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Happy New Year!

Hoping you all had a fantastic Christmas and new year.

Despite having two energetic kittens, I am glad to say the Christmas tree stayed upright all through the holiday and suffered only one broken bauble and lost only a few of its lights due to a certain ‘nibbler’.

Anyway its been freezing and I am sure that like us many of you have had some snow, so I thought I would treat you all to a few seasonal snapshots of our garden from last year.

On New Years Eve we had a gathering and I discovered a mutual new interest in growing vegetables amongst myself and a few other friends. Probably sounding like a vegetable bore, I told them all about my trials and tribulations of 2009 but to be honest I was glad that the night had drawn in and they were unable to see the current state of the raised bed. I think I should have covered up the pepper plant as I *think* it might be dead.

Still on the bright side, the onions are still growing and there are lots of them!

Currently deciding what I would like to plant this year, I’m thinking about possibly carrots and giving the broccoli another go but that’s about it so far.

Any ideas or advice? Please let me know!

Brrrrrr its cold!

I have ice hanging off my computer screen! Maybe that’s what people mean when their computer ‘freezes’? Maybe not….

Anyhow with not a huge amount to do in the old garden at the moment, or for the past month to be fair, I thought it was about time I shared my experience with you of planting up a set of Hug Pots. If you look closely in the photos you may notice something bright, that’s the rare light known as sunshine, remember that?

Anyway for those of you who are not familiar with the Hug Pot, they are cute looking planters designed by Benjamin Hubert that weigh next to nothing.

I must admit the thought of planting up the Hug Pots conjured up childlike excitement within me, they are pretty much the only ‘fun’ looking plant pots I have and well they do look cute! I could actually imagine children enjoying planting these up as a fun gardening activity, so if you do have children you may want to bear these in mind as a fun planting activity for next year.

Well the poor rosemary must have been relieved to have been finally planted up. We had pretty much left it on the living room window sill since the summer to defend itself against a couple of hyper plant-attacking kittens, which thinking about it doesn’t really bode well for the Christmas tree! Oh well, we have only lost a couple of baubles so far so I am *sure* it will be fine.

After planting we now have our very own kitchen herb growing station consisting of mint, rosemary and lemon balm, the latter of which is currently sitting happily on the kitchen window sill.

I have to say that I really like the Hug Pots outside, the blue is particularly nice in the garden and feels quite Mediterranean (when the sun is out), and I have already had positive comments about the mint in particular, which is currently surviving quite nicely in the cold.

Oh and before I forget, the Virgin Gardener has another top tip for you! Use EPS for drainage, I am told it does the job really nicely. Unfortunately at the time I didn’t have any to hand so my Hug Pots have heavy rocks in the bottom.

Ah, the benefit of hindsight!

DB: I really need to sort out my Cultivation Station.

VG: Have you planted the cabbages I gave you yet?

DB: No not yet I need to sort out the Cultivation Station.

VG: Have you watered the cabbages yet?

DB: It rained…..

VG: *blank look*

DB: (Changing the subject) Do you know what attacks cabbages at this time of year?

VG: You are asking me? Slugs probably, they attack everything. I even spotted one after my pepper plant this morning, luminous orange it was and I could see it from the patio window.

DB: Hmm….. (wishing she hadn’t asked).

VG: You know what? I don’t understand this annual wall planner for growing vegetables.

DB: How’s that?

VG: Well it says I should be planting cabbages in February, but I got mine from the man down the road who said I could plant them now.

DB: The man down the road?

VG: Yes.

DB: Ok (puzzled). Anyway that means planting seeds and your cabbages are already grown.

VG: Oh right, so when does that mean I can harvest them?

DB: Well the best thing to do is look on the packet.

VG: But they didn’t come in a packet.

DB: I don’t know then.

Note to self: Ask man down the road when I can harvest the cabbages – usually before or at purchase – not after.
Note to readers: The man down the road is actually an employee at a plant nursery.

So we decided we should really get some winter things, plants that is and unsurprisingly there wasn’t really a lot of choice. What does like the cold?

Anyway upon deciding that the local garden centre didn’t really have what we wanted, we wandered off to the local plant nursery down the road. We spent what felt like the next ten minutes reading the backs of all the seed packets out loud to each other, placing extra emphasis upon the ‘when to sow’ guidelines.

VG: Carrots, nope, sow in January
Rich: Ooh what about this, erm no sorry that’s harvest in Autumn not sow.

And it went on….

