edible Garden Challenge

[Penellype]

Off and running for 2015

First harvest of the year is the remains of bag 2 (of 3) of maincrop Desiree potatoes, the bags having been sitting in my garage since August. Also today 6 small carrots (Nantes Frubund fastcrop):



I'm going to have to find a way of keeping track of which varieties have been eaten. Current total is 2.

[Penellype]

Salad for lunch today - my take on a ploughman's lunch:



The salad is mizuna and pak choi out of the garden, salad bowl lettuce from my grow light garden and alfalfa sprouts from the jar on my windowsill. The tomato is a small Shirley from a plant on the sitting room windowsill. For the eagle-eyed there is also a bit of curly leaf parsley in there, but I grew that at my friend's house so it doesn't count.

The chutney is my home made tomato and roasted pepper chutney, which is lovely with the applewood smoked cheese. A nice chunk of crusty bread with it - yum!

Qualifying varieties:
Tomato Shirley
Mizuna Red Knight
Pak Choi tri-colour mix
Lettuce Salad Bowl
Alfalfa

Total varieties so far = 7.

Don't worry I am not going to post pictures of everything I eat! The novelty will soon wear off. (And I will run out of new things to eat until the seasons change).

[Penellype]

Nothing new to add to the list today, but I have completed a major rearrangement, moving the growhouse from next to the boundary fence (where it was shaded by the clematis on the archway) to the paving in front of the trellis. This is a sunny area for much of the year so hopefully it will give the melons the best chance of ripening.

While I was at it I also moved the cold frame off its permanent position (the other side of the same trellis), removed all the weeds and moss and added some more compost to the soil.

Covered the bare area left where the growhouse was with fleece to keep the cat off and keep the soil warm for onions.

Things are slowly taking shape!

[Penellype]

So, here we are at 2.30pm on a bright and sunny January afternoon. You will notice a total absence of sun in the back garden

Area 1 - near the hotbin



The plan is to grow peas up the netting near the fence, with nasturtiums and leeks in front. The pots of "million bells" which are supposedly half hardy but are still green, will move off the seat, and be replaced with strawberries in tower pots - I plan to put 2 lots of 3 layers on there. I hope the seat is strong enough to hold the weight - it should be as it is designed to hold people!

The area near the fence will get sun all morning and some of the afternoon in summer, the seat gets sun in the morning only.

The area around the tree is almost completely shaded except in early morning and high summer, hence the planting is mainly ferns and shade loving plants like cyclamen and the small alchemilla. There are a few dianthus (edible flowers) in there though. The tree, a Japanese Maple, is dying, and one of the jobs for the winter is to cut it down.

Area 2 - near the apple tree.



This area is a very strange shape to incorporate the circular lawn. Under the fleece is the newly dug area which was being invaded by perennials. There are some crocus bulbs in there too, so the usable area is quite small, but I plan to put a yellow courgette in here, preceded by some Lollo Rossa lettuce.

Next to the fence is my double cordon white currant. This is planted in a space about a foot square, but it seems to be growing well. It needs pruning in February and is now in its 3rd year so I am hoping for a reasonable crop. Last year I got about 20 trusses of fruit.

Next to the currant is my dwarf James Grieve apple (on M27 rootstock). This gave me a record 15 apples last year, but I suspect that was exceptional. I'm experimenting with letting some of the top shoots grow a bit, but so far all the fruit has been on the older, lower part of the tree, which is about 2ft high. The tree is about 10 years old but has only recently started producing the taller shoots.

The big space between the apple tree and the pieris is the sunniest part of the garden. Last year I grew tomatoes here but this time I will grow more peas and some runner beans. More nasturtiums in front of these, blending into the flower bed.

The pieris in the corner looks like a waste of space,but actually it is doing a job covering up an old tree trunk that is too big for me to remove. It also provides some welcome greenery at this time of year.

