Disclosure : I technically have a financial interest in @link JBA Seed Potatoes. Basically I bartered my time for running their adwords campaign for potatoes. Obviously I'll send the taxman 17.5% of these potatoes.

All 26 bags of them

Based on the fact that each bag had at least 5 seed potatoes in them ... don't make me do the maths I don't have enough fingers and toes to count ... anyway, that's a fair amount of seed. Each of them needs to be planted 10 -> 18 inches apart, depending on whether they're first/second earlies or maincrop. So, I'm looking into this big bag that, amongst other delights, contains 26 bags of spuds .... and I'm looking at my tiny little 13'x4' spud bed in the corner ... and I'm thinking, "fuck me" ... crude I know, but my brain was a smidge busy taking off mental shoes and socks so it could compute every possible planting pattern ... "how the fu..." words failed me at that point. Now I just know that you're thinking "it's your own fault you dumb blonde, you knew how big your space was when you bartered", but it's not my fault!

Measure twice, cut once

My dad, and several other old buggers, hammered that one into me and I'd like them to know that I took it on board. So, ages ago, I measured my bed space, and then I measured it again, and then I checked I didn't have to tape back to front, took off my shoes and socks, and borrowed an extra pair of hands and I came to the conclusion, eventually, that I'd need about 30 seed spuds to fill it. 30, "thirty", 4 hands and 2 feet ... and a spare finger to point with ... 30. Rather than tax my poor brain by trying to choose a couple of the huge selection of varieties that Iain supplies I came up with a cunning plan, I'd send him a description of my potato bed and leave the decision to him. He is the potato expert after all. So I sent him the following email :

Hi Iain,

Damn, giving blondes choices is never a good idea, I spent all day staring at varieties

How about I describe the bed I have for them and then leave the choice to you? After all, you're the expert

The bed they're going in is often waterlogged until the tail end of april so I usually just grow first earlies ( pentland javelin last year ) so that I can still follow them with my leeks. This year I'm liable to grow my leeks elsewhere so it's not as important and I could possibly get away with trying some maincrops. The bed's about 15' long and tapers from 6' wide down to 4' wide, so I was only aiming at 2 rows.

For my christmas spuds I'm going to be growing them in one of the undercover beds so it'll be a lot drier and much warmer and I have plenty of fleece. I'm only going to grow a single 15' row though.

We pretty much eat potatoes any way they can be cooked and we have no problem with funny coloured food

As I said, the bed is usually waterlogged until the end of april, so I'm in absolutely no hurry for them, it'd only mean that I'd need somewhere to store them, and you have much better facilities

Let me know if that's ok with you and I'll send you the delivery address of the field

¥

And this is what turned up :

Potato Planters & Polypots

It's a good job Iain threw in some of his potato planters and polypots otherwise I'd have spent a fair few days digging up the rest of the field to fit all these spuds in. Of course it now meant that I needed the odd bag or two of compost and I was going to need to mix up about 180 litres of compost/fertilizer ... that's a hell of a lot of mixing, so I cheated and threw it all in the cement mixer, in 3 batches, and let it do all the hard work.

Planted my spuds

So, four hours later and I've planted up the planters, the polypots, the two 13' foot beds ( I decided to reduce the size of them and run a path along the back ) and I've decided to sacrifice the squash bed and plant an extra 13' row instead and I'm feeling a tad knackered from the exertion. I didn't need to take off my shoes and socks to realise that after my valiant effort and the sacrifice of the squash bed, and including the planters and polypots ... I'd managed to plant less than half the spuds but at least I'd got some of every variety planted

We're gonna look like spuds!

I really can't wait until I start harvesting, I've never had such a variety of spuds before ... mainly because I only ever need 30 bloody seed potatoes ... anyway, I'm spoilt for choice and I can't wait to see the difference. Worth every minute of the time/expertise I bartered, and then some. Life's not about money and I hope the taxman enjoys his 17.5% of my spuds

Tweet post

Dracone Yabba, made by Topanga, came along to help dig

Most of my undercover veg beds have been shut down all winter whilst they were sterilised which meant that I didn't grow much except some leeks, carrots and parsnips, all of which were outside in my lil patch in the corner. The only exception was this years garlic crop which was slapped in one of the beds in the large greenhouse in November, and then nothing much happened for the next couple of months.

On New Years day it was time to sow my onion (Red Baron and Bedfordshire Champion ) and chilli seeds, the onions were just slapped on one of the heated beds in the potting shed and left to get on with it, whilst my chillis were once again started underneath my computer desk. I'm growing loads of varieties this year which I got from a "pass the parcel" organised by a chilli forum ( @link ChillisGalore ), if I get bored I'll list them all at the end of this post.

