Posts Tagged ‘Grow Your Own’

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.

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Busy time all round with the Bank Holiday and all. A couple of updates but I’ll begin with part one, an amusing Snail tale….

I used to be very good at throwing but I realised it wasn’t really my strong point when, slightly enraged,  I accidentally  relocated the first snail I found on the Cultivation Station the other week to the neighbours garden. I confess that in my quick thinking I forgot to take a picture to show you all, so this where this blog post is going to get amusing.

Once I realised I did in fact need photos to put on this blog I decided to find another snail and just remake the scene, but I couldn’t find a single one. I looked everywhere, behind bushes, under leaves, near the fences and in every conceivable nook and cranny I could find. But there wasn’t a single one to be found.

So I next enlisted help and was told quite categorically ‘no’. Anyway Rich finally came around to the idea and it was a good job he did as he found one in the front garden.

Never in all my life had I ever been so happy to see a snail. I really have to wonder what the neighbours must think…. ‘weirdo’s is all that springs to mind at the moment.

So I put the snail back on the Cultivation Station where I had found the original and it seemed a bit sleepy or dead, I wasn’t sure which at the time so we decided to go for a quick walk and see if we could find anymore. We could only find slugs, slugs and more slugs but no snails. By the time we had got back to the garden, Mr/Mrs Snail had woken up and was well on their way to yummy scrummy plant delicacies , and I have to say they are actually quick movers.

As it happened this snail quite liked the look of the potato plant, and me being slightly amused that it wanted to eat the most random thing in our raised bed, I couldn’t help but leave it a bit longer and take more photos. Rich on the other hand is quite partial to his potato plant so it wasn’t much longer after we noticed holes appearing where the snail had been that he insisted we remove it and call it a night.

Things we do for photography! Probably just me…enjoy the photos.

So after the slug fiasco I forgot to tell you that the red onions finally appeared the other day.
I was getting worried that they had died, or that I had planted the bulbs in the wrong way and that they were making their way to Australia. But, that wasn’t the case, and like a mad woman I ran out into the garden in the pitch black in my dressing gown, armed with a camera.

I call this photos… ‘Onion by Night’’.  Possibly art?

Oh and finally I also have to report that the random experiment is looking, well pretty random. We have had people saying that we may get potatoes off of it, and some have said we won’t – only time will tell!

This is what I found!

‘How could you?!’ I cried

 No response from the slug

‘Grrr’.
I ran into the house and grabbed the camera to collect photographic evidence.  Still in a state of mild anger I then proceeded to prod them with the stick (known affectionately as the slug-o-pult) until they let go.

(By the way that huge hole in the slug wasn’t me – I think it’s a breathing hole or something.)

Anyway, we then had words about our deal.

So, although I was a little, ok well very unhappy, I did decide not to kill them but to ‘eject’ them from the garden using my slug-o-pult.  It’s very easy to use, coax one slug onto the end of a stick, let it take hold, then draw back the arm and release with force.

I have to report that out of the two slugs that I managed to coax onto the slug-o-pult, only one actually made it over the fence to freedom, the other one made it to the fence and is currently still at large.

That aside I did feel bad for a split second as I heard the thud on the fence panel and I murmured ‘oops’, but it shouldn’t have munched my lettuce!

..…poor thing…sorry.

Despite my scepticism I have to report that the ‘random experiment’ is growing, and at a very fast rate, in fact it seems to be getting bigger every day. Consequently we have topped up the potato compost but it still seems to be shooting through. I can’t wait to see if we actually get any potatoes off of it, if anyone knows how long it will be before we can harvest the potatoes please leave a comment.

In other news we have also had our first strawberry! It was really nice and sweet, and probably all the sweeter because it came from our very own strawberry plant in our garden!

The strawberry plants are continuing to crop really well at the moment which is encouraging. In fact we have been told that we have another strawberry plant growing as there is and I quote, ‘a knuckle’. So you will be able to see that we have planted this shoot in another pot away from the Cultivation Station to see if we get another plant.

There comes a time when you think tiny things please tiny minds. I have to say that in my case, it’s true, because we have more shoots! Yes the spring onions have finally come through. Still waiting on the red onions but this is good, this is progress.  Maybe the rain dance worked?

In other news we decided to plant up a Lucky Clover with the lettuces I mentioned in the previous post, there would have been more photos but Rich got distracted at the time.

The Lucky Clover does look nice planted up, but we are supposed to stack three planters together so I am currently thinking about what to plant in the

other two layers. Any suggestions do let me know!

Hi! My name is Chez, I’m 25 years old and have just moved into my first home with my boyfriend Rich. I work for Potty Innovations in marketing/design, so my talents don’t really lie in gardening. Don’t get me wrong I like plants, I just prefer eating them, well vegetables that is – not that I go around biting the heads off daffodils or anything.

Ok, so I know nothing about gardening, no I really don’t.

My only successes which are few and far between are cacti, pretty much because I water them and leave them, even then it’s mostly the latter.
Coincidently my failures also include cacti, venus fly traps and the current hanging basket outside our front door, which now looks like something from the Addams Family garden. Auntie Fester eat your heart out!

As far as ‘growing my own’ is concerned I once had a salad container full of things like rocket and, well some other leafy green specimens. Sounds good right? No. After I had been grazing on said specimens for a week I found out it was infested by white flys (commonly know as white fly apparently)…and I hate to think how many of them I had consumed.

So how did this blog come about? Well I came to work for Potty Innovations about two years ago and despite being surrounded by able bodied gardeners, I still know nothing about gardening and my fingers are still a shade of pink rather than the green they should be.

After just moving into our first home, we have decided that we would like to follow a popular movement and ‘grow our own’, save on bills, eat organic food etc. It was then decided that this would be a great opportunity for me to become a human guinea pig.

My mission, should I choose to accept it, is to grow my own using the Cultivation Station as my tool (aptly designed to make growing your own easy).

I’m expecting numerous problems and glitches but I’m hoping whoever is reading this is going to help with their welcome advice.

Please!

I am the virgin gardener!