Sow and sow and sow some more!

Spring's sprung and so starts the sowing of seeds... 

If anyone is paying attention, you may remember last year I tried sowing some of my seeds in paper tubes... aka toilet roll inners. For those of you that don't remember I got the idea from My Zero Waste and although the initial carrot trial was a failure (probably due to their kamikaze flight on the collapsing cold frame :/) subsequent seeds were more successful.

So for the last 12 months we've been saving loo rolls and waiting for the sowing to commence! 

From my trials last year I've come up with my own loo roll method... maybe I should coin a term for this?! Anyway, I initially tried using the rolls as suggested in the link above, but as my tubes were sitting in a regular seed tray, I found them to be fairly unstable and also too tall to fit the lid on the tray. other posts I've found recommended folding the tubes into square shapes and cutting an inch up from the corners, before folding in to make a kind of pot. I liked the idea of this, but found they kept falling over as the bottoms opened up (only when unfilled and dry) and also found that unless you are taking some time to make your cuts all the same length the bottoms turn out fairly wonky.

And so was born Littlefoots little loo rolls... Ok I can't claim that this method is unique to me, I'm sure other people have done this, and there are probably also blogs and whatever about it (if anyone else is sad enough to sit and write about it that i!), but as I have not seen or heard evidence of this, here is my method.

So what was my ingenious solution I hear you cry??? 

Take your loo roll, flatten it out and then.... cut it in half! 

Voila!

Your loo roll is now (more or less) the perfect size to fit in a (B&Q) seed tray, with the propagator lid on top. And, as an added bonus you get twice the number of little pots!

Here are the little beauties waiting to be filled

Its easier to sit them in the tray if you put a couple of centimetres of compost in the bottom first and, following the old geometry rules, they fit more snuggly together if you fold them into squarish shapes.

Filled with compost.

And then, just to prove what a penny pincher I am, here are my plant labels. Made from margarine lids... well technically they are spreadable butter lids, but you know what I mean! Cut the edge off, snip into strips and use some kind of marker to write your label.

Is that a sneaky slug in the background? >:(

In my beds:

• The garlic is growing nicely, having survived the bird attacks.
• The onion sets have been planted, a little later than planned but hopefully they will be ok.
• Radish seeds have been sown (not on my plan, but was intrigued by the new Jamie Oliver seed range in Homebase)
• Spring onion seeds sown, went for White Lisbon ones this year, so will see how they go.

In the growhouse:

• Brussel sprouts
• Autumn cabbage
• Cauliflower
• Broccoli
• Kale
• Spinach
• Peas
• Leeks
• Loose leaf lettuce

More to do tomorrow.... busy, busy, busy!

New beginnings...

So this blog has been neglected for sometime now... But while the blogging stopped, the gardening continued.

There were successes and failures... Biggest successes being the salad leaves and the courgettes. Both growing so well that it began going to waist. The failures being the butternut squash that got eaten as soon as it sprouted and the sweetcorn that grew but never got cobs.

We also enjoyed blueberries, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, onions, spring onions, leeks, cabbage, french beans, strawberries, radish, plum tomatoes, potatoes and probably others that I can't remember at the moment.

Another positive was that we managed to cancel a number of our organic veg deliveries, saving probably over £200... Not exactly a profit, but its good to have a hobby that will eventually pay for itself!

However, the gardening all came to an abrupt end when we went on holiday to sunny Florida. We had a great time in the 30 degree heat, but on our return I found that I was now too much of a wimp to face the cold British climate (-1, brrrrr!)... Of course a few weeks later we experienced the worst winter we have had since living here, temperatures plummeting to -15, snow reached waist height at our gate and 12 plus inches above our back door. The garden was pretty much inaccessible!

But now the sun is shinning again, at last! And the garden looks a bit of a mess again. Things have been flattened under the weight of the snow and weeds have started to grow from the time its been abandoned...

Spring has sprung, and now is the time for new beginnings :D

Bed 4 has been cleared of debris, mulched with a fresh layer of compost and planted up with some garlic :9 The birds had been doing their best to pull up said garlic, but now they are starting to grow nice green shoots and the birds seem to have forgotten about them.