Time passed .. slowly

Then I waited a couple more months ... and finally March arrived and things have started to happen. One of the biggest changes was the that we decided to rip out the partition between the two small greenhouse, one of which was used for dahlias, and my tomatoes, and the other was pretty much a store room. The glass partition was replaced by a block wall which will cut out some of the later afternoon sunlight which isn't great, but it also means no more brambles and, because the bed's no good for dahlias, I've pretty much got permanent use of that bed. The bonus is, I also got all the soil that was dug out when we dug the footings and this has now been dumped on my two beds in the lil patch in the corner. These two beds are always waterlogged in winter and it can often be May/June before they're dry enough to use. The soil from the footings should raise them about 6 inches or so which I'm hoping is enough.

I've also started to widen all the beds in the large greenhouse all of which were 33 inches wide as that's what suits dahlias. It's not finished yet but shortly 3 of them will have been made 4 foot wide and the last one will be between 3 foot and 3 foot 6. That might not sound like a lot of difference but it adds up to over a 100 foot more growing space. One of the first beds to be widened was the new home for my asparagus ( connovers colossal ), seedlings that I started last year, I managed to plant about 40 of them. The soil from the temporary bed that I made for them has also been dumped on my lil patch in the corner to raise those two beds, when the weather sorts it's head out I'll be able too finish them off.

Time to start sowing

At the start of this month I threw in a couple of rows of broad beans ( super aquadulce ) as they tasted great last year but I didn't have enough of them. I must remember to stake them much earlier this year. In the same bed I also planted a few 5 foot rows of carrots. These are old seed though so I'm not optimistic that they'll germinate, if they don't then I'll just get some fresh seed and start again.

Due to the crap germination rate of my onions I went out and bought some sets, I grabbed some shallots whilst I was there, all of these have been planted in the same bed as the garlic. I've left space in the bed for my seedlings which will be planted out in a week or so. Other seedlings I have on the go are some cabbages ( greyhound ), spinach ( lazio ), lettuce ( little gem ), cauliflower ( all year round ), spring onions ( lisbon ), radish ( cherry belle ).

I got a greenhouse!

Colin, who the Mighty V works for, has had to give up growing due to ill health, so he gave me his 8 x 6 greenhouse, for nothing ... how cool. As soon as the field is dry enough it'll be moved to sit beside my current 8 x 6 in the corner, pretty much in the same place the temporary asparagus bed was. At least this time I know in advance that I've got the greenhouse, so I can plan what's going in it and set off seeds at the appropriate time. This year I'm going to be using the existing greenhouse for growing melons ( not bought the seed yet ) and aubergines ( black beauty ). The other greenhouse will be used for growing herbs and spare chillis, once I build some staging.

The master plan

There's a lot of work to be done for this year. I need some nice weather so I can finish off the beds in the corner so I can sow my peas as soon as possible. I also need to finish off the beds in the large greenhouse and sort the new paths out and the surrounding area. Once the weather picks up I also need to get the greenhouse moved and rebuilt and the staging built for the inside. At home I need to finish levelling the lawn off, yep waiting on the weather, and sort out the bed where the coal bunker used to be, which involves ripping up the concrete base.

As well as all that, I'm determined this year to make as much use of the space I have for as much of the year as I can. this means that I need to be sowing seeds that will crop during the bleaker months, some of which can go in the tiny greenhouses in the corner. It's easy enough to produce a selection of veg in the summer months, but it's winter time when we appreciate it most, so I need to crack it.

What's growing where

It's probably easiest if I describe my growing space before I list what's going in each bed as it's a tad different to most peoples. Firstly the beds in our tiny lil garden at home. Once I've dug up the concrete base I'll have a 12' x 3' bed in the sunniest spot and 2 * 4' x 4' and a 6' x 4' bed that get morning sun, and a narrow bed along the length of the trellis. I'll be moving the two big planters that we have around to the front, they're 4'x2' and about 1' deep so plenty of room for most things, and they'll get full sun from around 11 onwards in the summer.

My main growing area is at the field where I help a friend who grows and shows dahlias. In the corner of the field is my original veg plot, although it's been changed around a few times over the years. It currently consists of 2 beds both 15' long although I'm going to run a path along the back so they'll end up 13' long. One's 4' wide and the other is 6' wide tapering to 4' wide. they both used to become very boggy during winter but that should be sorted now. Beside those beds I have my current 6'x8' greenhouse soon to be joined by the one I've been given. They're sat on a concrete base so everything needs growing in pots or grow bags.

