End Of Year 1

So, that's the end of 2007 - not the most successful growing year I've ever had, largely thanks to a terrible summer when it never seemed to stop raining and failed to get nice and sunny when my crops needed it. I know it's a pretty typical English stereotype to complain about the weather, but it really did mess things up this year!

Things weren't all bad though; the first half of the year managed to produce some decent crops (the potatoes were fantastic!) but things like the sweetcorn were an almost total write-off.

Adding things up, this is roughly what we got out of the ground this year:

Potatoes

The big success story of this year really; from a small packet of seed potatoes, we got something like 8kg of very tasty potatoes. They kept fairly well - we don't eat potatoes at a huge rate so this lot lasted me a month or so and made some very tasty roasties!

Savoy Cabbage

We managed to eat maybe a half dozen of our summer Savoys before a combination of holidays, crappy weather and greedy wildlife brought an end to our fun. The winter Savoys were even more of a disaster, being eaten before they got a chance to grow.

Courgettes

Another mixed bag; something was eating the young plants as quickly as I put them in, so only one plant survived to adulthood - and then something was eating the fruit more often than I was getting to harvest it! That said, we had maybe 10 or so fantastic round yellow courgettes which were delicious, and loved every last bit.

Sweetcorn

As mentioned before, pretty much a disaster. We got a single corn before a short holiday followed by a total absence of the sun for what seemed like months meant that the rest of the crop never really formed up. The squirrels ate well - we didn't.

Tomatoes

The plants all had a dreadful start (largely because I messed up, didn't replace the soil in the containers very well and failed miserably to feed them) but once they got up and running they produced a small but steady supply of delicious juicy tomatoes.

And the rest...

The spinach, the carrots and even the lettuce all vanished without a trace; the wet second half of summer generated an incredible slug harvest, unfortunately, which did very well out of all my hard work.

The red onions were productive but (as the were from seed) small in size; at least nothing ate them and we had some nice fresh red onions during Autumn!


Overall then, not a great year. It's not all doom and gloom though; the potato crop alone more than covered all the costs this year, and we did get to eat some very tasty veg (the courgettes were definitely the stars!). In addition, the ground is much clearer than before (growing crops is an excellent way to reclaim an overgrown garden!) and, well, it kept me entertained.

Next year, with any luck, will be less of a washout!

Bad Timings...

Well, most of the crops are now out of the ground, one way or the other. We managed to eat the majority of the cabbage, but unfortunately the sweetcorn took much longer than I expected to ripen this year - something which I guess is down to the cool, wet summer we had when the sweetcorn just wanted lots of nice sunshine.

The practical upshot of this is that I managed to harvest a single corn (which, by all reports, was delicious) before we went away on holiday to France and, by the time we returned, the corns were fairly well past their best and starting to dry up. So the rest (well, what hasn't since been enjoyed by our local squirrels) will end up on the compost heap.

The return from France wasn't a total disaster, however - against all odds there were still some tomatoes hanging on, and even a courgette that had got quite big without being eaten by the wildlife.

This isn't quite my end of year summing up though; the onions are still in the ground and I've even pulled a couple of them up to eat - they're pretty tasty, and aside from the long growing time I've enjoyed that crop. And to think that everyone says you can't grow onion from seed!

Also still in the ground (I think) is the one surviving carrot from my late sowing experiment. They were mostly gobbled up as seedlings, but my oh-so-cunning approach of not bothering to weed anything has, I suspect, allowed this solo carrot to go un-noticed by the crop-eating birds and rodents that view my garden as their personal larder.

Still, autumn is now very much upon us and it's getting to that garden clearing and tidying time of the year. Soon I'll pull the last remaining crops, and then I'll be able to draw up a final list of everything we got to eat this year - it won't make very impressive reading, but at least it will give me something nice and easy to beat in 2008!

Tomatoes Are Go!

Well, after previously worrying about the lack of ripening, a few tomatoes are finally coming ready. The picture shows one of each variety we've grown this year - the small yellow one is Sun Baby, the largest is Diplom and the other is Shirley.

They all have fantastic (and distinct) flavours; I think my personal favourite is probably the Diplom, although to be honest they're all very good. We're not getting nearly the volume of tomatoes that we did last year (probably down to their much harder life this time around) but the few we do get really are excellent.

Around the rest of the garden, the sweetcorn is starting to swell and the 'early' cabbages remaining in the ground are still doing well, although they (along with everything else) are beginning to suffer from a real explosion of slugs. That, plus an incredible volume of weeds that have grown up while we were away, is making the whole garden look pretty untidy but hopefully I'll get some time to sort it out a little over the weekend...

Green Tomato Blues

Our tomato plants this year have been a bit of a disaster. In my defence, I never really wanted to grow them, but having been persuaded we put them into pots on the patio and crossed fingers.

As I've mentioned before, they had a terrible start until I started feeding them - something I really didn't want to do, but the soil I used must have been pretty badly drained of nutrients as they were dying until they got that feed. After that, though, the plants perked up quite a lot and even started producing flowers and, after that, little green tomatoes.

