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…

Valentine's Weekend

Well we can’t be accused of slacking off this weekend, we have gardened like machines, machines I tell you.

The front section of the garden was in a bit of a state, a leaking half filled pond with a pretty miserable looking toad, some weeds, some rather lanky leeks/healthy looking spring onions and some unidentifiable debris. This year I want this section full of flowers and colour, as last year the only colour going on was green. So while many of you were getting flowers, for us, this Valentine’s weekend was to prepare the flower bed.

First things first was to clear the ground of all of the above (apart from Mr Toad who was kept in a safe place). The ground wasn’t too bad to be honest, a little rocky but plenty of relatively fine top soil. There was however no organic matter in there, so with a shovel and possibly the worst wheel-barrow ever made we dug some of the manure from the raised bed and transferred it to the flower bed. Doing so we realised the raised bed needed more top soil so it really was a case of moving dirt round in circles for most of Saturday. I was pleased to use our very cool vintage soil sieve from RE, which ensured any rocks were discarded. 

While most of the nation was romancing their Sunday’s away we decided to visit the garden centre and stock up on “essentials”. A ton of plants were bought including some lupins (probably in my top 5 all time plants), some red hot pokers, verbena, fox gloves and some gladiola bulbs. We also acquired some grit and a pond – well a big trug that will be used as the new pond. Back home we finished preparing the flower bed and planted some of the plants that will survive the cold weather that is lingering on. While re-laying some of the rocks in the bed we found an army of snails under a huge stone, they must have been hibernating for the winter. These lucky chaps are now in a pot ready to be transferred to the park and away from our plants. I am sure there will be more where they came from!

Broad beans update

Sunday, 7 February 2010

Four weeks on - 100% germination rate.

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Location:Milton Grove,Hackney,United Kingdom

Tomato progress - a quick ketchup

Four weeks on. Short of good sunlight progress is slow.

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Location:Milton Grove,Hackney,United Kingdom

Planting the garlic and creating the broad bean bed.

It’s been the first weekend in what feels like ages that we have actually had a productive time in the garden thanks to the weather being on our side.

Now that our broad bean seeds have all germinated thanks to early indoor sowing it won’t be long till we harden them off and then plant them out. So my job today was to create the broad bean bed. This isn’t in the raised bed but is where the original veg patch was last year. Thankfully the soil had a great mix of compost in it from last year so wasn’t too difficult to dig over. I also moved over some of the manure from the raised bed to add some body and organic matter, which I am sure the beans with love. So if the weather stays snow and frost-free the seedlings will be in the bean bed in no time.

Next on the agenda was the garlic which we have written about before. The garlic had some great root growth which had started to push through the homemade newspaper pots so it was time to get them in the ground. We spent a bit of time getting the raised bed in order by adding some top soil to improve the consistency and then with an old bit of plastic pipe made some holes for the garlic to go in. Easy as pie! I am looking forward to seeing what the garlic will look like when it comes up, but not as excited as I am about eating it!

Growing Potatoes in Tyres

If you listened to gardeners question time this week you might have heard a nice lady, Mrs Elizabeth Gladman talking about her experiences growing potatoes in tyre stacks. She had pretty dismal results. Not surprising as, under her husbands advice, she had set the potatoes growing in straw - not the best growing medium Bob Flowerdew noted.

Bob did go onto to say that she could get bumper crops out of tyres stacks if done right. Glad to hear it as our entire potato crop will be grown in tyre stacks next to the shed. The benefit of using tyres as far as I can see are:

1) Rubber is highly insulating and will protect the tubers from late frosts, uinlike those plastic (over-priced) containers being sold in the shops. This means we can start the earlies very early.
2) The stacking nature means we can add height easily to allow us to earth-up around the haulms (the green tops).
3) The volume of soil you can get into three tyres stacked up is enormous - this scale makes it easier to keep the containers from drying out when your not around for a few days.
4) This is super-recycling - no energy, except man power, is required to convert them into useful garden hardware.

We've been collecting tyres for the last few weeks from the garage around the corner - picking through the industrial garbage whilst the neighbours look on, wondering whether they should call the police. We have eight so far and need another four for to complete the arrangement:

3x stacks of three tyres for the potatoes - two for Charlotte, one for Foremost
3x single tyres for lettuce (these will sit infront of the potatoes to break-up the rubber wall affect)

Taking advatage of the fine weather this morning we set about removing the rims from the tyres. This was done by steadily scoring through the rim with a Stanley Knife, before moving onto a hacksaw. The best way to do this is to give yourself a flatish surface to saw through by bending the rim towards you as you cut - see first photo.

Biggest sign of progress this week - the raised bed was in 'full sun' for about an hour this afternoon. That's the first time in two months. As you can see by this photo taken from the drawing room it was weak, but sunlight none the less.

The first signs of life, Broad Beans

Tuesday, 2 February 2010

The broad beans are starting to poke through, ten days after sowing. They're on the desk in the office. Some are in the open, others are under a layer of bubble wrap. The later seem to be doing best.