In the large greenhouse, I call it a greenhouse but it only has netting for sides, anyway in there I have 4 beds at the top end. From left to right they're 30'x4', 27'x4', 24'x3' and 21'x4'. In the small greenhouse, although it has it's front and back taken off during the summer, I have a single 30'x3' bed. My last growing space is the potting shed. Once the dahlias are planted and everythings tidied up I gain 2* 30'x2' benches to grow on, this is around June/July though so getting on in the year.

The growing plan

At home

The long bed will be used for my brassicas, I should have space for about 6 summer purple sprouting broccoli, and 6 quick heading calabrese, I'll throw a cabbage plant between each of these and harvest them young as greens

One of the 4'x4' beds already has chives in it so I'll probably just throw some spring onions in to keep the company, I want to build one of the others up into a herb bed but I need to find out which herbs it'd suit. The 6'x4' bed has my walking onions in it so I might add some spinach to keep them company.

The slim bed along the trellis will be filled with sugar snaps as the Mighty V isn't growing sweet peas this year. The two tubs are going to be filled with fennel, there's room for a second row of crops along the front, but I haven't decided what to put in.

And finally, we'll be growing lettuce in window box type tubs, it slows the slugs down a tad.

My Lil Patch in the corner

My new greenhouse will be going on the left soon

From left to right : the new greenhouse will be used for growing herbs and small chilli plants, the Mighty V intends to try selling these at car boots and I have to humour her huh? The current greenhouse is going to be dived 50/50 between aubergines and melons. The aubs did crap last year but I'm guessing the fault lies with the grower so I'm determined to do better this year. The melons were fantastic last year so I'm hoping to repeat that performance.

The tapering bed on the left is going to be used to grow a selection of potatoes, don't ask me which ones as Iain from JBA Seed Potatoes is sending me his choice of seeds and I won't know until I get them. The bed on the right will have a row of peas on the right hand side as they'll not cast much more shadow than the wall, and on the left I'll have a couple of courgette and some butternut squash.

Large Greenhouse

The two beds on the left will be widened to 4' soon

From left to right

Bed 1 : 30' x 4'

The top end will be used to grow a 5' block of sweetcorn, not sure what variety yet as I haven't found the seeds. The next 18' or so will runner ( cherokee trail of tears : saved seed ), string beans ( some italian name ) and a couple of cucumbers, when I find those seeds. They'll be grown up a Munty Frame the same as last year as I got great results. In front of them I should have room for 2 or 3 rows of borlotti's. Finally, at the bottom end of the bed I have a 7' patch which I might try growing quinola in.

Bed 2 : 27' x 4'

The top 15' of the bed has got my 2 rows of broad beans in already, the next 5' will be used for parsnips, the next 5' for carrots and the rest of the space will be filled with turnips or something

Bed 3 : 24' x 3'

The top few feet has got my garlic growing in it, saved seed from last years 'cos I'm cheap, that's followed by some of my onions sets, the it'll be followed by my onions seedlings and then it has more onion sets and my shallots. it's a pretty full bed.

Bed 4 : 21' x 4'

The majority of this is my permanent asparagus bed, can't wait until I can start cropping it, but there's a 2' x 4' patch at the top that I'm going to use for bits and bobs this year and then from next year onwards I'm going to use it as a vegetable flower bed where I'll plant stuff that I'm going to allow to run to flower so I can save the seed.

Small Greenhouse

My beds the one on the right with the stakes on it

Like last year I'm going to be using half of the bed to grow tomatoes, I still need to buy some seeds but there's time yet, all told I should end up with about 30 plants of 2 or 3 varieties. The other half of the bed will be used for some of my chilli plants, I've got 20+ varieties and I want to grow a couple of each if possible. I also want to try and keep at least one plant of each variety isolated so that I can save the seed later in the year, this goes for the tomatoes as well.

Potting Shed

The benches will be empty around late june

I'll use some of the space for the chilli plants that wont fit in the small greenhouse, I need to try and find out which varieties are shortest as there's only a few feet of headroom above the benches. I'm thinking of playing with chilli cuttings this year, sso I could use the rest of teh space for that.