And there's the trouble. All three plants are now quite well covered in green tomatoes, all of which refuse to ripen. I know I haven't exactly been growing tomatoes for years but I have never known fruit so reluctant to ripen. I'm sure it's down to the lack of sunshine, or maybe their bad start, but it's really getting frustrating - especially as we're off on holiday next week, at which stage no doubt they'll ripen and get eaten by passing squirrels before we return!

On the subject of things being eaten, some beastie in our garden has a real taste for courgettes. Although we've had a few (very, very tasty) courgettes, more often than not I will spot one almost ready to eat only to find that when I go to harvest it the next day it's vanished. It's starting to get a little frustrating because I've seen so many flowers and small courgettes, only to never get to eat the damn things.

Honestly, the idea of a greenhouse is starting to look increasingly appealing not because I need the heat but just to keep the squirrels / birds / cats / whatever it is from eating all my crops!

Reaping and Sowing

Harvested (and ate!) our first courgette of the season this weekend; as you can see in the picture they're not your usual courgette being round and yellow - but they are delicious!

At the same time, after starting to worry that I had empty land after the potato harvest, I've started putting in the second batch of crops - winter savoy, with some lettuce between them to take up the space until the cabbages get going.

We also went for a trip to our favourite garden centre and ended up buying a couple more packets of seeds - some carrots (Bangor) which will join the lettuce between the young savoys, and some spinach (Bordeaux) which has gone in underneath the sweetcorn. The reasoning with the spinach is that apparently it likes to be shaded, and there's plenty of shade under the corn while having plenty of earth free - they really are like mini trees now!

So that means even more (!) money spent on seed this year, adding another £3.10 to the budget. On the other hand, the courgette came in at a little over 200g and the plant is totally covered with flowers and mini-courgettes so I think we're going to do very well out of that.

Potatoes Harvested

This weekend saw the rest of the potatoes harvested. The plants had suffered somewhat from the windy weather, stalks all looking fairly battered and broken so it seemed best to just dig them all up, rather than risk my precious crop rotting in the ground.

The total quantity didn't quite live up to the promise of the first two plants, but it still exceeded the weight that my kitchen scales were capable of weighing! It all came in at a little over 6kg, so that's a grand total of 8kg of organic (ish) potatoes for the £4 or so the seed potatoes cost me. I know that I could have got the yields up if I had only bothered to earth up the plants (or indeed to anything other that stick them in the ground and wait 4 months!) but I'm still pretty pleased with the result.

For comparison purposes I've tried finding the 'going rate' for organic heritage potatoes - it doesn't seem fair to look at the price of Tesco Value pots! - and they seem to be around £22 or £23. Not bad at all.

We also picked the first summer savoy, which is delicious - happily they seem to be hearting up fairly staggered, so we're not going to be in a panic to eat a dozen cabbages over a three day period.

I've also put some winter savoy seeds into my little seed pellet things, which will go into the space freshly vacated by the potatoes. No point in letting ground go unused - which is why I've also put in the first row of lettuces which can sit between the cabbages until they start growing up.

Next thing to decide is if I'm going to try and squeeze any more crops out of the space soon to be vacated by the summer savoys; it'll have to be something pretty fast growing, and I'll have to start praying for an indian summer, but I may as well try!

Healthcheck

The tomatoes - which were a source of concern earlier - have recovered totally after I finally decided they needed feeding. All three plants are growing strong, and each of them have at least a few green tomatoes hanging off them.

The courgettes are just starting to form; I can see two or three round yellow fruit lurking there and soon I'll have to work out at what stage I'm supposed to pick them! The 'backup' plants I put in aren't doing so well - one has been eaten by whatever it is that has such a taste for courgette seedlings, and the other is struggling and barely growing at all. Still, it might pick up.

The first batch of potatoes are pretty much eaten, which is just as well as a couple of the remaining plants look really unhealthy - I think their stalks have got broken by the wind we've had lately, so I really need to pull those now. Good timing, though.

Savoys are getting very close, I expect we'll be enjoying them at the weekend. The onions and sweetcorn continue to grow, albeit slowly. I remember from last year thinking how sluggish the sweetcorn was being, but it's just a matter of patience - they start their growth spurt later than the other things I'm growing this year.

The potato harvest raises some interesting questions, as I'm about to have a small patch of bare earth. I may just put some lettuce in there for a quick crop, but I'm also wondering if I can get away with planting out some seriously late winter savoy.

First Harvest

Well, after agonising about the right time to start lifting the potatoes I finally started digging some up this weekend. I was slightly concerned that I would be forced to harvest all of them in one go, but it turns out that the plants are fairly self-contained so I only pulled two plants.