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Location:Church Walk,Hackney,United Kingdom

Cold, work and mother-in-law induced hiatus

Sunday, 31 January 2010

It's been dificult to get going in the garden this weekend. It was lovely having the mother-in-law to stay, but labouring under a modest (belated) Burns night hangover meant we didn't really get going on Saturday. Plus work has been full-on this week (a semi-pitch and a quarterly review on a big account) - leaving me craving a bit of veg-time on the couch rather than in the garden. Besides, it's all justifiable with the ground frozen and a dusting of snow that hasn't shifted all weekend.

Notable signs of progress this week:

• The sun is just hitting the back of the raised bed for the first time in two months; we're in the shadow of a workshop when the sun's on it's lowest trajectory. I'm hoping that in two weeks' time the whole veg patch will start getting the sun. As soon as it does we're in business.
  
• Roots of the Garlic are visible when we unfold the bottom of the recycled paper pots. These are all lined up on the shed's workbench. As soon as we start seeing shoots we'll move them in to the light and will plant out as soon as we can get the ground ready.
  
• The first set of true leaves are appearing on the tomato seedlings, which have been moved to the more evenly-temperatured sitting room. This is just two weeks after sowing.
• The seed potatoes are sprouting nicely in the dining room and have proved to be an excellent talking point.

What we've managed to do this weekend:

• Started-off a mushroom kit indoors.
  
• Visited a Hackney Garden Centre called Growing Concerns. Nicholas will post a review.
• Bought some cool zinc plant labels and wrote-out the full set for the end of the rows in the raised bed (opposite).
  
• Bought organic potato fertiliser and blood and bone meal for the vine that I've been growing for the last five years. We had some lovely grapes off it last year.
  

Plans for the weekend

Tuesday, 26 January 2010

Sitting enjoying a rough cocktail whilst musing on the plans for the weekend.

I think we paid too much attention to edibles last year. This year we're also replanting the perenials bed for a riot of colour. We'll be sowing a raft of seeds; mostly aimed at bees and planting alliums, dhalias and gladioli.

Suggestions welcome.


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Location:A10,Hackney,United Kingdom

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.

Potatoes, Broad Beans and Happy Birthday Alicia.

Saturday, 23 January 2010

Despite a rather late night celebrating Alicia’s birthday at Luxe in Spitalfields we actually did do some gardening today, albeit slowly and with less precision than normal.

Today it was all about Potatoes and Broad Beans. We ordered two types of seed potato from Suttons, the first being the Charlotte, which is an early delicious spud, very versatile and one of my favourites and secondly the Foremost, which is a fantastic early potato.

We are chitting the spuds in old egg boxes and have placed them on a wee table in the dining room ensuring it gets constant even light through the day via a basement window. They will be grown in old tyres which we have “rescued” from a garage round the corner filled with a mixture of manure and top soil. Stephen has described the mathematical precision of how they need to be placed in the tyres and their proximity to each other which involved a diagram, I slightly zoned out at this stage, I’m more of a visionary I think.

We have far more than we need, of course! Is it a really naff and cheap to give people the chitted potatoes we don’t use as presents? Mmmm, probably. However, if you do want some please let us know.

Next on the agenda were the Broad Beans - Bunyard's Exhibit from Thompson and Morgans. As a child I hated Broad Beans, I just found them tasteless and a bit powdery. But growing them last year for the first time and eating them asap after podding proved a very different experience. The little morsels were sweet, tender and yummy. My favourite way of preparing them is to get everyone in the house shelling them round the kitchen table and then having Stephen make a delicious risotto. A simple but beautiful dish, just make sure you use good quality chicken stock, the best risotto rice you can lay your hands on (try Carnaroli), plenty of white wine, parmesan, pancetta (it's even worth throwing in any spare bean/pea shoots for extra zing).

Our Broad Beans have been sown in half a dozen plant pots and some left over plastic cups from the party last night – recycling at it’s best.

We’ll harden them up a bit outside once the weather heats up before planting them into the bed – Stephen thinks we’ll be eating them by June, I think May.

The garlic pots

Sunday, 17 January 2010

Today we filled our home made eco-pots with compost and planted the long awaited garlic. We have 38 wee pots resting in the garden shed (garlic likes a cold snap to get it bulbing up).

The garlic sets, Albigensian Wight, came from the Ilse Of Wight Garlic Farm last October. They stored quite well with only 2-3 cloves being lost over the last three months.

In your vegetable garden during January

Thursday, 14 January 2010

Great topical tips for organic gardening.

View of our little patch from the roof.

Blueberries

Wednesday, 13 January 2010

Everyone seems to be growing them and not wanting to be 'off-trend' we ordered three blueberry bushes at the start of January from Buckingham Nurseries. Very cost effective plants - I think it was under 15 squid for three includinging postage. However, we got a bit of a surprise when they arived in one small box. A kind of 'oh is that it?' moment. They're one-year old cuttings - about 6" tall - for some reason we were expecting something more bush-like. Although a little disappointed with their diminutive size, they look very healthy.

