Penellype's 2016 Garden Diary

[Penellype]

Yet another dull, grey, cheerless day with a small strip of blue sky visible on the horizon. Yesterday it was dull and misty all day, until dark, when the stars appeared and everywhere was covered in ice.

Having picked what the slugs had left me of the mizuna, namenia and komatsuna to go with some house grown lettuce and pea shoots, the last of the small orange peppers and a couple of ripened tomatoes for lunch (tuna salad), I felt in need of a reminder of summer.

From the freezer - 1 bag home made almond crumble mix, 1 portion stewed apples (from my friend's garden), handful of frozen white currants, handful of frozen yellow raspberries. Defrost in microwave and stick in the oven, and serve with a couple of cubes of strawberry puree (made in ice cube tray and heated through briefly in the microwave) - all home grown of course. Yum

[vixylix]

Penellype you are soooo organised! I'm with the scribbled paper and pen brigade - last year my 'plan' entirely went to pot once I'd actually started planting things anyway!

when in doubt, buy more pots... that's my philosophy and I'm sticking to it!!

[Penellype]

Bit of housekeeping:

Yesterday sowed 2 tomato Shirley, which are now in my spare bedroom, pots covered with plastic bags to stop them drying out.

Today's lunch (see #16) finished off one of the 2 remaining pepper plants, so this was cut down to about 2 inches. It may or may not regrow. I also ate the remains of the lettuce mix plants which were on the spare room windowsill, and these were removed.

Harvested a carrot (nantes frubund) and a couple of brokali spears for tea, and cooked another large pan full of potatoes, most of which will go in the freezer.

A late Christmas present arrived - I was given money so decided to buy one of these Root!t Grow Light System - Harrod Horticultural. Its not that I don't love my grow light gardens - I do, but the built in tray makes lifting things in and out a little awkward, especially when they get taller, so I envisage this being better for tomatoes etc. I will have to test it first on some lettuces though, just to make sure

[Bigmallly]

Happy experimenting Pene.

[Penellype]

A most unpromising start today with rain turning to sleet and then heavy snow which quickly melted on the wet ground, adding to the puddles.

Noticed that the mustard I'd planted on 9th Jan had germinated and moved it to the grow light garden. I should be eating it as microgreens in about a week.

By 3pm the sun had come out and I decided it was time to plant the half pint peas. First experiment of the year - peas in rootrainers. I bought these last year and grew tomatoes in them but found that the tops were too close together and they had to be potted on before the roots had really filled the bottoms, which seemed to defeat the point. Peas tend to grow strong roots quite quickly, although I am a little concerned that they may climb up each other and become too entangled to separate. There are 32 rootrainers in a pack so I filled the lot with compost then discovered I only had 20 half pint seeds left. Planted meteor in the other 12 cells. Worst case scenario I eat them as pea shoots.

[Jungle Jane]

Weathers a bit sunnier today you could put little sticks in the compost to tie the peas on,incase they grow too tall & entwine together? My sweet peas got really tangled once,about 10 years ago,had to plant it out as a few clumps,I don't think they flowered,it really put me off growing them (for a long time!) but this year I'm trying again.

[Penellype]

What I am hoping is that the roots will fill the rootrainers before the tops get too big, and then I will be able to plant them into bigger pots. I can keep them indoors - the half pint are very small. I'll have to see how it works out.

[Penellype]

Frosty weekend (although we pretty much avoided the snow here). Normally I spend the weekend mornings in my friend's garden, but there wasn't much point this week.

Yesterday morning was only around 0 degrees and I did manage to pull out a couple of carrots and cut some tiny calabrese shoots from the plants that I grew for summer. I also brought home one of the 3 remaining snackbite orange peppers from the greenhouse.

This morning was colder - about -2, and everywhere was rock solid. Came home and decided to move the new grow light which I had set up in the utility room. It was fine in there except that the light reflected in the glass of the back door, spoiling my view of the garden. So I decided to put it in the spare bedroom instead, which meant rearranging a fair number of things.



The lettuces are testing it for me ready for the tomatoes later .

Removing 5 largish lettuces (I ate the 5th one for lunch) has made some space in the grow light garden, so this afternoon I sowed some radish sangria (for microleaves), komatsuna comred (for baby leaves), lettuce emerald oak (an early, cold tolerant variety) and pea onward for pea shoots.

[Penellype]

The half pint and meteor peas are germinating and have been moved under lights. Ditto the radish Sangria. One of the 2 Shirley tomatoes is also venturing above ground today.

On the downside the mispoona I planted out in a bucket in the growhouse is not looking at all happy. 3 of the 5 plants have died and another has fallen over. I'm not sure what the problem is as they are supposed to be hardy so I don't think the frost has killed them.

Pricked out my Relic lettuces today, growing well.

