Moving On and The Longest Worm Ever

This may look like a patch of boring brown earth to you, but to me it represents a few hours of digging and raking.  Last year it was my leek bed, and this year I can't decide if it is to be the new runner bean plot, pumpkin or cabbage patch... suggestions on a postcard please...

During digging I noticed the ground was rich with worms and I unfortunately put my fork through a fair few of them, but this monster escaped and was intent on heading out of my freshly dug plot to find a new home.  Amazingly he was longer than my foot (and I'm at least a 7!)

The sweetcorn are now big enough to plant in the tunnel, so I put 8 well spread out plants carefully in their new growing places.  At the moment they look like pathetic little blades of grass, amazing considering what they will grow into.  I've still got another 8 in pots, but can't afford any more tunnel space so will try and decide on the sunniest area outside and plonk them there.

The runner beans, sown rather early are a crazy tangle of  plants, and they can't be snapped off or they don't grow (according to my mum) so it's going to be a case of planting them in their winding clumps or spending some time untangling them  like Christmas lights.

The pumpkins and courgettes are looking very wholesome, but I'll wait a bit longer to plant them out, and will gather some of my kitchen waste compost as a nice rich start for them.

There are plenty of purple sprouting broccoli seedlings, but I have no idea when is best to plant them out.  When they're bigger I suppose - they won't be providing me with sprouts til next year anyway.

I've potted on the 20 odd cabbage seedlings.  Will plant them out when they're looking a bit bigger and more robust, but have high hopes for them as they are supposed to be a resilient and pest resistant variety.

Broad beans and parsnips (beyond the ubiquitous dock plants which I am trying to dig out, a few at a time whenever I've got a fork out).

What a great sight - peering in through the door you can see wonderful verdant growth.  I absolutely love this tunnel.

Probably not the best footwear for gardening, but as ever I had only planned to pop over and grab some salad leaves and see how things were doing.

I'm picking spinach, chard and lettuce leaves every day now, and parsley and chives.  I'm determined this year to let my diet be led by my crops, so everything gets thrown into salads including chive flowers.

The very wonderful Mrs H, without whom my polytunnel plants would
be dead.  She tirelessly opens up the tunnel every morning, waters several
times a day and closes it up at night.  

Pottering in May

As I got my seeds in pretty late this year, I seem to be spending May pottering about waiting for them to be big enough to pot on or plant out.  The porch of my shed with it's plastic roof has turned out to be an excellent place for germinating seeds, and means I can step outside the door in the morning and check on them and water them every day.  I've completely run out of space however, and next year I'll need to look in to erecting some shelving.

Seedlings galore, balanced on every surface possible.  Some of them are flowers for the garden.

Just look at my strong healthy fabulous sweetcorn.  I will grow most of these in the tunnel as they are so successful in there, and a few outside just in case it is a long hot one.

Courgettes at the front and china asters at the back.  Never grown asters before, so they'll be a surprise whatever they're like.

Antirrhinum (snapdragons).  What tiny little delicate seedlings.  These can stay under plastic for a bit longer so I don't need to disturb them by watering.

I'm still sowing seeds, although these sunflowers and cabbages will probably be the last.  I may end up buying some pepper plants, or I may just do without them this year, and accept that I'm never going to grow ratatouille successfully after my aubergines failed last year - or was it the year before?

I always initially wrap the entire seed trays in clingfilm.  This helps them to stay moist.  It also means you don't need to keep disturbing the seedlings when at their most delicate to water them, the condensation drips from the top, and the clingfilm beneath stops the moisture escaping that way.

I'm quite excited about these cabbage seeds I have been given.  They are supposed to be club root resistant, which would be fantastic as I've never grown cabbages successfully before.  The seeds are a very unnatural bright blue, but so are some cauliflower seeds I have sown which are also club-root resistant, so the blueness is somehow connected to the resistance.

Club root is a disease which lives in the soil and attacks the roots of brassicas.  My first year of growing I tried sprouts, cauliflowers and cabbages, and they all remained small and undernourished.  When I pulled them up they had tiny lumpy roots.  The cure is apparently to give the soil a lime treatment, but this doesn't always work. This year the purple sprouting suprised me with success, so maybe I've just outlived club root. Hooray!  But still going for club root resistant varieties when I can, as the disappointment was horrible that first year.

Loitering in the Tunnel

Meanwhile in the polytunnel, stuff in the ground is thriving.  The carrots will need to be thinned in a few weeks, and I'm almost at the stage where I can stop buying lettuce for the season. The baby leaf spinach is delicious, the chard is looking lush and the rocket is at second-leaf stage.

From bottom, three rows of carrots (a later, purple variety hasn't germinated yet), two rows of spinach, a row of chard, some early lettuce, a row of rocket, a row of basil is just appearing, and the second sowing of lettuce is just about making an appearance.

The best bit.  already harvesting spinach.  This picking went in to a spinach and cheese omelette I had for breakfast.

The best place to be pottering on a rainy May day.