On the advice in one of Bob Flowerdew's books (The Gourmet Gardener) that I received as a lovely stocking filler from Nicholas and the BBC website's 'growing blueberries' page we've opted for two Herberts for their flavour and one Patriot for its vigour - all sounds a bit yankee-doodle to me, but as I said it's all about being on-trend. Apparently it's a very good idea to have a least two varieties to aid pollination.

We've saved the tips of our Christmas tree to mix in with eracatious compost and manure and will plant all three in an old cast-iron bath. Given the amount of space they have for the first few years, we should have space for a bit of companion planting - ideas welcome. They'll need transplanting eventually to 5' apart, but I suspect that will be in a few years. Don't expect an update anytime soon.

The Spitalfields Horticultural show 2009

Tuesday, 12 January 2010

Al's photos from last year's Spitalfields Horticultural Show are up on Flickr.

Where we missed out on the veggies, Sarah and Nicholas made up in the baking category.

Nine first all up, plus four seconds and seven thirds.

We were awarded first, second and third for Nicholas's tomatoes - lovingly dressed for the show by me.

Seedling pots

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.

John Cushnie

Friday, 8 January 2010

Greatly saddened by the sudden death last week of the straight-talking, but lovely and ever entertaining John Cushnie, one of our favourite panelists on Gardeners' Question Time. He will be greatly missed by many.

Cloches

Thursday, 7 January 2010

So just to be clear, when Nicholas talks about 'bits of plastic', I've been looking at ways of getting an early start on sowing. We want to aim wherever possible at having two sowings of vegetables in the same space in one year.

We missed the really good weather last October for planting overwintering garlic and broad beans, mainly because the raised bed wasn't ready in time. November was a complete wash-out, cold and day after day of rain so we didn't take the risk of planting garlic sets only from them to rot away. Both of these crops can be planted in February, but the challenge is to get the ground into a condition that will kick start germination and then speed things along enough so that both crops can be harvested by the end of May to make room for the vegetable next sowing.

To help get the ground ready we have covered the raised bed with a double layer of cheap plastic dust sheets. The aim here is to give the bed chance to dry out a little earlier. Since we put these sheets down we have had three weeks of heavy rain and snow, so at the moment it looks like we're boxing clever.

As we're aiming to plant and sow these direct in February, to make sure we don't come a cropper on further bad weather I'm aim to make or source some good quality barn cloches to offer protection through to March. The research I've done to date has given me two ideas.

One idea is to make these cloches from scratch using custom-cut 10mm polycarbonate sheets. These would be cut into 1500mm x 300mm strips, with two of these strip being attached to wooden frames in a tent shape with two end pieces. Cost to produce two of these will be about £80 for the polycarbonate and wood.

The alternative is to buy pre-made cloches. The best looking and most reasonably priced are from the posh cloche company. Very cool name. Doesn't give the flexibility in size, but we could support two 1250mm rows for £75 and would save a lot of time.

Image coutesy of the Posh Cloche Company.

Came across this chaps blog about making his own cloches in my research - really fancy having ago at making old-school Chase Barn Cloches one day. My granddad also used to use these when he had his big veg patch. They disappeared years ago though; pity.

Getting Started

Wednesday, 6 January 2010

Our first entry for the Hackney Veg patch blog (will anyone other than Stephen read this.....? ok ok, Hi Mam). I'm Nicholas Ridley-Wilson, some like to call me NRW, my boyfriend is Stephen Derbyshire - we like gardneing, we love our home in Stoke Newington and this is the story of our veg patch.

We are now over the Christmas excess and have been busy preparing our new and very fabulous raised bed which is filled with the very best cow poo the south of England had to offer us on a cold and wet Sunday morning. Being one of the coldest winters of record we have had to take precautions to ensure that the bed doesn't fail us in the coming months, therefore it is now toasty and warm with a big plastic sheet over it. Of course this isn't sufficient in the long run so Stephen has been doing extensive research into various erect plastic apparatus (cloches) that will protect our wee seedlings when the sowing season commences - I can't wait. Can you?

While drinking various Christmas alcoholic concoctions over the past week or so our gardening hasn't come to an absolute halt, we have been very busy looking though seed catalogues and websites, including incluiding our favourite Thompson and Morgan and Suttons, ordering a plethora (love that word) of culinary and green delights that will see us though the next year. Naturally this list of seeds were cross referenced from various sources to ensure we have the best variety (thank you to Gardeners Question Time expert Bob Flowerdew - we love you man). Our seed box is half full and once the others arrive we will be on our way to the "Goode Life". We have even bought some blueberry plants which are currently being held hostage at the post office and I will get the tomorrow, I promise.

Well, if you managed to get to the end of this very uneventful first entry congrats - expect more exciting news when the weather gets hotter and the days get longer.