Tweet post

No surprise that it rained

Once again I'm starting a post off with "been a tad since I last posted". It's not because I have nothing to say, it's because I've had bugger all time spare to make a post Ideally I'll find the time to create a gallery concept/skin that works, and then I can just upload all the pictures I take on a daily/weekly basis to show how things are coming along .... don't hold your breath though, I've not had the time/inclination to do any coding for many a month now

Anyway, back to happier thoughts/times ... we're already at the point where the plot is starting to provide ingredients for our meals, it may only be radish and the occasional lettuce, ohhh and a few herbs, ohhh and some spring greens ... but it's only May, and the season's only just starting to kick in. Most of the beds are now full of stuff, I've one more bed in the large greenhouse that will soon be filled with sweetcorn ( true gold ), squashes ( butternut & courgette ), and the odd runner bean and borlotti beans ( about 10' row of each ) which will keep the broad beans, pak choi and beetroot company. Our own little greenhouse, that's recently had a bloody good spring clean and is looking good as new, has been press ganged into holding some of the less robust seedlings, mainly the sweetcorn and the runner beans, because the small greenhouse is starting to get a smidge full of dahlias.

Asparagus for 2013!

After spending a bored afternoon, on one of the sunny days, rearranging the piles of bricks that sit on the concrete base, beside our lil greenhouse, I managed to not only find a space for our water butt, I also managed to sneak in a 11'x4' raised bed. Mind you, when Barry noticed his only comment was "why didn't you just dig a bed in the field, it would've been far easier! .... so, being ever the opportunist I mentioned the fact that I was contemplating the possibility of slapping in 4 more 15'x4' beds in the field ( "but only if I cope with the space I have this year, because you'll want that back next year" ) ... god loves a trier and all that huh? ... and I'm living proof because, not only did Barry go "sure, no problem", he followed it with "you may have the same space next year ... if not more" ... damn, how cool would that be? At the same time he mentioned that the space I'd slapped the raised bed on was where he was considering building a shed to house our lawn mower(s) ... ooops ... the good news is, it won't be this year.

So, I decided to use the new bed to raise some Asparagus seedlings, after checking that I had enough time to plant seeds this year, as it's faaaaaaaaaaaaaar to late ( and bloody expensive! ) to buy 1 year crowns for this season. Apart from saving me a fortune ( £2.05 compared to £20+ huh ) it'll also allow me to select the best 20 male plants that grow ( males produce more spears than females ) and I won't have to "wait the extra year" that you normally do by growing from seed because I wouldn't be able to buy 1 year old crowns until next year. The bad news is, I have very little time to get the seed ordered and finish prepping the bed up.

I'm a plant doctor!

I can't remember if I mentioned in my last post, but a couple of weeks ago I went round to my dads and he had some very leggy tomato plants that were crammed together in little 3" pots, the good ones were just about able to support their own weight, so I offered to take them away to see if I could improve them as I had better growing conditions and far more time than they did ... So, off I meandered to the potting shed with them. I decided that I could definitely save 4 of them by slapping them into 12" pots and burying them as deep as I could, the others were pretty much buggered, and that's when the experiment I ran earlier this year paid off. One of the things I'd done with the worst of my plants was to decide "bugger it, they'll die anyway", so I cut the tops off and rooted them .... and it mostly worked ... So, I did the same with Sue's tomatoes.

As you can imagine, decapitation isn't something that a plant enjoys to much and they spent quite a bit of time looking pretty dead. I'd slapped them under the misters in the potting shed so they'd at least get some water through their leaves, after that it was a race to see if they'd grow new roots in time to stop them dying. One week on and not only had the plants recovered but they'd also started to put on some new growth! Meanwhile the ones that I'd slapped into tall pots had decided that they weren't going to be out done and have promptly produced their first set of fruit! Damn, here's me growing my own tomatoes in as close to ideal conditions as I can provide and they're beaten to the fruiting stage by a bunch of gangly plants ... I may never live this down

The ex-coal shed

By a lucky coincidence I managed to get some free time, some sunshine and a sledgehammer, all at the same time. A tad of grunting later and I'd dropped both our side and our neighbours side of the coal shed, I even managed to leave the dividing wall intact! Unfortunately since then it's pissed it down every time I've had some free time so I haven't been able to clear up all the rubble and take it to the tip. In true frugal fashion I'm going to be reusing any bricks that I can salvage to build a raised bed along the back of next doors garage. Eventually this will be converted into a kind of 9' x 3' greenhouse / cold frame, but first I have to wait until the strawberries have stopped fruiting as I'll need to dig them up before I can start. Once the bed is built I'll then be able to sort out the tuft of grass that we lovingly call a lawn.

¥

Tweet post

I wonder what he thought of all the peas!

Wow, doesn't time fly!

Now that the weather's starting to get a tad warmer, just a tad mind, things have started to happen faster, it won't be long before I have to start putting stakes in to support the peas, and I still need to make a Munty frame for my runner beans which will be going in next month, but I'm getting a tad ahead of myself. Before I could plant anything I needed to get the 4 beds in the large greenhouse and the 3 beds in my own little plot sorted out. For most of them this meant rotavating them and adding a liberal amount of chicken shit to them, apart from the bed that I'll be using for carrots and parsnips as they don't like rich soil. The good news was, I didn't need to rotavate the brassica bed, as they like firm soil, so I just tidied up the surface and called it done.