My seed potatoes are chitting themselves XD and will be ready to go into the potato sacks again soon. Not sure what else I need to do at the moment... need to have a read of my gardening books and check my garden plan...

Well thats all for now, lets hope I can keep the blogging up this year!

x

Belated photo...

So when I said I'd post a photo tomorrow, I guess I should have said "when I get round to it!"

Well, better late than never!

The garden, taken 6th April:

And just so I can easily compare, here's the photo I posted before, taken 10th March:

Not bad hey *very smug grin* :-)

My seedlings are/were doing well... they had a suprise roller coaster ride today when the wind decided it wanted to push my growhouse over :-(

Most seedlings escaped unharmed, a few weren't wearing seatbelts and came out of their modules, but I've scraped them from the floor and replanted them... fingers crossed!

Yesterday I also sowed some carrot seed. I did one row in the right front bed and did some others in toilet roll tubes, from a tip I found on My Zero Waste. Only had eight saved, so will keep collecting and sow my next batch into the new rolls... Unfortunately, the tubes were "safely" sitting in my growhouse when it decided to have a rest. They didn't fair as well as the seedlings... The contents were still intact, but not sure which way up they are supposed to be :-S

Also got my potatoes planted, decided to use planters for them as the beds that I was intending to put them in aren't ready yet, plus plans have changed and I'm not putting the beds how I originally intended...

Here are my updated plans:

Don't know if you can tell, but am now going to take out some of the lawn to make room for four 2x1m beds. I'd originally pland to do two 1x1m beds either side of a 2x1m bed, running paralel to the front two. Well, once I got buying seed, I quickly realised that there was not going to be enough growing space... still not sure that there will be enough, but need to keep some space in the garden for the kids to play in... as long as they're not playing too close to my veggie's!!! lol. Think regular trips to the park may be in order :-S

Well, the extra beds have been ordered as well as the compost to fill them. Have gone for the bulk buy bags this time, works out cheeper and have a better idea of exactly how much soil is needed. Also ordered some bark mulch stuff for the paths between the beds.

BTW sorry for any gross spelling mistakes... it's late and I haven't a clue where the spell check is on here... could copy and paste into Word, but I really can't be bothered at the mo!

New Found Land.

So here it is, my newly uncovered corner of the garden :-)

In fact, the area of fence where the clematis was growing has never before been seen by us!

And today my battle of the brambles continued... I liberated the old washing line post and white planter, only the mini pine tree thing is left to be freed. Again work was halted due to the fact that I could not see what I was doing. Maybe I should invest in one of those spotlights the motorway workmen use... The one's that make you think you're being kidnapped by aliens... Maybe that's just me?

Anyway, I'll post progress pics tomorrow :-)

Here's my onion sets that I planted the other day.

They seem to be doing OK so far, one got pulled up by my three year old, but the birds don't seem to be interested... yet :-S

BTW, they haven't grown that much in 2 days... they'd got impatient waiting for me to plant them out and decided to start without me. To be fair they have been waiting for at least a year...

And here's my mini growhouse, that so far is still standing (it's been pretty windy round here today).

Touch wood, it's doing a good job looking after my little pots of herbs I bought the other day. Not sure it's going to stay in this location, just put it there for the time being...

Also, some of my seed that I sowed Friday night have sprouted! Actually one of them was very excited to be planted and had begun sprouting Saturday morning! Didn't even think that was possible?! Think all the broccoli has sprouted, some of the salad seeds, a couple of cauliflower's and one leek... come on you tomatoes, lupins and lizzie's!! Tried to take some photo's of those, but was a bit dark and kept blurring so will try again tomorrow :-)

The battle commences...

The weather was good today and we had no plans for outings... It was a good day to wage war on the brambles at the back of the garden!

Got so much done that the garden waste bin is completely chocker and the wheelbarrow is overflowing with the brambles that wouldn't fit in the bin. The top left corner is almost cleared of the thorny stuff, as well as the overgrown fuchsia, clematis and the evergreen shrub thing that I don't know the name of... one of the ones that grows herring bone style and gets red berries in the winter. Well the roots are still in the ground, but they've had a serious haircut.