After a period of time the previous tranquillity of the shop silence was soon broken due to our nattering, and the helpful man behind the counter must have decided that ‘now’ would be a good time to interrupt us and ask if we needed any help. Good job he did really, stopping in mid sentence we stood there with all manner of seed packets in our hands as he informed us we could only grow onions, garlic, broad beans but we were welcome to take a punt on the pre-grown cabbages in the hot house.

Well broad beans were not even to be considered. Really not a big fan of them I must admit, but I was more than happy with the onions and garlic. We decided the cabbage ‘punt’ offer sounded like a challenge we couldn’t refuse as our Cultivation Station has excellent insulation properties, and let’s be fair you can’t really go wrong for eight plants under a £1!

Once we got back home we realised that we were actually short on growing space, certainly for the amount of bulbs/plants we had just picked up. Consequently we decided to have a little growing experiment by planting some in the Cultivation Station and some in the plastic container to see which containers result in the best cabbage.

The remainder of the plants have gone to Daisyboots who I have also tasked to take up the cabbage growing challenge.

Onto part deux, welcome to the sequel about all things ‘b’.

I have to confess that the title of this post is nothing more than a show off on my part to use some of the new gardening terms I have learnt recently. Before you say it, no that doesn’t include the word ‘berries’ I had already heard of that one but I needed a third ‘B word’ to make it look good.

You know thinking about it, there would have been a time not so long ago when I thought blight was a spelling error and bolting was some new DIY term! But thanks to advice from much more knowledgeable gardeners than myself I am now learning.

Anyway time to go off on a tangent. I never had myself down as one of those people who are so totally in tune with nature that they believe plants are living organisms that have feelings.

‘Do plants feel?’
‘Can you hurt a plants feelings?’

I once read on the internet.

Well I’m sure I don’t know but I can tell you that if plants do have feelings I feel we may owe our tomato plant a huge apology.

I had grown quite fond of the blotchy, brown, blighted, twiggy mess that was once a glorious tomato plant, but the time had come for it to leave us as we were unable to save the plant or the fruit. I was all for quickly yanking the poor thing out but Rich had other ideas. Grabbing the secateurs he insisted on cutting the poor thing up into itty bitty pieces asking me after every snip if I was sure I wanted to get rid of it. By the time there was a single lonely stalk poking through the soil, second thoughts seemed a bit redundant so it quickly took up residence in the recycling bin.

The broccoli which had ‘bolted’ suffered the same fate, although I have to say minus the ‘chopping into itty bitty pieces’ and simply got chucked away – I do think it may have got the better deal!

Oh yes, and before I forget we have new strawberries! I thought the plant had gone to sleep but Rich helpfully pointed out the planting tag thing which said they were annuals. Guess that would explain it!

So in summary do plants have feelings? I hope not, and try not to think about that next time you stand on some grass!

So we finally got around to doing a bit of gardening this weekend and getting those fingers green again! With having a quieter weekend it gave us time to get loads done, so much so that I have had to break up the blog posts into several parts. So today you have the joy of part one!

I have to confess that recently our poor raised bed has been feeling a little lonely and dejected and could really do with a bit of TLC. In fact it has been such a long time that eight legged squatters have taken residence, and I just know that Daisyboots will love this photo (blight-free tomato revenge)!

How To Grow Your Potatoes

First on the list was the random experiment, more out of curiosity than anything else, we decided that we would pull up the plant and see if anything had grown. It turns out that I really shouldn’t have held my breath so far as the potatoes were concerned, because we had a crop!

Granted the potatoes were neither big nor plentiful but the potential was certainly there. Although the potatoes did not resemble the baking potato that we had originally planted, we did end up with new potatoes of sorts, based purely on size and probably not on taste.

I think the plant just needed more width and depth to be completely successful, which isn’t surprising as we did use the smaller corner planter.

However Rich was very impressed with the crop as it was just an experiment and was quite adamant that we should eat them. All I could think of at the time was that I hoped he didn’t mean the ones with mould!

With increasing enthusiasm we nearly proceeded with potato experiment number two in the central area of the Cultivation Station, but unfortunately this was not to be as I already had plans for it with the infamous beans. We will have another go next year and try the larger planter.

So we all know about my dreaded tomatoes, and how they are all ‘blighted’.

Well yesterday brought a bit of cheer to the office as Daisy Boots walked in proclaiming ‘oh yay, oh yay, would anyone like any tomatoes?’.