The first bed to be ready was my pea bed, probably because I had some company whilst I was doing it, even if that company was an ugly frog So now I have ½ a row of peas ( Kelvedon Wonder ) and ½ a row of Sugar Snaps growing merrily away under some netting to keep the foxes off. Some time in the next week I'll be doing another ½ row of each of them so I should get a reasonable cropping period. Not long after they popped up I had a visit from DD who's known as the Pea God on the allotment forums that I'm a member of, so I got the chance to point proudly at my 2" tall peas

Brassicas like it firm

As I mentioned, I didn't rotavate the bed where my brassicas are going ( Calabrese : Quick Heading, Broccoli : Summer Purple Sprouting, Cabbage : Greyhound & Rouge Tete Noir ) as they like really firm soil, so firm in fact that you're advised to walk on the beds and then walk around the plants after you've planted them. Normally you're advised to avoid walking on beds at all costs as it can damage the soil structure, which is never a good thing. To plant them I just dug a hole slightly bigger than the pot they were in, slapped them in the hole, sans pot of course, and then did a kind of shuffle around the base of them to really firm the soil up, I must have looked like a demented Indian who'd forgotten the steps for the rain dance, but if it works then it's worth it. A couple of days later I had to replace one of the plants with a spare as it had keeled over, and I had plenty of spares so it was easier to just replace it than to try reviving it.

The next bed to get planted up was the onion bed, it's now chock full of onions! 200 Red Barons, the few Ailsa Craig & Bedfordshire Champions that had germinated. I also went out and bought some onion sets to fill the rest of the bed due to the naff germination of the Ailsa & Bedfordshire, these were planted at the same time. Along one edge of he bed I left a strip so that I could successionaly sow some pickling onions ( Paris Silverskin ), about a ¹⁄₃ of this strip has now been sown, I'll be sowing another ¹⁄₃ every couple of weeks so I should have a continuous supply.

The 3 Sisters

Sounds like the title of a porn film huh, but it's actually a planting arrangement that's meant to really work, I guess time will tell. Basically you throw sweetcorn, runner beans and squash in the same bed, and they kinda get on in a beneficial manner. The corn becomes poles for the runners, although I'll be adding a Munty frame, and the squashes roam through the bed space between the corn so you get a decent return from a single bed. I decided to use the longest bed for this and put 2x7' rows of broad beans ( Super Aqualduce ) at one end, and a 2' strip across the bed for successional sowings of beetroot ( Pronto ) at the other end. This leaves me with 20' of bed space which I'm going to be doing the 3 sisters with, Runner Beans : Cherokee Trial of Tears & Borlotti, Squash : Butternut & Courgettes, Sweetcorn : True Gold. I'm also going to be using the spaces between the squashes for lettuces ( little gem ) and Pak Choi until they get so big that they fill it all.

As 20' of sweetcorn would be a tad much to eat/preserve all in one go I've sparked some off *really* early, and I'll be doing another "slightly early" batch next week, and then a "normal time" batch some time in may. If they all live then I should have hopefully spread out my harvesting period over the space of a couple of months. If they don't live then I'll just sow the whole 20' space at the correct time of year and then hope like hell I can cope with the glut when they harvest I've also sparked off a couple of squash and a couple of courgettes early as well, so that the sweetcorn doesn't feel all lonesome in the bed by itself. I was tempted to start some of the runners early as well, but I don't have a lot of the seed so I'm not going to risk it. I'll be saving my own seed at the end of the year, so if I have enough space I'll be able to play with more early stuff.

One day this will be full of tomatoes and chillis

The small greenhouse

If my experiment had been successful then the small greenhouse would have had a dozen or so tomato plants growing in it by now, but it wasn't so there isn't. The main reason for the failure was that the heated beds in, the potting shed, didn't get turned on as early as usual and I couldn't provide enough light at home in my little lightbox. Ah well, there's always next year huh? The good news is that some of them survived and I still had the other half of the seeds, so I sowed them a few weeks ago and most of them are now coming along nicely, they just won't be as early as I was hoping for. Rather than just stare at an empty bed I decided to throw in a couple of rows of radish ( Cherry Belle ), beetroot ( Pronto ) and lettuce ( Little Gem ) and they're all growing nicely, although not quite as fast as they'll do now that it's started to get warmer and lighter.

