Planting out sweetcorn, it must be summer!

It feels very summery to be planting out the sweetcorn, which was mine and my 7yr old sons main job this evening (alongside weeding of course!) Sweetcorn was one of our favourite crops last year, we could have eaten double what we grew and still have wanted more, so we have about 30 this year. It will feel like a very long wait 'til harvest now haha... we popped some in the childrens beds too, they will love harvesting their very own cobs, especially if they can eat it there and then!

Sweetcorn 

We also planted out some dill and checked on all the seedling popping up at the plot.
Lots of the carrots, parsnip and beetroot are showing, although there are definately gaps, mainly the beetroot so I may have to resow in places.
The beans all seem to be sprouting nicely and I popped a few more seeds in where there were gaps, so we should have lovely full teepees very soon.  The module sown ones here should be ready to plant out by the end of the week, it will be interesting to see if the end up behind the direct sowing or not.
The squashes are having a bit of a sulk after being planted out. Hopefully they cheer up soon, we want lots of lovely squashes to see us through winter! I do wish I had sowed cucumbers in the kitchen much earlier, I don't want them to be unsuccessful as it is one of the only things we grow that the children love! I will make a note and do my best to remember next year.
The best part of our visit of course was the harvesting. As the garlic is suffering with rust we pulled up the handful that had dropped over, and we have cloves, yay. I cannot tell you how exciting this seem. We popped them in the shed to dry out and I am sure the rest of the crop won't be far behind. We picked a few more strawberries, although it seems the birds and slugs are nibbling (we really must sort out proper covers and lay straw to help) a huge bunch of sweet peas, they are so plentiful, we get a bunch every few days! Some more curly kale, probably to go straight in the freezer and our first harvest of mange tout peas. The Golden Sweet are ready to start picking.

Golden Sweet.

We may have also picked a pod of the Havel early peas,  and eaten them straight from the pod. They were heavenly but shhhhhhh don't tell any one..........

Pretty flowers on Giant Bijou.

Charity Seeds.

Back in January a fantastic blogger Beryl from https://mudandgluts.com did a charity fund raiser for the Samaritans. She offered packs of rare or interesting varieties of seed, many of which she saved herself, for  £1.75 a pack. We were able to purchase 4 packets each. I really hope she does the same again next year, it was great and she raised a whooping £320.50!

So, what did I choose? I went for 2 peas and 2 beans. I can not wait to see them grow, have a taste and save more seed for the future! Here is the splurge....... (info from mudandgluts.com and realseeds.)

Magnolia Blossom Tendril Pea – a new hyper-tendril tall sugarsnap with beautiful pink flowers. Not available for sale in the UK. (15 seeds)

An innovative hypertendril snap pea bred by Dr. Alan Kapular PhD. Hypertendril plants make enlarged tendrils in place of some leaves. The tendrils make for a more open habit, allowing better air flow and reducing diseases. And they are also great to eat! They are wonderful in salads or as a garnish, and they taste just like peas! Sturdy 5-6’ plants are very productive. The plants yield deliciously sweet snap peas for weeks. Vigorous vines produce bi-color flowers. Flavor peaks just before the string turn red.

Kent Blue Pea – a heritage mangetout with pink flowers changing to pale blue and navy. Only available from the Heritage Seed Library in the UK. (15 seeds)

Donor Mr J Hadow’s grandfather of Sevenoaks, Kent was given this pea in the 1940s and the family have grown it ever since. Its attractive bicoloured flowers start off maroon/pink, turning blue on maturing, followed by small, crisp, sweet pods, perfect for eating as mangetout, or allowing to develop a little more and using as sweet fresh peas. Garden Organic's Pauline Pears says, “The best pea I have ever grown.” Guardian Jean Goldberry adds, “Divine in bloom and the bees love it. Non-stop production, no plant could do more.”

The exact origins of this pea are unknown, but it has apparently been saved as a family heirloom since the 1940s in Sevenoaks, Kent.

Cherokee Trail of Tears beans - climbing French beans which can be eaten as green beans or when maturevas dried black beans. This bean was originally from the native North American Cherokee people. In 1838 they were driven out of their homelands in the state of Georgia by the US government to make room for more European, a forced march known as the 'trail of Tears' . This bean is one of the heirlooms thet managed to keep with them and has been passed on from generation to generation ever since.

Cara la Virgen de la Banera Leon climbing bean-  Gorgeous round beans with a brown pattern round the hilum. Needs a long season but climbs to 10-12ft and gives masses of dried beans. Not available in the UK. )

What a sorry looking lot!

These are the sorry looking bunch that didn't fare to well against the slimmies residing in the back garden. Rumour has it that a handful may have met a rather gruesome end once discovered, but who am I to gossip......

