The salads are in!

Yeash!

Look at the time! :/ 3:37am...

Well just wanted to do a quick post to say I got the lettuce and pak choi plugs planted. It's good to have something growing :)

It's been raining real heavy tonight though, hope my little plants are strong enough! :/

Guess I'll find out in the morning, keep your fingers crossed!

New beginnings... Take 2!

Let's just not mention last year, OK?

OK!

As I'm a pathetic blogger, I'm going to keep things simple and just blog from my iPad, because well I'm just that lazy!

I'm sure everyone knows that the weathers been a little unpredictable lately...

But I'm hoping the warmer temperatures are around the corner and so i've hit the garden centres! :)

I've decided to start things off with a few plugs, just so that I have something to plant before my seeds are sown, grown, etc. I bought some lettuce and pak choi, they aren't planted yet but hopefully will be by the end of the day!

I have planted some strawberries and onion sets though, weeded all the beds, tided up the paths between the beds and pruned some of the hedge (the bits I can reach!). So going alright so far. :)

That's all for now, hoping to update progress daily though... We'll see!!! :/

Keep your fingers crossed for me!

It's not going so well...

July is here and, from what my veg mags tell me, I should be enjoying bountiful harvests by now...

:(

The reality is: the sparrows have eaten all my peas, most of the strawberries ripened while we where on holiday (the black birds probably enjoyed those), the spinach has run to seed,the lettuce is growing soooo slow its getting eaten by the slugs, who also managed to get into my grow house ONE night and polished off all my cauliflowers and some of the broccoli, cabbage,sprouts and kale. On the positive side, I did run some of them over with the car! >:)

Still, the garlic and onions are doing well, the potatoes seem to be alright, my carrot seeds have finally emerged and I managed to harvest something:

These are the Jamie O one's I bought from Homebase. It was
a pack of mixed seed, quite exciting pulling them out,
always a suprise as to what you will get!

Only problem is I have nothing to eat them with!

At least our garden critters are getting a healthy diet! 

Right, off to search for recipes now... 

Wonder if I can find any for radish and strawberries?

Incy Wincy Spider!

As well as the lack of planning, the cold October climate and the 2 foot of snow; there were many another reasons my gardening seriously tailed off in 2010...

Eeeek!

From around September this fellow and his/her big brothers and sisters began stringing their webs between my beautiful vegetables, trees, etc. The one above had a web spanning the path between the shed and one of the front beds and the largest one of all took up residence inside my growhouse. :O

Now although I have seriously reduced my aversion to spiders since producing my offspring (I didn't want them to pick it up from me, like I did from my Mom) I can't help reverting to my original shrieking and leaping out the way when the kids are not around... 

say for instance when I'm in the garden... 

or when they're in bed and one walks across the lounge while I'm watching TV!

Anyway, the reason I mention this now is that I've just had a little potter around the garden to check on progress and happened upon two of these baby garden spiders, already setting up residence and claiming  their dominance over my garden... :(

I also had one crawling over me yesterday as I was enjoying my cup of tea in the sun. Wiyot kindly removed it from my back, while I (as usual when the kids are around) remained perfectly calm, saying I just wanted it off so I didn't accidentally squish it!

Well time to get battling the phobia before the garden again becomes a no go area!

Garden Chess

As I mentioned previously, my gardening tailed off towards the end of last year... well actually, my gardening stopped, is probably a more apt description! So now, and for the last few months, there has been little growth in the garden. Today as I sat in the sunshine enjoying a nice cup of tea, all I could see was 6 empty veg beds :( 

What a waste of space! 

Shouldn't there be something growing??

So I got my veg books and magazines out, and have now planned out what will grow in the garden till April 2012!! :D Whether it will work out that way remains to be seen! But I feel content that there is at least a plan in place now! Thank you to the designers of GrowVeg.com, I couldn't have done it without you!

... 

Well I probably could, but it would have been more difficult!

On a more positive note, lots of good has been happening in the garden; the shed and fence have finally been painted, the left and right boarders have finally been properly marked out and mulched, a tool rack has been put up in the shed and all the toys/tools/pots that have been lying round the garden have been gathered up and put away.