Total harvest was slightly over 2kg, so if I keep to that rate I should get something like 10kg of potatoes for my initial outlay of £4 or so. My beloved was determined that I should get more pictures into this blog so helpfully stood over me snapping away as I dug!
They're not quite as 'blue-skinned' as the description made them sound - I'd say it was closer to purple. It's also slightly disappointing that most of the colour comes out of them as they're boiled - however, they really are delicious (although it's always hard to know how much of that is real and how much is wishful thinking!)

In other news, the Summer Savoy is starting to heart up very well, the onions are beginning to look like proper onion plants and the surviving courgette plant is growing like there's no tomorrow - so we should eat well in a few weeks time...

Still Raining!

Yes, despite the fact that it's June and therefore supposed to be hot, dry and sunny it's none of the above - more like cold, wet and cloudy.

On the up side, this means I haven't had to water anything for the last month (ironically, since I bought a really clever drip-watering system that feeds off the water butt - I'll talk about that more if it ever dries up enough for me to try it out!).

On the down side, things are now so wet that this is what most of my lawn is now looking like!

Positive Progress

So, things have been a little quiet for the last few weeks - mainly because it's not stopped raining long enough for me to get out into the garden very often!

On the courgette front, I sowed a couple more seeds to replace the plant that got broken and planted them both out - I had to dig a little bit more of the garden to make room for two plants, which is actually quite a landmark because for the first time I started digging across the garden, having finally reached the back!

On the tomato front, I did some further investigation. The picture shows what was happening to the leaves, and my new improved guess was a manganese deficiency - I managed to track down a general tomato feed which included manganese and I'm pleased to say they are looking much, much healthier now. So, big relief there!

The potatoes are pretty much ready to be dug up any time now, I think. I'm hoping for a brief break in the weather (and I need to work out how to store them!) but it will be this years first crop to get eaten. Very exciting stuff.

The cabbages continue to make good progress, and so far don't seem to have been found by the cabbage whites - probably because it's been raining so much. They're just starting to heart up so I'm guessing they will be next to come ready - the onions are slowly growing but it does seem to be very slow progress and I can't see them being ready any time soon.

In unexpected news, the garlic (that I, err, lost last year in the herb patch!) has re-appeared. This time around I intend to keep a closer eye so that I can pull them up when the leaves start to die back rather than waiting until the leaves have totally vanished - at which point I can no longer find them!

Death and Disease!

I've been mostly hiding from the rain recently; it really has been fairly cold and miserable for the time of year. What's kept me positive has been the thought that all this rain will be good for the garden, but I'm less sure now.

Most things have been going quite well; there is some physical damage in the form of a broken stalk or two in the potatoes (which I'm not too bothered about) and, far worse, one of my two courgette plants has been snapped off at the bottom. It's impossible to guess what's done it but as it seems to be more of a snap than a bite, I'm assuming it's some animal (my money's on a cat... grrr...) being careless rather than something eating it. Let's just hope courgettes work with only one plant!!

In far worse news, our tomatoes are looking dreadfully ill, which I'm hoping is just an overwatering problem with all this rain. The leaves are just dying off, brown and 'splotchy' and yellowing too. It could be some sort of disease, but it doesn't quite match up to anything in my book which might be a good sign.

It's been dry for a few days, and the new leaves certainly don't look affected although it's hard to know how quickly they were being affected before. I suppose all I can really do is wait and see; nature is pretty robust, so I'm hoping that they will sort themselves out given time (and a little less rain!)

I think the rain may have washed away most of my slug pellets too, as there are a couple of nibbled looking leaves on my cabbages - time for some more chemical death, I suppose. I wish there was a better solution, but the only organic options seem to be some kind of gritty powdery stuff that forms a physical barrier, but which needs replacing every time it rains.

More Planting

I managed to get the courgettes and sweetcorn - growing fantastically in their little pots - planted out, with much less drama (and carnage!) than previous attempts. While part of me accepts that using these things are kind of cheating, I just have so much more success than trying to do it the traditional seed-tray way that I'm willing to cheat. Besides, I figure the increased survival of seedlings more than outweighs the additional cost of the pots.

Only 2 of my courgettes put in an appearance, and 11 sweetcorn - just the right number, considering the spaces I'd planned for them. Well, the courgettes have a very generous amount of space but with luck they'll grow into huge plants.

The potatoes are coming on incredibly well, and are now flowering. I never quite got around to earthing them up (well I always said I was lazy) but I've not noticed any tubers peeking through, and if it just means a slightly lower yield then, well, I'm willing to pay that price for eliminating a tedious job. We'll see come harvest time!

On other news, the cabbages are beginning to put in a good show. They started to get eaten much like last year, but this time instead of blaming pigeons I have to admit I noticed a few slug trails. Putting my organic gardener aside, I was fairly generous on the slug pellets and my garden is now filled with dead slugs (which isn't great) and uneaten cabbage seedlings (which is!). It seems I was maligning the pigeons.

Finally, we picked up some tomato plants at the garden centre, which I've put into containers, as we don't really have any room for them. We got three different plants, 'Sun Baby', 'Diplom' and the more traditional 'Shirley'. With luck we should get an interesting mix of tomatoes this year, if I can keep them watered!