[Penellype]

Fruit pruning day today.

Tidied up the blueberry bushes, removing dead bits and anything that was rubbing on another branch, and shortened the strong new shoots.
Cut down the autumn fruiting raspberries. Haven't yet decided on whether to keep them or ditch them. They are taking over the bed next door and I really don't have room for that, and they are the yellow "Allgold" ones, which are ok, but don't taste anything like the red raspberries. Decision required soon before they start to grow...
Pruned the double cordon white currant - this is dead easy as in the summer you cut all the sideshoots back to 4 leaves, then in winter you shorten all those to 1 inch or so (above a bud), and cut down the leaders to about 6 inches.
Stood and looked at the apple tree, and looked, and as usual decided it looked to difficult. This is not doing either of us any good

[Penellype]

Finally some decent weather, at least for a few hours.

Earlier this week I bought some more seed potatoes (Charlotte, Desiree and Sarpo Mira) which are now happily chitting in the utility room and spare bedroom. Also bought 100 Sturon onion sets. Decided to plant these out in the veg garden, which is very well drained, under the fleece that has been down since the autumn. Managed to fit 70 of them in that area, and there are a few small spaces left around the paving stones that I will fill in later. Not sure where the rest of them are going at the moment...

Not a lot else going on really. The mispoona that I put in the growhouse has now all died. No idea why. I have one plant on the spare room windowsill which is looking unhappy but still alive. I'm very disappointed with this.

Komatsuna, mizuna, mibuna and pea shoots sown earlier this month have all germinated, but the Emerald Oak lettuce is stubbornly refusing to show signs of life. This is new seed and I am completely baffled.

The pea shoots I have been eating have about finished but I noticed that a couple of plants had produced flowers so I left them in the grow light garden. I now have 3 developing pea pods

[Elfeda]

intercrop rasp berries with onions , strawbs, garlic etc..

[Penellype]

A nice sunny day (although blowing a gale) and getting itchy fingers because its February.

Sorted out all the seeds I'm going to sow this month so they are easy to find. Sowed some Provencale salad mix for baby leaves. Brought in 4 pots of compost to warm up for Balconi tomatoes - these can be sown now because they stay nice and small, so they can live under the growlights or on the windowsill until the weather is suitable for them to go out.

Sowed 10 pots of Meteor peas. I use the 3.5 inch square pots that you can often buy things like alpines in at a garden centre, putting one seed near each corner and a 5th in the middle. 10 pots planted like this nicely fits a 1m row. The pots go into an unheated propagator in my utility room and can go under the grow lights until they are about 4 inches high when they will go into the growhouse to harden off. That's the plan anyway - watch the ground freeze solid just when I am ready to plant them out!

[Penellype]

Quite a reasonable sort of day, although becoming windy now. I'm not really sure I should be finding aphids, ladybirds, slugs, fungi, crocus flowers and buds breaking on the bushes in the first week in February!

Removed the (partly) dead foliage from the crocosmia as it was smothering the daffodils.

Decided to plant one bucket of potatoes (Lady Christl) in the garage. These won't need to go outside for at least a month and I planted Rocket on 8th February last year, so I thought it was worth a try. I have far too many seed potatoes so its not a disaster if they don't survive. The plan is to plant some more in my friend's greenhouse tomorrow.

Note to self - if I am going to plant all of the seed potatoes I have bought I need to get some more buckets!

[Penellype]

Decent gardening day today although rather wet under foot.

Spent the morning in my friend's garden. Transplanted the leeks from one raised bed to another as I need to remove grass and put more cardboard at the bottom to try to keep it down. The plan is to top this up with the compost from the grow beds in the greenhouse and grow my brassicas in it this year, but so far I've only got as far as clearing the bed and removing the weeds I can see. Also planted 6 Lady Christl potatoes in buckets in the greenhouse - these will stay in there until they are ready and will hopefully give me new potatoes in May. Threw away the last pepper plant which has finally realized it is winter, and generally tidied up. Harvested a few spears of PSB which is ready about a month early.

Came home and ate some of the microgreens in a salad for lunch, along with 2 peas I found in a pod on the old Onward plants I sowed for pea shoots in October. More pods are forming. Also into the salad went a winter gem lettuce and mibuna from the spare bedroom, namenia, komatsuna and chinese celery from the garden and some alfalfa sprouts from the kitchen windowsill.

Rearranged the grow light garden and took some of the lettuces and mizuna upstairs to make room for the meteor peas I sowed a few days ago. Potted up the half pint peas into 2 litre pots - there are about 19 seedlings divided between 2 pots. These have rather had their thunder stolen by the Onward, but will hopefully give me some very early peas. These were planted in rootrainers, but I really can't get enthusiastic about them. I find it extremely difficult to water them and some of the cells were very dry, which can't do the seedlings any good at all.