Area 3 - The veggie garden



In the foreground are the strawberry towers - the one on the right is going to be dismantled into 2 parts and put on the seat near the hotbin. The one on the left is new - this one contains runners from "Marshmellow" which is my favourite of the 3 varieties in the bigger tower. I have another of these "flower towers" which will take about 34 plants, and I plan to replace my old and past it Elsanta and unnamed everbearers with new plants - currently leaning towards "Buddy" for the everbearers. This year I am hoping to have enough strawberries to make jam. Last year the tower pots were rather disappointing because the plants were difficult to water and the tower was impossible to rotate so some plants were completely shaded. The flower tower is much lighter and has a tube down the centre for easy watering. That's the theory...

The cold frame is currently empty, but will be fitted with 2x 2ft square trays for hardening off seedlings, and a top, which is a bit Heath Robinson as one of the top panels was broken when the cat jumped onto it a few years ago. It is best removed when not in use as it tends to take off when we have a gale! This area is earmarked for Sungold tomatoes later and gets plenty of summer sun.

The green behind the cold frame is flat leaf parsley, which is currently providing a nice meal for some pesky caterpillars

Behind the big strawberry tower is Kohlrabi and Mizuna, plus one surviving Pak Choi. These will be replaced by tomatoes (Sweet Aperitif, Totem and possibly Shirley) in summer. The only other things planted in the soil at the moment are leeks and a few spring onions, and the rest of the soil is covered with fleece to keep the cat off. The fence end was tomatoes and beans and will be onions this time, the central area was peas and onions and will be courgettes. Other things may be slipped in as and when space appears.

On the path there is a tub of carrots (Eskimo) and one of cabbage (Duncan - this variety doesn't like the shade too much and is growing a bit big under its net). Behind my decorative Japanese Maple are 3 pots of strawberries (Elsanta and everbearer) which will be ditched when their replacements arrive (if I can bring myself to do that - the everbearers were going to be ditched last year). There are more leeks in the black trough at the end. The path usually houses things like spinach and cabbages but can end up beign a dumping ground for just about anything. The fence end grew nice cucumbers last year and I intend to do the same again this time.

[Penellype]

The Patio



This is the view from the lawn, showing the new position of the growhouse. It fits rather better than I expected, which is good. Inside is a trough of spinach plants, which are not doing particularly well.

The pot of carrots (Nantes Frubund Fastcrop) is half harvested and is where I can easily move it into the garage to avoid frost. They are hardy enough, but I like to be able to get them out of the soil when I want them. This position is very shady and in summer will house the wormery (currently in the garage).

Inside the veggiemesh cage there is currently a pot of Eskimo carrots, a trough of late sown Nantes Frubund and a trough of cabbbage Spring Hero, which is very much better suited to the conditions than Duncan. Theres also one cauliflower in there with them, but I have no idea if it will do anything worthwhile.

Behind the veggiemesh cage are 2 compost bins - a plastic one which contains compost ready to go on the garden and an old wooden one which currently houses a dustbin containing swiss chard (being munched by caterpillars) and an old water butt containing broccoli. These and the 2 black raised beds (rhubarb and broccoli) get no sun at all except in high summer. The shelving from an old blowaway greenhouse has autumn fruiting raspberries under (need pruning soon). The shelves are useful in spring for hardening off plants.

The round pot at the front is oregano.



This photo gives a better view of the patio area itself. The square pot housed red cabbage and 2 of the 5 plants didn't make hearts, so I have left them to see what happens. This pot will eventually go under the veggiemesh sown with carrots.

The 3 big round pots are 2 blueberries and a new gooseberry. last time I tried to grow gooseberries they were defoliated over night by sawfly and died. I do like them though so I thought it worth another try. The other raised bed contains more broccoli and some spinach beet. The smaller pots littered around are various ornamentals which have been displaced by the growhouse, currently homeless.

This area illustrates well what can happen in mid-late summer and give you a problem later on. There were 6 broccoli plants which desperately needed planting out, and which got chucked in after early peas and potatoes. These are going to keep flowering until probably May. The water butt and the raised bed next to the hedge are earmarked for potatoes, and it doesn't take a genius to see that there is going to be some overlap here. (The other raised bed, which did potatoes last year, is earmarked for leeks, which will be fine). This is always difficult because these areas grow broccoli well in winter but are totally unsuitable for the sort of crops that would follow broccoli in summer from a timing point of view (sun loving tomatoes, courgettes etc). This is a problem that I have yet to find a solution for, but I am trying.