The End Is Nigh

Today saw a respite in the rain, so I took the opportunity to push further back in the clearing - I'm going to declare it pretty much done (well, the first pass clearing anyway) because although there are a few little branches still lurking it's all minor stuff.

I'm still in two minds about whether to bother with the really serious digging; there's only a couple of courgette plants going in there, and I'm seriously tempted to let them break up the soil this season in the hopes that any remaining roots will be well loosened come the autumn. Part of me worries that I'm just inventing this kind of logic as an excuse to avoid digging, but I'm probably going to let myself give in and avoid the extra work!

There's always a price to pay, and this time it's in the form of a rather annoying blister on my index finger - probably from all the grubbing around in the soil and yanking roots out. Still, at least it looks like I've been doing some real work for a change.

In other news, last weekend was raining too much to get out but instead I sowed the courgettes and sweetcorn in the little expanding soil pot things (I really ought to look up their name!) - remarkably they've made great progress and are already standing a couple of inches tall and eagerly awaiting the fresh air!

Gardening Inspector

I've noticed that this blog is a little "image-lite", so I thought I'd show you who it is that keeps an eye on me and makes sure I'm doing a good job. This little robin (and his friend) spent this weekend watching me like a hawk, and waiting patiently for me to dig up food and nesting material for him!

This weekend saw a new experience for me - serious weeding. Previous years have been sufficiently chaotic and disorganised that I've pretty much put stuff in the ground, failed to thin it out, and ignored it until it was time to eat. There was a positive lawn underneath the sweetcorn by the time I finished last year.

This time around I've been far more organised, had more ground cleared, and have planted things out at more sensible distances. The upside is that things should grow bigger and better; the downside is that weeds can actually make progress! So this weekend saw me on my hands and knees actually pulling out weeds - an experience which really took me back to childhood.

I also started work on the last couple of yards at the back of the garden, which I need to clear PDQ as that's where the courgettes are scheduled to go. I got probably 2/3rds of the way through (sadly the remaining third has a large tree stump in it!) on a first pass; hopefully the deep digging will go a lot quicker now.

Perhaps that needs explaining. I'm now getting right back into areas of the garden that haven't been touched for decades, apart from me hacking down bushes when they got out of control. That means that the ground is full of weeds and roots (mostly bramble, and some unidentifiable tree/bush stuff) and is damn hard work to get into. So what I do as a first pass is to pull up anything I can, and dig over just the top few inches with a hand fork, getting out what roots I can. Any biggish roots I'll try and excavate and get rid of as best I can. After that, I can give it a proper dig with a fork (only a fork deep, mind - I'm not crazy!) and it goes a lot easier after that first pass.

Happily it's been raining ever since, which is (a) good for the crops, and (b) gives me some time to recover before having to go and do that second pass digging!

Growing Nicely...

Well, since my last update I've done little more than some light weeding, and the occasional watering.

In return, the final potato plant has put in an appearance, and despite looking like some have been sat on by birds, squirrels or cats, even all 13 cabbage plants continue to grow strongly. They've got over that initial transplant 'hiccup' and they're all well into their 'proper' leaves now.

The onions look more and more positive, and the spring onions are bravely trying to put in a show - although so far they're the least convincing crop.

Having started some of my crops far too early, I'm now beginning to feel jumpy about how late I've left others. I have sweetcorn and courgettes earmarked to go in, and they should be started Real Soon Now - the ground is clear for the sweetcorn but I'm uncomfortably aware that I need to do some digging if I'm going to have anywhere for the courgettes to go. But perhaps if I've got the seedlings sitting on the window sill taunting me, that will push me into getting on with it.

I've also realised that I've managed to allocate all the space and not leave any room for leeks - happily they're pretty flexible about when they get planted, so if the spring onions pull their fingers out, I should be fine. Or maybe it's a sign that I should clear some more ground...!

Spring Has Sprung

I have to confess, in the last couple of weeks I've been feeling a little negative about this whole gardening lark - the potatoes appeared to have just vanished, the onions had a disasterous planting out, and things were looking pretty bad.

However, nature has finally noticed that spring is here, and things are growing with enthusiasm. My potato plants have finally put in an appearance (well, 9 out of the 10 I planted anyway), the cabbages seem to have endured my green "planting out" fingers and even the onions - which I were certain had died - are finally showing signs of going green once more, and actually starting to grow.

At the same time, the twig that is our little fig tree is putting out in impressive array of budding leaves, and it's starting to look like things are going to grow in our garden this year after all!

Cabbages Are Go!

This weekend saw me finally getting around to putting out the summer cabbages; as they were in pots rather than seed trays the process went a lot better than the onions, although it was still a bit of a battle.

My problem this time around was simply that I hadn't compacted the soil in the pots very well (read: at all) - I'd thought I was being kind to my little seedlings and keeping it easy for them, but the upshot was that when I upended the pots all the soil fell out and I was left holding a very naked looking plant. So there's something to remember for next time, although now I've got my pellets I'll mostly be using them!