As she stood there dangling not one option, but two in front of me in the same way you would dangle a fish in front of a cat, she described her options of either really juicy blight free plum tomatoes or even more juicy and blight free cherry tomatoes.

Smiling I bit my tongue thinking that the blight hadn’t affected everyone then, and said ‘lovely, thank you – don’t they look nice!’

If the next growing season brings me more dreaded tomatoes that are completely blightified I will not be happy!

Firstly apologies for the blogging absence for the last week and a bit! Had a very busy weekend which involved me arguing with the sat-nav, taking a wrong left hand turn and ending up in a cycle race. No, it didn’t take me all weekend but it was one of the funnier parts of the weekend, and although I was unpopular with the cyclists I think I came first!

Anyway we are a little behind with our gardening antics at the moment, and with the nights drawing in more quickly every evening we have little time unless it’s a bit of watering.

So, updates? Well I think the tomato plant has had it. Even though we still have new fruit coming through on the plant it isn’t long before the brown patches start showing. To be fair I have heard a lot of people complaining about the dreaded blight this year, so I’m trying not to be too disheartened.

Onions are still doing fine which is good and the pink/red patches are starting to grow and look more like onions every day. After the slug ate our large pepper we are pleased to report that the small peppers are still growing and are uneaten so fingers crossed, we may get peppers after all!

The strawberry plant it has to be said is looking a little sad with its leaves flopping over the side of the Cultivation Station and the plant bearing no fruit. I do think it might be the end of the season so I am not too concerned.

Two important things we need to get done this weekend. Firstly we need to plant up the beans as the busy weekend just past meant we didn’t get round to it, so that’s a priority.

Secondly with the mornings becoming colder we need to re-pot one of the strawberry plants currently in a plastic pot into a Clover planter (utilising thermal EPS properties) to ensure it will be protected from frosts during the winter.

We still have bedding plants that need to be sorted out….…and herbs that need to be planted….. sooo much gardening to do!

Any volunteers to help?

After the disappointment from the tomato blight, I have had to remove a further eight ‘blighted’ tomatoes. There seems little I can do to save them really, so I have just removed the bad ones in hope the others will survive.

The broccoli which is flowering turns out to be, well very pretty much past it. I have been informed that the broccoli has died probably because it got too hot and dry (http://www.plant-passion.co.uk). So the insulation properties of the Cultivation Station are pretty good which means that next time we must remember to water the plants every day, because if I am honest there have been times when we have missed a few days here and there.

So that’s the bad news done and dusted, onto two pieces of good news.

Firstly the red onions are on the turn and the bases have pinkish red tinges to them, so I think that is a good sign (will take a photo for next time) and we have a new pepper on the red/green pepper plant.

 Second we have had a donation of beans for the middle of the Cultivation Station that we are hopefully planting up this weekend. I believe they are green beans but having said that they could grow tins of baked beans for all I know! That would make for quite a good picture, don’t you think?

I’m now thinking about replacing the broccoli for a winter vegetable, maybe a cabbage and then I guess I will start planning for next year.

Crop wise so far it looks like we will be living off onion soup. Onion soup all round!

So the weekend was a little disappointing, well garden wise it was. As I was lovingly attending to the plants at the weekend, I noticed something disturbing. Moving closer to the pepper plant it became apparent that the small mark on my prize pepper started to turn into a bigger mark, then a small hole then a bigger hole. In fact a slug sized hole to be quite specific and there was even a ‘trail’ of evidence.

I was gutted, and that would be putting it mildly. Granted I would have to give it marks for cutting it out perfectly, it looked almost like it had been done with a laser.

So in conclusion the Slug Stop does not work, it really doesn’t. I had a discussion with a friend who wasn’t surprised this had happened as they believe the slug eggs are already in the soil when you buy it, which would explain why I have found a few baby snails/slugs lately.

Unfortunately I have had to get some pellets, I didn’t want to, but at this rate we are not going to get anything from the plants this year, which will be a real shame as all the plants have actually grown really well. I did read the instructions for pellet application on the box but the in reality it turned out to be pretty much the same as it would be if you were applying sprinkles to ice cream. In order words, far too many of them!

So anyway I apologise to slugs and snails everywhere in advance.

In other news, the blight which has now been confirmed seems to be spreading. I keep removing affected areas but I have a horrible feeling the whole crop is going to go at this rate. Also the broccoli is flowering and doesn’t look broccoli shaped and I have no idea why. Answers on a postcard please!