[Penellype]

One new thing to add to the list - Leek Albana for tea.

Total varieties so far = 8

[Penellype]

Just a little fresh basil from the windowsill with my tea today.

Total varieties so far = 9.

[Penellype]

Snowed under at work the last few days so I've been eating mainly out of the freezer, hence nothing new to add here. Needless to say the frozen meals are made with home grown veg from the summer

[Penellype]

Indoors

Things are progressing slowly indoors. I still have tomatoes (Shirley) on my sitting room and kitchen windowsills:





The tomatoes are gradually being migrated to self-watering trays, as I have lost a couple of plants to root rot. I over watered them after getting some split fruit. Most of the plants have had flower buds for ages, but disappointingly only one of these has actually opened since about October, and although I pollinated it by hand, it fell off. I just have the 2 red fruit in the sitting room, and one green fruit which you can just about see with a little imagination on the left side of the one in the kitchen. I'm hoping some flowers will open soon, but they are probably waiting for some sunshine.

I've also taken off 3 sideshoots and potted them up - these are currently rooting in the spare room. Behind these are some Rocket potatoes, busy chitting:



My peppers on the landing windowsill are ripening nicely - I'm amazed these are still going, but the one on the right (California Wonder) is actually developing another little fruit. No idea if this will get big enough to eat:



The grow light garden is now full of lettuce, mixed leaf salad, spinach and pea shoots, and the propagator next to it has leeks and chervil (taking its time to germinate - I am not hopeful), but plenty of space for more!



This is in the utility room, which is cooler than upstairs - that's why I don't have the tomatoes in the propagator.

[Penellype]

Harvested the red California Wonder pepper today to make a casserole. Being a big softie, I left the plant on the windowsill to see if the pea-sized green pepper still on it will grow any bigger. The original idea was to chuck the plant out when I harvested today's fruit.

Number of varieties = 10:

Alfalfa
Basil
Carrot Nantes Frubund Fastcrop
Leek Albana
Lettuce Salad Bowl Mix
Mizuna Red Knight
Pak Choi Tri-colour Mix
Pepper California Wonder
Potato Desiree
Tomato Shirley

Well pleased with the way things are going at the moment, although the flow of new varieties is bound to slow down soon. Some of these are summer crops really, and I won't be able to claim them again from this year's sowings!

[rary]

Hello Penellype, could I suggest several different varieties of radish
I do wish you the best of luck with your challenge

[Penellype]

Hello Penellype, could I suggest several different varieties of radish
I do wish you the best of luck with your challenge

Thanks for the good wishes - unfortunately I really don't like radish, so I would rather use the space for something I will eat! Having just bought a load of seeds over the weekend, I think the number of varieties is not going to be a problem, but getting them all to grow to maturity in the conditions in my rather shady garden might be.

[Penellype]

2 new varieties on the menu today with a salad for lunch:
Pepper snackbite orange - the last little one but I have already sown some more seeds.
Provencale salad thinnings - this is a mixture of mizuna, pak choi, komatsuna rapido, giant red mustard and rocket, but I'm going to regard it as one variety. Most of the thinnings today were mustard, which seems to be the dominant species in the batch I sowed.

Total varieties so far = 12

[Penellype]

Perusing the seed catalogues again today (I really MUST stop doing this!) and had an idea. Last year I tried growing Tumbling Tom tomatoes in pots on my fence, and they were almost a complete failure. Even though the volume of compost in the pots was about the same as I grow my indoor Shirleys in, the Tumbling Toms went a very strange greyish purple colour and produced very few fruit. I was looking to buy some dwarf nasturtiums to grow alongside my peas when I found a trailing variety for hanging baskets. Seems like a good way of using the fence pots and freeing up some space in the ground near the peas (the peas are going to be grown near the fence in any case).

Now, I wonder what I can find to grow in that space I've created

[Penellype]

A different variety of carrot today - Eskimo.

Total varieties so far = 13.