well the good weather of last week has not lasted with gales and rain today, just in time for my week off. Great!

I did manage to get down to the plot on Sunday, did a good amount of digging, mostly the stuff thats been under cover which you would hope is killed off with the lack of sun but little weeds still persist. Nice afternoon in the sun listening to BBC 5live with Liverpool crushing Villa 5-0.

I was given some raspberry canes by someone who was dividing theirs up, and planted 3 each of earlies and late fruiting.
Tomorrow i will be doing some more potting up, buying more compost because the bag i bought last week seems very poor quality, plus i need more small pots.

17/3/09

Over the last few days the tomatoes Golden sweet have put on good growth, and so i potted them on, and also one of the San Marzano . The chillies all failed to germinate, and dong a bit of reading found out the one i was attempting is normally difficult and usually requires a germination solution upon sowing. I have sown some of the 'Tabasco' chillies in the meantime and also a small tray of Moneymaker tomatoes which i hope to plant outside in the plot this year.

I also sowed the indoor and outdoor cucumbers, one of the indoor germinated quickly and was looking good but today looks little limp and leaning over.

Today the weather has been lovely and after work i managed to get an hour in and dug my first potato trench, put in a good amount of the manure i got recently, and planted the first earlies 'red duke of york'. The second earlies i hope to put in sometime in the next week also. The onions are mostly starting to show some green shoots but i realised i have not put any garlic in yet, must remedy that soon.

In the shed are 2 trays of Beetroot Chioggia Pink and the greenhouse has signs of life as the tray of broadbeans are 60% germinated so far, and a tray of rainbow chard just sown yesterday.

potatoes

Today i bought my seed potatoes, and got three varieties. 'International kidney' which is a second early and the one sold as the 'jersey' potato in shops. 'Red duke of york' a first early which i need to get in the ground ASAP , and finally 'Valor' a late maincrop and a good blight resistance potato.

I also bought some seeds, purple carrots which my daughter wanted, 'tabasco' chilli peppers, rainbow chard, an indoor cucumber, and got some free beetroot seeds also.

The tomatoes have mostly germinated now but none of the chillies have started yet but they sometimes do take a little longer. I will soon sow a second load just to make sure in case they do fail to germinate.

2/3/09

Today i sowed my first chillies and tomatoes and have them currently in a heated propergator.
The chilli i started with was officially 'the worlds hottest' Bhut Jolokia
The ones i have are dried but the seller thought that i should be able grow from the seeds. I also put a tiny piece to my tongue and yes, its VERY hot. I also sowed some from a fruit that a colleague from India obtained, not sure if it propagate though.
The tomatoes were the plum variety that i did last year 'pomodoro san marzano 2' which were okay but i may try to get another plum variety anyway. The second sown was 'Golden Sweet' which i grew last year and produced loads of good small tasty orange tom's.
At the plot i finish another section of the path, to stop the stones and path slowly coming into the plot.

lets start!!!!!

I have now got down the the plot for the 'proper first time' this year, with a good couple of hours spent digging and planting. I dug in the green mustard manure that overwintered and mostly had been killed off by the recent snow, its needs to be dug in before it sets seed in spring. This will hopefully add a bit of nutrition to my soil, and i also spread the last of the bone fish blood and raked it in. My MIL had kindly got me my onion sets, 'sturon, stuttgart and turbo' and some shallots (variety unknown). This photo show the area before the sets went in......

and this is it afterwards. I forgot to bring any twine with me!, so used poles to mark the lines. I planted in order from the top sturon, stuttgart and turbo and then the shallots which didn't fill an entire row so completed it with more sturon sets. I still have left over some sets from each variety so may mix them up and do a 'pot luck' bonus row!!

Above is the bottom of the plot where i intend to put the potatoes this year, and also is the pile of manure which was delivered to the site yesterday early, and i got a phone to come and get before it all went! So at 8am i was filling wheel barrows and clearing my sinuses!! Looks like good stuff so will spread soon and probably go into this bottom part.
Below are 2 photos, the reult of an afternoon fun with the kids, my daughter wanted to plant some flowers so she sowed some sunflower seeds (first photo) which i thought might be too early but have signs of starting, the bottom tray is broad beans 'the sutton' which my son helped with great fun, as he enjoyed filling with compost and poking each bean in.

photo update

well i have only been up to photograph this month not actually done any gardening, but then whats to do??? when its a bit warmer i'll go tidy up bit more. Now its time to just go through seed catalogue's!!!!

All taken xmas eve.

massive

Its huge, one of 4 i dug up for a roast yesterday. Its about 4 times the size of a normal parsnip, the roasted ones were great and i think i have another 20 in the plot so good for a couple of months yet.

The top part of the plot with the green manure growing well, the bean trench extended and the spinach beet, carrots and chard dug up and thrown in. I know it looks odd that i did not extend the trench to the row end, but to be honest that would be far to many beans planted than we would ever eat or give away, the length of the trench currently is probably a bit ambitious anyway.

The bottom of the plot with all weeding done. Again the manure is growing, all be it thinner than at the top. Parsnips remain the only crop growing.

The center where i have pulled over the tarpaulin again although the area underneath would not take more than half a day to weed, i am just not sure when i will get to do it. Plus under cover it will dry a bit so that i can pull back and weed without the ground being to boggy.The weed area left i'll also cover and attack when possible.

The chillies hanging to dry turning red, if you look at the slideshow you'll see them at different stages of colours.

Slideshow!

I've added a slideshow on the right here which show a lot more photo's i've taken of the plot, garden and crops. also playing around with general look, what do you think?

Okay

so this update has been even longer in coming, but certainly less time than waiting for summer this year!
I felt its was time to show some photos and explain whats been happening. Summery of this year - another rained out season. No sun means little grows and only the late autumn sun meant we finally had some corgettes, but it was not enough for the other squashes to prosper, all failed. Most other things were dissapointing also, sweetcorn grew no higher than my knee, carrots very poor and small, climbing french beans rubbish - all these things i presume are down to the poor weather and probably the poor nutritional quality of my soil which i am now addressing.
The above photo is the end of the plot mostly dug over apart from the parsnips which actually seem to have done well, judging by the first pull. The strip in the middle is the failed carrots with weeds in between awaiting removal, and the top right corner is some green manure i've sown, mustard seed.
The plank in the middle is actually alongside a strip of horse manure spread over the surface.The covered part in the middle is still yet to be completely cleared mainly due to time, with the clocks going back its now impossible to get anything done in the evening, but i suppose that another winter under cover cannot do any harm and i'll target that area with green manure in the spring. I started a bean trench where the peas were this year and will extend it when i remove the spinach beet, another of the few successes this year.
The top part has also been seeded with mustard, and i am going to remove the water butt and other stuff from the wall edge to put down some covering to stop the weeds coming under the wall, generally couch grass and mares tail. I need to plan where to put the water buts and build a compost bin at some time, as well as considering where to put the permanent fruit beds (raspberry and blackberry) that i want to plant next year.