I've also been using the small greenhouse as a kind of giant coldframe for the seedlings that didn't need as much heat but, now that it's getting warmer, most of these are being moved outside to the large greenhouse. We've also started moving the first batches of Dahlias into the small greenhouse where they'll stay until they're ready for planting, sometime near the end of May, so it's rapidly beginning to fill up and will soon be very over crowded. I've also lost a few feet of the bed in here as Barry needs it for one of the varieties of Dahlias, it'll only be a few plants so I'll probably just grow a few less tomatoes ... and it makes me feel less guilty for extending my beds in my normal lil veg plot in the corner

The Veg Patch

Last year I decided to join an allotment forum, although I'd been lurking there for a fair amount of time already. After reading about how other people lay out their plots, and why, I decided to re-arrange my lil patch in the corner, I also took the opportunity to square it off, which has gained me a few extra feet of length on the beds. I'd already decided to get rid of the bed that ran across the top of the patch as it was a nightmare to rotavate and maintain but, after all my reading, I'd now decided to rearrange my current 3 beds into 2 wider beds and to put a path along the side fence, instead of having a bed tight against it. The end result is, I now have 2 x 15' x 4' beds with a net gain of 20'² of bed space, although the real gain is much more as I can now get 3 rows of spuds into one bed instead of 1 row of spuds each in two beds. I still need to finish sorting out the second bed, it'll be used for carrots ( Lisse de Meaux ) and parsnips ( Tender and True ) which means that I need to rotavate the arse off it and remove all the stones, which will involve me sieving all the soil ... all 15' x 4' of it!

Successional Sowing

I've mentioned successional sowing a few times now, it sounds really easy in theory, you just make successive sowings of seeds to extend the cropping period. For example, my radish take approximately 6 weeks to crop, so if I want to have a continuous crop of radish I'd sow a new batch every couple of weeks and Bob's yer uncle, you have fresh radish every day for the whole season. In reality it's a lot harder than that, mainly because you forget to sow a new batch until you've harvested the last batch! So, this year I'm determined not to forget and I've put aside various bits of bed space specifically for veg that I'm going to sow successively ... I guess I'll find out soon enough how successful I am

Back at the ranch

Considering the size of our tiny lil back garden I'm pretty impressed but what we've managed to cram in so far and we've still got more to put in. The garlic and shallots are coming along nicely especially since I gave them a high nitrogen feed, which has reduced the yellowing of the leaves and the Egyptian Walking Onions have just started to poke their noses through. The rest of the bed has some spring onions in, which have just started to germinate. I can't wait to be eating my own garlic and I can use some of them for growing next years crop. About the only thing I'm missing in the Allium family is some Welsh Onions which I'd love to grow, so if anyone's got any that they can let me have then let me know.

The strawberries, which did crap last year, have got some flowers on (yay), they must have known that I'd intended digging up the whole bed so that I could make a decent raised bed that I can turn it into nice sized greenhouse. Now I'm going to have to wait until a lot later in the season, and I'm going to have to find a new home for them ... which is going to be a challenge in itself! So far my Asparagus hasn't put in an appearance, it didn't do so well last year either, so if it doesn't have a blinding year this year then I'm either going to re-home it or bin it and use the space for something that works. I'd hate to give up on it though, so I'll probably think of somewhere I can home it, and maybe get a few new plants at the same time.

I've not really done that much with the other beds at home yet, mainly because I'm going to be dropping the coal shed some time in the next couple of weeks and I'll have to redo those beds when it's done. Once I've finished them I'll be using them to grow a few salad crops and herbs as it's always good to have a few handy for a quick meal without having to traipse back to the field because I forgot the lettuce

Still todo

I must ask Barry if he minds me starting a couple of compost heaps, made out of pallets of course, as we easily produce enough compostable waste and it means I could slowly raise both the beds in the field which get pretty waterlogged in winter. I also need to clear the space on the concrete beside our lil greenhouse so that I can stick a raised bed in there, which I would either use for my strawberries or the asparagus. The good news is, if we use all the bricks on building work I'll be able to slap in an 8' x 4' raised bed and still have room for my water butt.