Also, most of the seeds I recently sowed have begun to grow, so in a week or two my beds will finally have some life in them! Yahoo! I'm really looking forward to some salad leaves fresh from the garden :9 Until then Tescos bagged salads will just have to do.

More seeds that have been sowed are my seed potatoes and some early carrots. I've sown both of these into potato grow bags... Can't see why they can't be used for other veggies other than spuds!?

Well thats all for now.

TTFN x

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!

The Story So Far...

So in 2003 we moved into our first house, it was great! We had a space of our own, and like any new home owner we couldn't wait to make our mark...

Here's a glimpse of what the garden was like when we moved in just over 7 years ago...

The existing garden was maintained by the gentleman next door. It was neat and tidy, but not really our cup of tea... lots of fuscia's, hundreds of daffodils and some shrubs in the corners that grew like crazy!! Still don't know what they were, we got rid of them pretty quick!

Being new of house and all, we didn't have much cash free for changing things like kitchens and bathrooms. The easiest (cheapest) option we had was the garden... I say we, really it's just me... DH has no interest in the garden at all. Since having the kids he does mow the lawn, but that's pretty much it really, so the current state of the garden is really my fault :-S Sorry Danny xxx

Any way, I formulated some garden design Ground Force style and set about digging up the existing plants, the path and marking out my plan... I can't even remember what I was gonna do now... this is pretty much as far as I got...

I thought it was brilliant and was really pleased with my progress... Looking back I appreciate the garden as it was before I dug it all up... Oh well!

Fast forward 6 years, and this is what it looks like...

The path never officially got filled in, it just grew over... The navel in the middle of the lawn is where we were going to put a rotary line. That is until we dug the hole only to descover concrete at the bottom... We're still deciding the fate of the line, do we dig another hole elsewhere in the garden? We contacted the counsil and service providers to see if the concrete is some kind of water pipe or whatever else might be lurking under the lawn, but seems we'll have to get a surveyor out to find out what it is...

We did do some work out there the year before last. I deweeded all up the right border and planted a second apple tree, a maple tree and a camelia. You can just make tham out amongst the new weeds...

We also dug up some of the patio near the house, I had some romantic notion of making a herb garden in these two beds nearest the house and growing veg at the back... Only problem being that the newly formed beds became very water logged, very quickly. The veg worked a bit though, I grew some radish, onions and potatoes in the area currently housing the paddling pool...

Around Christmas I was browsing the web, looking for solar powered Christmas lights to go on the bush by our front door... BTW, if you're thinking of being eco-friendly and getting some of these, don't bother... They were up for about a week before somebody decided to kindly remove them for us... On the plus side, they were rubbish, so no great loss, except for the £20... Anyway, while looking at these lights, I stumbled upon the idea of raised beds...

After doing a little research I decided to go with the Link-a-Bord  sets as they seemed pretty simple and very low maintenance, which is very important for me :-S Well they took less than 48 hours to arrive and I already have one of the 2x1m beds in place. Only problem is I don't have anything to put in it yet... Really need to get the compost ordered...

Fits quite nicely with my collapsable compost bin. Supposed to work 4x faster than a regular one? The main reason I wanted this one is that it seemed easier to move around if I decide I want it somewhere esle... Plus, can just fold it down and shove it in the shed if the whole veg dream fails...

I subscribed to Grow Your Own mag yesterday, with an offer of 60 plants free (aka, included in the price). Hopefully they will be okayish and will give me an idea of what I like/can grow at home.

P.S. I also hope the bed wont be walking off in the night to join my Christmas lights...

Blog 3...

Oh man 3 blogs on the go.... Think I've started a new addiction, the blogaholic :-)

Anyway, I've had this ambition for a while now to grow vegetables in the back garden... or at least maybe have a garden that has more growing in it than grass and weeds... Plus a couple of apple trees...

So here we go, it's finally begun...

I bought a compost bin on Saturday and ordered some raised beds yesterday...

Today began the war of the weeds!!

Really need to order some soil/compost to fill the beds with when they arrive and probably need to get a coldframe of some kind so that I can begin sowing seeds.