The positive side of starting them in pots and then planting them out is that this year each plant has plenty of room around it, so hopefully they'll be a lot happier and heart up more enthusiastically - time will, no doubt, tell.

My onions, however, continue to look rather like they're all dying. I think I can put this one down to experience; I'll stick to pellets and pots from now on until I'm feeling more confident about using seed trays without killing everything.

Natural Control

As I think I've mentioned previously, I tend to take a partly-organic approach to growing in that I don't like to be using chemicals to combat pests. Last year the price I paid was that the pigeons and the cabbage white butterflies probably ate more cabbage than I did, but in the main I'm pretty content to share my crops with nature.

That doesn't mean I don't intend to discourage the beasties though, which is at least part of the reason for our more recent purchase - we got ourselves a bird feeder (well two actually, a seed feeder and a peanut one). My reasoning is that the more birds we have visiting the garden, the more likely some of them are to eat up the various bugs trying to scoff my crops.

Of course the other risk is that the birds themselves will be eating it instead, but it's worth a try - and of course it's nice to encourage the birds in anyway. For a few years I've had a robin who comes and watches me when I'm working in the garden, and it would be nice to think he'll bring some friends along to have a snack while I dig.

We've probably managed to do this at just the wrong time of year - the birds are hardly starving right now! - but we've already seen a blue tit, which is the first time I can remember seeing one in our garden since we've lived here, which is pretty exciting. Now if I can just train them to chase the pigeons away, I'll be a happy man...

More Shopping!

I have to confess that I have a bit of a weakness for garden centres (I wonder what that says about me!) and this whole crop-growing business gives me an excellent excuse to visit them.

This weekend we popped into the best garden centre I've found in the area, Burston Garden Centre, which is just a little bit out of Watford. It actually has an impressive range of just about everything, and I've never gone there and been unable to find what I was looking for - something worthy of a shameless plug!

I actually popped in there during the last week (well, I was passing the front door!) and managed to pick up a couple of small items - firstly some of these really cool little compressed pellets; just add water and they expand up into little net-wrapped pots you can plant seeds in, and then plant out directly when they're big enough. It's my answer to the trauma of the seed trays I mentioned last time.

The other purchase then was the last few seeds; some odd-looking courgettes called 'One Ball' which, as the name suggests, are spherical - and also some 'companion planting' in the form of Limnanthes Douglasii, which are widely acknowledged as very good for attracting both bees (for pollenation) and hoverflies (for eating all manner of nasty things) as well as being pretty.

I had been meaning to keep a very careful tally, but of course that would have required me to keep hold of receipts and write things down as I go along; here's my best attempt at a total for the season (excluding some bits I'll talk about later!)

• Summer savoy cabbage seeds - £2.49


• Red onion seed - £1.99


• Sweetcorn seeds - £1.99


• Seed Potatoes - I'm a little hazy but I think around £4.00


• Courgette seeds - £3.00


• Limnanthes Douglasii - £1.99


• Cool little pellets for seedlings - £5.00 or so

Gosh. Well that adds up to less than £20 for the year; at least that gives me a target for the volume of food I need to produce!

Planting Out

Having partly convinced myself that the risk of serious frost must be fading by now, and that the onion seedlings were (a) reasonably hardy and (b) desperately crowded and needing to get out of the seed tray, I planted them out this weekend.

I'm not sure they survived the process terribly well; my fingers aren't anywhere near green enough to transplant them like that without them suffering considerable trauma - especially as I'd never got around to thinning them out. Time will tell if they get it together (right now they're lying down in a not-very-happy way) but I think the big lesson for me here is to start seedlings off in pots or similar, so I don't kill them when I come to plant them out.

Oh well, I still have plenty of seeds so even if they die, I started early enough that I can recover!

On a brighter note, I'd sown the early cabbages more carefully and they seem to have transplanted quite happily into pots - I'm now eagerly awaiting their first true leaves to appear, which is (apparently!) when you're supposed to plant them out.

Lastly on the planting front, I came across an old packet of spring onions so I put in a row of them behind the dying onions - the theory being that they crop quickly, and because I can sow them direct into the ground I don't need to worry about transplanting them later.

Doh!

Well, it appears as though the Weather Gods, at the very least, are regular readers here. No sooner have I (rashly!) put in the potatoes, the weather forecast is suddenly threatening us with winter returning, and possibly even snow!

Being a highly resourceful chap (or possibly just a useful mix of lucky and lazy) I managed to give the lawn it's first cut of the year last weekend, and decided to leave the cuttings on the grass rather than tidily picking them all up and putting them onto the compost heap.