At home I want to knock the coal bunker down and convert the strawberry bed into a raised bed / greenhouse, I've still not worked out a good design for it though, and it's been delayed by the strawberries actually looking like they'll make an effort this year. At the same time I'll finish laying out the salad and herb beds which means I'll then be able to sort out the tiny bit of green stuff that we call a lawn. I'm also considering building a couple of large planters for under the front windows but the Mighty V's not entirely convinced ... yet

¥

Tweet post

Due to a couple of websites being on a tight deadline I didn't get chance to make a post last week. Not helped by the fact that Scott then dragooned me into coding a new website ( sorry no link as it's not a public release yet ), to help him in his quest for best job in the world. I hope like hell he wins because then I can go squat in Canada for a month

On with week 5

The tomatoes are starting to get leggy again, which is to be expected as there isn't really enough light from the grolux for them. I did take a look at these lights ( Envirolite & Ecolight CFL Bulbs. Note : Javascript is required to display their catalogue :-S ) but at £92 for a twin light setup I have to question the value. Realistically speaking, how long would it take me to recover the expenditure from growing veg / salads / herbs under them? Several years at least I'd guess when you take the electricity consumption into account as well. Anyway, the tomatoes are leggy, although I'm optimistic that I can cure some of that legginess when I next pot them on.

Some of the chilli peppers are also a little bit leggy, although this seems to be more based on which variety they are, some of them are still pretty stout. The good news is that we've started turning on the heated beds in the potting shed so I'll soon be able to grow them on there where they'll have the benefit of real daylight. Of course, that means I need to find some gaps between all the dahlia tubers which will soon be rapidly filling the beds.

Yet more seeds sown!

Whilst I've sparked off a fair few seeds early to try and get a jump on the season there are some seeds that need sowing now. So in the last week I've started the first lot of cabbages ( Rouge Tete Noire and Greyhound ) and Broccoli ( Quick Heading and Summer Purple Sprouting ). I'll be successionally sowing both of these for the next few months so that I don't end up with a huge pile of cabbages all at the same time. Some time over the next week or so I'll probably start chitting my spuds as they take up to 6 weeks before they're ready for planting and with a tad of luck my lil patch in the corner will be dry enough for them by then.

Planning for winter!

I know you may think it's a tad early, but I'm also starting to plan what I can grow in the beds through the winter months. This is a new one for me because our lil patch in the corner isn't really suitable for growing much more than leeks through the winter months, but this year I'll have 5 more beds, that are under cover, to use. That's about 130 feet of 3 foot wide beds! My intention is to use the beds in our lil patch in the corner to grow leeks, I think I can get about 500 in them which should be enough to see us through to next year. In fact, I'm pretty sure it will as we're still eating last years leeks and I only planted about 50. Of the five beds that are under cover I'll probably use 1 for winter cabbages and 1 for spring cabbages. I'm also considering planting a couple of varieties of Kale and I *think* you can also grow lettuce, beetroot and spinach through the winter, but I'll need to look into that to be sure. Basically anything that I can grow through the winter that can be timed to take up an empty bed will be considered.

¥

The tomatoes are loving it now they've been potted on

Things are coming along nicely

I decided that the tomato plants were strong enough this week so I potted them on into 3" pots burying them up to their seed leaves in compost. This has the advantage of curing their legginess and the buried bit of stem will produce new roots as well. They're still in my light box, which is rapidly becoming crowded, as the heated beds won't be turned on until later in the week. As soon as the heated beds are turned they'll be moved into one of the light tents in the potting shed. They'll be joined by my chilli peppers which are also doing well since they were potted on as well. Not all of the tomatoes and chill peppers got potted on, some were thrown away because they were just to leggy, but I expected some losses and germinated more than I needed, so that's no great problem.

Once the heated beds are turned on it's rapidly going to become to warm for my leeks and onions to stay in the potting shed so they'll be hardened off and moved into the small greenhouse for a while, before they're hardened off again and then moved into the large greenhouse which will be their eventual home. I'm very impressed with the Red Barons, I put two seeds in each module and pretty much every seed has germinated, so now I have the choice of thinning them down to one per module or pricking out the extras and doubling the numbers that I have. The Ailsa Craig on the other hand have been far slower and more sporadic to germinate so I've decided to sow a couple of trays of Bedfordshire Champion as replacements. They've only just been sown so I don't know what their germination rate will be like, and it was an old packet of seed so I'll just have to wait and see I guess.

The lightbox is getting pretty full now

Successional Sowing

One of my biggest failures last year was that I just threw a load of seed in and sat back and waited for it to be ready to harvest. It was great, pretty much everything germinated and went on to be something actually worth harvesting ... all at the same time. This meant that we had huge gluts of produce followed by a barren wasteland as I hadn't had the forethought to spark of replacements. So this year I'm determined to successionaly sow as much as I can as this not only avoids gluts, it also helps to keep each bed as productive as possible.

