Our vegetable garden schedule

Monday, 15 February 2010

I get a little annoyed watching Gardeners World. It’s a little like the BBC breakfast news, which I had to stop watching in the end due to my shouting upsetting our house mates. Gardeners World isn’t quite as bad, but they lost their way somewhere (I think it was after Precy Thrower retired). They seem to spend too much time trying to convince you how quick and easy gardening is and miss-out some of the really important lessons – like planning. We spent most of the winter planning; drawing out beds, pouring through seed catalogues, researching the best varieties and planning the optimum schedule for our little vegetable garden. And I have to say – I think I had almost as much fun doing that as I’m going to have when our friends come over for the harvest.

Our vegetable garden plan is based on intercropping and catch cropping principles. That is to say, growing quick crops in temporary spaces between slow growing veg (radishes between sprouts for example) and replacing spring harvested veg with summer / winter veg as soon as possible.

You’ll notice there’s a heavy focus on summer veg on this plan, with little left on the patch for winter. Our housemates Sarah and Al are moving back to Australia in June and Alicia wants to buy her own place. Although I’m sure it wasn’t anything to do with my morning rants against the TV, this does leaves us wondering whether we’ll reap even the summer harvest – we’re certainly not looking further than the end of the year.

The best laid plans of mice and men…

Sowing Tomatoes

Sunday, 24 January 2010

We didn't mention it at the time, but last weekend we sowed Tumbling Toms from Thompson and Morgan, two/three at a time into 3" pots. We grew this variety very successfully in hanging baskets and hay troughs around the garden last year. As the name suggest they have a spreading trailing habit that suits this type of situation and therefore maximise space for us by using up wall space.

Used in salads and intense sauces throughout the summer the remaining unripe and semi ripe fruit were snipped off en-mass, ripened on trays in window sills for a week and then thrown into Nigel Slater's Green and Red Tomato Chutney. This turned out more like a rough ketchup, spicy and sweet, than a true chutney. It was great with cheese, dolloped into stews and given away as Christmas presents.

To germinate effectively these need to be kept at a constant 20 degrees, or there abouts, so we've had them on the radiator in our bedroom. We've had an almost 100% germination rate, with seedlings popping through in just four days rather than the seven to 10 days promised on the packet.

As soon as germination has taken place we moved the pots to the upstairs bathroom window. This is our only south-facing window and looks out onto our inverted-apex-style roof, which means it gets the best light at this time of year. As the bathroom is at the top of the house - five flighst up - it also stays fairly warm. This should be an excellent position for them to mature to planting-out time in May. At that point I would expect them to be 4-6" tall - let's see.

Seedling pots

Tuesday, 12 January 2010

In preparation for sowing over the coming week, I have been using a very nifty Christmas present from my sister Kate. She very kindly bought me a ‘make your own plant pot kit’ that has proven to be a great success. You basically cut 3inch strips of newspaper, roll them around the wooden shaft and tuck under the edges using the ridge plate, fastening the seem with a bit of tape. In one evening, we've churned out about 30 seedling pots. Environmentally friendly, simple and highly cost effective.