I've read all sorts over the years arguing both sides of this; half the world thinks it's a good idea and the other half is convinced it will ruin your lawn. Well, my lawn isn't exactly a masterpiece but leaving the cuttings on it never seems to harm it very much and to my mind is a sort of lazy man's approach to composting in situ :-)

Anyway, the practical upshot of this is that I had readily available a big pile of grass clippings, which I've gathered up and layered over the freshly-planted potatoes in the hope that it will provide a little insulation and help them through the cold snap.

Oh, and of course the onion seeds I planted a little while back have grown unexpectedly enthusiastically and are now crying out to be planted out. I think they might have to wait until after the snow though...

More Crops Go In!

This weekend we finally got a bit of a break in the weather; although the year has started very warm, it's also been raining so much that I've not really managed to get out into the garden very often - it's either actually raining, or so soggy that doing any work is pretty tricky.

However, this weekend came after a relatively dry week, and came with some glorious sunshine too. Plus, I managed to find a garden centre last week which had some very interesting looking potatoes - so these year's will be Edzell Blue.

I finally managed to dig back as far as I'd intended, and straightened out the bed so it's now a straight(ish) line rather than they meandering border it used to be. When I'd started clearing ground I'd tended to follow the line of surviving grass (to minimize my work!) but this did have the effect of some pretty random shaped beds.

After all that digging I put the potatoes in; yes, I know it's pretty early but they are a 2nd early variety and it's turning out so warm this year I reckon we're well passed the risk of significant frost. I did just see a squirrel taking some serious interest in my freshly dug garden though, so it might not be frost I lose my potatoes too!

In other news, the onion seed has sprouted wonderfully and will soon be ready to go out into the big bad world. I also sowed the early savoy seeds to get them started good and early - as I mentioned previously I'm going to try and push them out a little early, and tag a second crop of the regular savoy after them in the same plot.

I think the next task will be to dig the final couple of yards back to the sheds, which will be my courgette space - well, that and buy some courgette seeds of course!

First Seeds Sown!

It's been pretty wet and unpleasant since, well, the New Year almost - and because of my general lack of organisation (i.e. I didn't do anything during autumn!) I've got lots of digging and ground-clearing that I really need to do. It's a bit frustrating because if it could only be dry for a few days in a row I'd be able to get out and at least finish clearing the space I've got mentally marked out for the potatoes.

Which reminds me, really must buy some seed potatoes soon!

Anyway, the main reason for this post is that despite the generally lousy weather I managed to at least get some of the early seeds into seed trays - the red onions are the first ones to go in, and sometime probably next week the early savoy will also need to be sown.

So anyway, a short post but something to celebrate - 2007's crops are on their way (assuming any of the seeds actually germinate!)

Hunting for Seeds

My original plan this year was to do plenty of research about the exact varieties I wanted to grow, and then turn to the Internet. Too often in previous years I've gone to the garden centre with a specific variety in mind only to find that it's not available and I have to choose between the 2 or 3 varieties they do have.

With that in mind, I'd examined my Group 1 list and come to the conclusion (because my book mentioned them!) that Dickson was a fun-sounding sweetcorn. So, to the internet!

Ah. Seems that nobody on the planet actually sells this stuff (I'm beginning to suspect that the author of my book just put them in there to annoy me) so I'll fall back to the garden centre route - admittedly that was partly because I like wandering around garden centres and this seemed like an excellent excuse.

So, we headed off this week to have a nose around and successfully found some 'Lark F1' sweetcorn, which is often mentioned as "incredibly sweet" so that will keep the wife happy (I don't actually like to eat sweetcorn, but I love growing it and my wife loves to eat it).

Of course, it's not possible to only buy one thing in a garden centre so we somehow also ended up with some red onion seeds - I'd half-heartedly considered growing some onions anyway, but I'd left it out of the list for some reason. Still, I was persuaded to give them a go so we'll see how it goes - they shouldn't take up too much space so it shouldn't cause a problem.

And, err, some more savoy. No, I don't quite know how that happened. This time it's a summer maturing variety, Estoril F1 - what I think I'm going to try, therefore, is to get them in really early and plant our old savoy a little late, and squeeze two crops out of the same space. Not entirely convinced the timings work according to the seed packets but I reckon that something will grow...!

Final Food of 2006!

Just a quick note of a landmark; the last crop of 2006 - the tomatoes in the freezer - went into the pot today, in a very tasty pasta sauce!

2007 Crop Selection - Part 1

So, now is the time when we have to start planning what to grow this year. Now every year I draw up a big list, only to only grow half of it because either I don't get around to buying the seeds, or planting them, or simply clearing the ground - I'm far too optimistic about my progress on that front!

So, this time around Ive split my plans into 3; the first group are definites, and I've the space to grow them right now. The second are probables, and assuming I manage to complete the clearing that I'm (conservatively) hoping to, will fit nicely.

The last group are 'nice to have' crops; I hope to get to them but it's dependent on me doing a reasonable amount of work so it might not come off!

Group 1

• Leeks (Musselburgh) - we still have seeds left over from last year and they were delicious; this time I'll take better care of them!


• Savoy (Ormskirk) - again, left over from last year.