With a tad of luck I should be able to successively grow beetroot, cabbage, carrots, lettuce, pak choi, peas, spring onions, sugar snaps, radish, various herbs and any other seeds I find. My goal is to have a harvest every month, some from as early as the end of March, right through to the end of the summer growing period although that's going to take some imaginative usage of the beds. The quick growers are easy, I can use the bare bits in the beds of the slower growers until they become full, after that it'll be a case of finding space.

Egyptian Walking Onions

Apparently they really do walk! Egyptian Walking Onions are something that I've been after since I saw them on the RealSeeds website but unfortunately they'd sold out until at least next year. Then Andy from the allotment site very kindly sent me some so that I could have a play and grow them. I'm pretty excited about it as they look very different and I like different. I've not actually planted them yet as I haven't decided which bed to slap them in but they'll be going in somewhere soon no doubt.

¥

There wasn't really a lot to do this week except to keep my eye on the seedlings to make sure they were happy enough. It's a good thing really, because I spent most of my week at the farm house helping Barry put a floor and ceiling in the store room above the garage. Which was loads of fun because I got to play with a nail gun all day ... those things are awesome, a tiny pull of your finger and BLAM 2 1/2" nail buried in the timber

I spent part of this morning potting on the rest of the chilli peppers which is cool because now I can rotate them under the lights so they don't get leggy. Talking of leggy, my tomatoes are getting far to leggy, I can't wait until they gain their first set of true leaves so that I can pot them on. I can cure the legginess at the same time by burying them up to their seed leaves. They'll then need to spend about a week in my light tent after which the heated beds will be on at work and I'll be able to put them into one of the two light tents there.

The basil and the coriander have both germinated and are now basking in the light tent, which is becoming rapidly crowded, it'll all work out when the tomatoes and chill peppers get moved to the potting shed light tents ... mind you, then I have the other set of chilli peppers to sow, my li'l 8' x 6' greenhouse is going to be packed to the gills with chillies. The onions and leeks are both doing well in the potting shed but they'll need moving into the small greenhouse when the beds get turned on as it'll be to hot for them then.

Flowers

The Mighty V came with me to the field when I went to pot on the chilli peppers armed with her own little box of seeds, all these are flowers though. By the time she'd finished she'd sown several trays of various colours of Pansies, as these are hardy plants they've just been put on the paths in the small greenhouse. With a tad of luck she'll be able to sell these later in the year. She also sowed a few trays of Rudbeckia and some red sunflowers. These are now scattered around the kitchen and under my light box shelf as they need more warmth than the pansies. Some of these will also be able to be moved into the potting shed when the beds are turned on ... I hope ... if not then we'll just have a crowded house like we do every year

It'll be interesting to see if she manages to sell all of these because if she can then we'll *really* be able to scale up next year by using the large and the small greenhouse as neither of these is needed until later in the year. Mind you, that'd be lots of plants that'd need looking after when it's bloody cold outside.

¥

Due to the fact that I was busier than a ... urm, a busy thing having a busy day ... I didn't have a chance to make a post last week, so now you're going to have 2 one on top of the other whilst I play catchup One of the main reasons I've been busy is that I've been designing a brand new blog skin specifically for the growing half of my blog. It's still in final testing so it hasn't been officially launched yet, and it may contain a few bugs ... ohh and I haven't tested the commenting system to see if you get munched by the spamhound, so if you stumble across the skin before it's published and get chewed by the hound ... urm, sorry huh?

Back to the point

The tomato experiment has now reached the end of week 1 and things are mostly going right. The seedlings are a smidge leggy because they were to far away from the lights when they first came through, although this was rectified when I recycled the odd beer can and made a platform to put them within inches of the bulb, it's a fish tank bulb so there's very little problem with heat. As soon as they're old enough I'll be potting them on, at which point I'll bury them up to their first set of leaves, the stem will just turn into more roots, and hopefully they'll be sturdy enough to be planted out some time in March.

Some of the chilli seedlings, which are also a tad leggy but less so than the tomatoes, we're big enough to pot on, so they got put into some 3" square pots and given a good watering. These are now back in the light room and are doing well. I'm hoping that rest of them, or at least some of each variety I've germinated, are big enough to put into pots next week, they look like they should be, but only time will tell. I also found a few more seeds from other varieties hiding under the sink, so I'll be trying to germinate these as soon as I gain a smidge more room in the light box.

Seeing as how the optimistic basil plant was still alive I decided to take pity on it and threw in a few more seeds to replace the ones that had died, they should soon germinate and then it'll have some company and, seeing as I had a spare bit of shelf in the light box I decided to germinate some coriander seeds as well. The shallots and onions in the back garden are storming along and the rosemary plant is looking a lot better since I potted it on into a 50/50 mixture of compost and gravel last year.

¥