Phew! I may not be able to walk later due to back pain, but I am very happy. Got to walk in an area of the garden that hasn't seen human's for the last 5+ years :-)

On a practical note, I can strongly recommend wearing a double layer of fleece to protect yourself from brambles. My arms did not feel one prickle, even better than the gardening gloves I was wearing and they're the best one's I've tried!

It was too dark out by the time I came in, so will have to take some pic's of my progress tomorrow... Can't wait to get a good look at my work :-D

Oh yeah, I almost forgot! I also planted out my onion sets, and sowed some spring onion and radish seeds. All in the left raised bed... Not sure if they will work as they were all left overs from last years feeble attempts at growing stuff. I'll keep my fingers crossed!

I've been sewing :-)

And not with my sewing machine :-)


I've been reading one of the books I ordered from Amazon and decided I should just go ahead and buy the seed. Yes I might end up with an abundance of veg seed that I couldn't grow very well or wasn't fond of the taste of, but it's so much cheaper than the plugs and if the plugs died off that would be very annoying!!


So today we had a trip to the garden centre and I bought some seeds :-) Got broccoli, cauliflower, leek, tomato (outdoor), French bean and some busy lizy and lupin seeds for other areas of the garden. Also got some potted herbs, lavender, rosemary, thyme, sage, marjoram, oregano, lemon balm and lemon verbena. I think DH is already waiting for them to die... I don't have a good track record with potted plants :-S They're now keeping my newly erected mini growhouse company... hopefully it will help break them into our garden... The seeds have been sewn into the propagating trays I bought the other day and are on the dining table for the time being... Think I'll keep them in the house until they germinate and then hopefully gradually move them into the growhouse.


Yesterday I hit the local library and raided the gardening section. Found a book on weeds, I have no idea what most of the stuff growing in our garden is, or how to best get rid of it, so thought it might be useful. It mentions a way to clear a large area of weeds where you clear the surface of weeds, cover it with newspapers/cardboard/old carpet and then spread on a layer of compost. Doing this blocks the light from the weeds and they die off, plus any new weed seeds just lie dormant. This method seems to go well with the book I got about no dig gardening, yes there's a theme here... LAZY gardening!! I will have to do some work though as will have to dig out the plants that are in the area, as well as lots of brambles :-S Apparently, if I'm understanding it properly, I can then put my raised beds straight of top of all this and it will gradually just break down into the soil. Cool!! Time to collect some newspapers!

Blast from the past.

Guess what I found the other day...

This was my original garden plan, didn't get very far with that one!

This is the more recent one I began (two years ago...), looks more acurate, except I've now got to the stage where the garden is ahead of the plan!! It's going to change from this though. In this the lawn was going to be extended further back to make it more of a square shape, but think I'm just going to leave it as it is now. Mainly because it will leave more room for the raised beds at the back of the garden.

Progress has been slowed this week due to the weather, but I did make good progress last week. I ordered the compost and managed to get the first bed filled... I then got very carried away and leveled the second area off, built the bed and filled it. And all on the same day as I had lugged the 18 bags of compost from the front garden to the back... Needless to say, I was a bit achey the following day, but very pleased with myself :-)

Here's Bed 1 all filled up and ready to go.

Just need to clear the top right corner now so that I can get the next bed into place, that one is going to be a 1mx1m bed, but double the height. I'm planning to grow some spuds in there...

Which leads me to...

My chitting potatoes... what on earth does chitting mean and who came up with that name?!

Since getting the beds into place and filled with compost, it's been a real challenge resisting the urge to buy every lovely looking veg seed on the market. I know its already sowing time for some things but really don't want to rush into buying anything and then wish I'd got some other variety. I'm also wondering whether getting plug plants might be a good choice, as can see what I like growing without waisting loads of seeds... Only problem being the plugs are much more expensive... hmmmm... what to do!!

I ordered some books from Amazon last week and they arrived yesterday. Since they arrived I've been trying to read bit's whenever I get the chance. The one seems pretty good, haven't looked at the other too much yet, but seems like it could be really useful. I'll blog about them another time though!