• Sweetcorn (a supersweet variety TBD) - always pleasing to grow!

Yes, I know I said that I'd never grow Savoy again, but my wife is determined! This year I'll do a couple of things different - first I'll protect them a little better from the birds at the start, and secondly I'm going to look into some sort of 'companion planting' to address the butterfly problems...

Group 2

• Courgette (Golden Zucchinni or Gold Rush) - I've never grown them but I'm told their easy and tasty!


• Garlic - I'll try it again this year, but in a slightly more controlled manner so I don't lose them like I did last year


• Potatoes (Majestic?) - not too decided on the variety yet, hopefully we can find something unusual to try

As I said, I know where these will all go, even if the ground is currently occupied by weeds and bushes!

Group 3

• Carrots (intermediate root) - something sweet and tasty


• Lettuce (Sherwood) - we happen to have an old packet of seeds lurking, although I don't know if they're till viable


• Tomatoes - from seed. I've not done it before, and I'm always frustrated buying tomato plants because I go in with a specific variety in mind, only to find they don't have any real choice

So that's the first step done; the next step is to figure out where we get the seeds from, and to pin down the precise varieties we'll go for!

2006 Crop Roundup

After the final harvest of our savoys last week, I thought I'd take the opportunity this week to review what we actually got around to producing through 2006.

I say "got around to producing" because, as usual, I'd come up with a hugely over-ambitious list of things I intended to grow (on the equally excessive assumption that I would manage to clear a lot more of the garden than I eventually did) so I only ended up growing half the things I had on my list!

Anyway, the ones that actually got into the ground where:

Savoy Cabbage

I've already talked about these; they were a big success in the sense that they took up a big chunk of space, looked very "agricultural" and certainly kept the weeds at bay.

However, they were also hugely successful in attracting a variety of wildlife that enjoyed my crop far more than me and that, combined with a total failure on my part to manage them, thin them out, or do anything to fight the wildlife meant that the actual volume of food we got out of them was pretty poor.

Still, they looked very pretty, covered with all these little white butterflies!

Sweetcorn

Something of a staple, these were the first things I planted when I started this a few years ago (indeed, 2006's crop used up the last seeds from that original seed packet) and always very satisfying. They're big, bold plants that shoot up good an tall, and reliably produce anything up to 3 corns each.

Ok, so in terms of volume not too great (compounded by the fact that I don't actually like sweetcorn, so my wife has to eat it all) but very, very satisfying to grow and nicely low-impact too.

The other nice thing about sweetcorn is that there doesn't seem to be any pest issues; almost every corn I pick has an earwig or two, but it doesn't seem to affect the plant and they don't seem to actually eat anything.

Leeks

I think my total lack of knowledge caused the most problems here. I planted the leek seeds, only for nothing to happen for weeks. I assumed that I'd messed up, and gave them up as a lost cause.

A few weeks later, a few tiny thin stalks were putting in an appearance but to be honest I didn't pay very close attention. Not too long after that they were somewhat hidden by a combination of out-of-control savoys and looming sweetcorn, so they continued to get quite badly neglected.

Come winter, the sweetcorn was gone, the savoys were being pushed back and I realised there were some very normal looking leeks in the ground, which we duly dug up and ate - delicious!

Because I'd ignored them, and hadn't read much about them, I didn't do any of the earthing up that would have blanched more of the stalks but it wasn't a big problem (and it meant there wasn't loads of dirt in the layers); one to be remembered for next year though.

Tomatoes

Swings and roundabouts, this one. I bought 4 little plants from the garden center and rather foolishly just planted them in the ground and let them get on with it.

What I now know is that I should have pinched out their shoots at some point to discourage them from exploding into huge rambling bushes, which is of course exactly what they did. I've only grown tomatoes in containers before, so it's never been such a problem. Still, it's something I've learned.

The second problem was out of my control - the weather. We had a very hot, dry period right up to the point where the fruits were forming. Then we went through a period with lots and lots of rain, the fruit swelled and all the skins split. We probably lost half the (fairly heavy) crop of tomatoes to that, but we still had plenty to eat through.

In fact, we still have a bag of them in the freezer!


Next week, it will be time to draw up the list of 2007's crop and hopefully stick to it!

Final Harvest

This weekend saw the final harvest of 2006's crops - the last few stragglers from the disastrous Savoy cabbage experiment.

We added Savoy to the crop list last year because we both love them - especially my wife. However, they're far too high maintenance for me to bother with this year, for a number of reasons.

Firstly, just as with the leeks I planted them in a 'seed bed' with good intentions of transplanting them according to instruction, only to never quite get around to it. I thinned them out a little but they did grow up too close to each other, which was probably one of the reasons they never really developed a decent heart.

However, they were by far the most pest-blighted thing I've ever grown in my life. Birds (my money is on pigeons, but I'm aware that this might be influenced by my generally low opinion of pigeons!) took delight in eating a lot; they'd take whole seedlings to start, and big lumps out of even more grown-up plants. Then of course the infamous Cabbage White butterfly (in it's many variations) feasted almost continuously on them.

