Nurturing those babies

Hello!

The last three weeks have been busy busy busy in the garden and equally in the makeshift potting shed.  Many seeds have been sown, flowers and veg, and now they are all shooting up delightfully and need nurturing and tending.  

Most of the tougher ones I've moved outside, like broccoli, cabbage, leeks and onions, while the more tender babies like courgettes, squashes, sweetcorn and beans get moved out every sunny morning and back in again on cold nights, bless them.

R to L Cabbage, Broccoli and Leeks, are living outside, getting well watered each morning during this dry spell.  Not watering at night as not great for them to enter chilly nights full of moisture.

Cucumbers and sweetcorn.  Probably not such a great idea to sow them in the same module set, as I really want to harden the sweetcorn off ready for planting out.  I need them to get to a decent size by the time I sow my runner beans which I am hoping will be supported by the sweetcorn.  I had limited success last year with climbing French beans and sweetcorn, but I don't think the corn was big enough before the beans swamped them a bit. 
Looking forward to growing the cucumbers in the porch of my shed - the equivalent of a greenhouse.

Pea shoots!  These are rather exciting as I've never grown them as a salad crop before.  Sown thickly in a tray, you can use dried marrowfat peas, but I had plenty of escapee peas knocking around in the bottom of my allotment bag from last year - these are three weeks old.  Another week and I'll be picking them for salads.

S

Mixed salad leaves and spinach.  These live outside on a sunny table.  Longing for them to grow enough to start eating as I'm sick of forking out for lettuce and spinach from supermarkets and very much missing my poly tunnel from which we would have surely been eating leaves by now.

Turks Cap and Queensland Blue squashes.  These took an age to germinate - well, weeks, and I admit to poking around under the soil several times to see if there was any sign of life.  In the end there was - I put them back in the porch every night as I don't want to risk them suffering from chilly nights.  If this is the great summer I'm hoping for we'll get a bumper crop of very delicious squashes.

Meanwhile, over at the plot...

Yes mate!  We are still eating veg from the plot.  The last of the leeks and parsnips, and still more dinners worth of wonderful purple sprouting broccoli. The gift that just keeps on giving.  

T

Meanwhile  I'm following the allotment plan and have sowed  parsnips and clumps of Babbington Leeks - perpetual spring onions.  Pleased to see peas, spinach and radishes are already up.

A bed of leaves - perpetual 'red russian' kale, two different types of rocket and some chard -  has been sown on last year's lasagna bed which should be nitrogen-rich as I grew peas in it last year, 

The nearest bed contains parsnips and perpetual onions.  I added a top dressing of soot from when the boys swept the chimney as I didn't want to waste it, and after much googling found that gardeners have been using it for years to warm up the soil (it's black - absorbs heat) and it possibly improves soil quality.  Whatever.  It probably won't hurt it.

The next bed is a bit experimental, as it was cardboarded last year, and this Spring it's had layers of grass cuttings and the seaweed/straw material which got washed up in the storms earlier in the year which Jake has been collecting for me from the boatyard, then 2 bags of bought compost spread on top. 

I've sown alternate rows of round lettuce and beetroot, but the compost layer was really thin, and beneath it the layers were crunchy and not composted down.  I have no idea how this bed will go - maybe the beetroot will be huge with all that nutritious stuff breaking down and all that space to grow... or maybe the seeds just sunk down to the cardboard and they will never grow.  In any case, there are a few seedlings appearing - lettuce I think - so I'm just going to watch that space, keep my fingers crossed, but sow some more lettuce in a more conventional bed, just in case.

I have two more no-dig beds earmarked for courgettes, sweetcorn, runner beans and squashes.  These have been layered up again with grass cuttings, seaweedy straw and a few bags of horse manure collected from the back road. When I plant them up I'll also use my garden compost from home.

Such fabulousness!  Wonderfully Oscar and Hazel have made and hand painted these lovely signs for the beds!

The Hungry Gap

We are now facing a 5 week period apparently when this year's food won't be ready, and we've used up everything from last year.  However, there is plenty of forageable food available.  Nettles for instance - I've never used them before but this year I was inspired to make nettle pasta - it was delicious!  Also using lots of wild garlic.  Last night made wild garlic butter to go with home made bread - and tomorrow planning on using the flower buds in a salad.