One of the principals I've always worked on crop-wise is that I don't want to be using chemicals on them; not so much from a fanatical 'organic' perspective - I happily weed-killed the lawn, for example - but because it seems a waste to be pouring expensive chemicals on what is, essentially, a very cheap foodstuff. I'm happy to share my harvest with the local beasties, and if I find them taking the majority (like with these Savoys) then I just remember not to bother with them again. Yes, I could use nets but frankly I'm far, far too lazy.

By the time they should have been cropping, the cabbages had failed to heart up and the leaves were riddled with holes courtesy of the various beasties that had taken their share. I'd already surrendered to be honest, so I didn't pay them much attention. However, come the end of the year the surviving plants had shot up and produced some small, relatively unblighted hearts which made excellent eating, and kept us fed for a good few meals.

Certainly nowhere near the volume that we should have harvested from that number of plants, but better than nothing. And very tasty, of course!

Once the last few plants were harvested, and mindful of the predicted frost and snow coming in this week, I forked over all the ground we grew in last year (fighting back the grass trying to reclaim the old sweetcorn patch!) - if I'm feeling strong I'll try to dig some fresh land, and drive the crop area right back to the far end of the garden for this year. The only trouble with that plan is that the far end has just been a bramble and ivy den for the last 20 years, so it's damn hard work.

Still, it's more fun than going to the gym.

The only food remaining from last year now is a bagful of tomatoes lurking in the freezer; next time I'll try and account for everything that was grown, although I didn't record it in any particular depth. Now we need to sit down and figure out what's getting grown in 2007...

Last of the Leeks

Well, last week saw the last of the leeks from last year harvested.

The leeks (in common with the cabbages; more on those next time) were a bit of a surprise crop. I'd never grown them before, so in my typical spring-fueled enthusiasm last year I bought some seeds and put them in what I'd decided to call my 'seed bed', full of good intentions to follow the instructions and transplant them to their final location once they'd grown a little.

Then nothing happened, for a considerable time, and I just sort of assumed that they'd been eaten by birds, slugs, ants, or possibly abducted by aliens. In true 'lazy gardener' style, I just sort of accepted their fate and stopped worrying about them.

Some time later I noticed that finally these grass-like stalks were appearing. This posed something of a problem for me, because by this time I didn't actually have anywhere to put them. My master plan had been to expand them out into the other half of the 'seed bed', but that was now filled to overflowing with the cabbage that I'd also not transplanted.

So, long story short I adopted my standard policy of 'ignoring them'.

Fast forward to last autumn, and I find that I've got two or three rows of reasonable size leeks; they've had a hard year what with being under giant cabbages and sweetcorn, and because I've ignored them I haven't done any of the blanching that I was supposed to do (apparently if you bank up the soil around them - sort of like potatoes I guess - the lack of light extends the white section) but I wasn't too bothered as I quite like the green bit anyway!

So over winter we've had a reasonable supply of delicious leeks - certainly not a big crop, but a total bonus considering I'd given them up for dead very early on.

The last couple were pulled up last week (and disappeared into a very tasty blue cheese risotto), marking almost the end of the crops from last year. There's still a meals-worth of savoy cabbage lurking out there, though...!

Introduction

Welcome to this diary of mine!

This is my attempt to keep a record of my continuing efforts to use our little garden to produce something useful in the form of food. It's something that I've done (on a very small scale!) for the last few years, and that I've always intended to try and keep better track of.

Being a geek at heart, a blog seemed like the ideal way to do that, so here we are!

I'm a seriously lazy, fair-weather gardener, which explains why after living in this house for over 12 years the decrepit sheds are still at the bottom of the garden, and I've only cultivated about 4 square yards. Still, progress has been slow but steady and my target for this year is to reclaim one entire side of the garden from the weeds.

I'm also a fairly lazy blogger, but my intention is to make sure that I update this diary at least once a week to keep track of what's planned, what's growing and (ultimately!) what's being harvested!

The Plot

All my growing efforts take place in our back garden. It's not a particularly big garden; it's roughly 5 yards wide and in terms of useable ground, around 10 yards long. That's ignoring the delightful 70's crazy-paved patio at the house end, and the rapidly disintegrating sheds at the far end.

So in that space there's the remains of a fairly traditional London garden; there's a patch of rough, dandelion- and clover-filled lawn in the middle, with beds running up either side. I say 'beds', but that really is rather generous - it's more like 'less grassy bits'.

At the time of writing (the start of 2007) there's roughly half of one side actually in growing use - by which I mean, most of the stuff growing there last year was deliberate, and we even managed to eat some of it. A similar amount on the other side is taken up with a compost heap (and very cool 'green cone') and a herb bed. Well, I say herb bed - mainly it's a wilderness filled with rampant mint plants, with the occasional bit of rosemary bravey hanging on.