Anyway I have moved these to intensive care aka: the kitchen window ledge. We have here 4 cucumber plants and 2 melons. I have re-sowed a melon and 2 cucumbers as I am sure they are done for, but the other 3 seem to have new growth so fingers crossed. They will stay here during the night until they reach the 2 leaf stage and I will just pop them outside during they day to avoid having to do to much hardening off when the time comes to plant out. I wasn't very successful with cucumbers last year so I hope I can turn these around for a great harvest this time!

Last week of May 2017

Well although the weather can't seem to decide between autumn, spring or summer the plants still seem to be doing their thing and most crops seem to be growing well on the plot.

Peas growing well, lots of pods beginning to form

The slugs and snails have been far to active for my liking though and the rainbow carrots the children sowed on their beds didn't survive the 'all you can eat' buffet. I am worried that the parsnips are meeting the same fate as they germinate so I have sown more to be on the safe side! In this first year I have learned that growing your own is a piece of cake, it is stopping the local wildlife from munching our hard work that is the tricky part. A good amount our time is spent making covers to keep crops safe from the birds and butterflies. (Shame they don't keep the slimmies off too!) I have found myself window shopping for cloche hoops and cages but the price tag is eye watering so if we can bodge our own we will for now at least.

Makeshift cover for carrots and beetroot.

I have directly sown most of the beans, carrots, parsnip, radish and beetroot at the plot and planted out the lettuce, squashes, courgettes, pumpkins, and globe artichokes and the  Aurora tomotoes. I am interested to see how early they crop in the hope they will beat the blight.

At home I have module sown swedes and calabrese as well as a few herbs,  the slugs found most of them and I had to re-sow. They also ate all the cucumber plants so I will be re-sowing them too, but keeping them on the kitchen window ledge until they are big enough to survive a nibble or two. Hopefully I haven't left it to late for that.. The sweetcorn had a 100% germination rate which was great, although I will now need to find space for about 32 plants, the more the merrier though, they were a favourite crop with the children last year, they are growing well and should be ready to plant out soon the climbing beans I module sown at home are just poking through now too. I have sown both crops in root trainers which turned out to be a great investment. I would definitely recommend them for sweet peas, peas, beans and sweetcorn.

I was very excited to see the asparagus has sprouted, we have 7 out if 12 so far and I am keeping my fingers firmly crossed that the rest will make it. It certainly made that frustrating day of planting them worth while.
I am not having much luck with the broad beans this year. Blackfly have covered the whole crop despite nipping the tops off. I am wiping them off everytime I visit (yuck) but I am not holding out much hope of a bountiful harvest,  the pods just aren't getting any bigger! I tried the variety Wizard beans from Real Seeds (They are actually field beans). I still have about 10 seeds left so next season I will sow them alongside another variety to see if I can do better! They take up to much room to produce a small harvest but I love them to much to give up at the first hurdle.
The most magical moment though, the one I dreamed about before even going on the list for an allotment..... the first strawberry harvest. It was only a small handful from our unknown variety but it was AMAZING! I can't wait for the rest to turn red,  they may not make it home..........

Bean Teepee's!

2 of the 3 teepee's.

Today was the day I finally got to put up the bean teepee's, yay. Half way through the job was a really rubbish time to realise I will only fit 3 of the 4 planned teepees on the bed, meaning 20 less bean plants, eeek! It is even more annoying to realise I also need another 20-40 bean poles......... ah well, I will spent the next few days mulling over finding somewhere else to squeeze in 20 bean plants, or come to terms with the fact that 30 will do! I directly sowed 10 Czar seeds and 10 White lady seeds so fingers crossed they survive the birds and mice long enough to germinate, then grow quick enough to escape the slugs. The climbing french beans will get sown later in the month, apart from a few special ones that will be sown in root trainers and mollycoddled here at home beford planting out once they are nice and strong. I will try and remeber to post about them seperately. (Here it is http://strawberriesandcreamplot.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/charity-seeds.html )

I made a start on clearing the old brassica beds from last year, most of the plants have flowered and even though the bees are loving them, the time has come to start getting the beds ready for their next crop. I will have to buy a few more bags of compost to cover the ground. These areas never got covered earlier this year and the ground is like cement.

I also managed to have a real good tidy up today (because I snuck back down to the plot this evening, hurray for it being lighter again)I was so pleased to see lots of the flowers are starting to, errr, well, flower haha! And I seem to be winning the war of weeds for now. I will leave you with some pictures of the plot..........

First sweetpea flowering, these were sown from seed in October and over wintered in the little plastic greenhouse.

Pea's coming along nicely.

Wizard field beans, Flowering nicely and attracting many bee's. I can't wait to harvest these beauties.

Overview of plot 1

Overview of plot 2.

Flower bed next to the shed.

Close-up of Foxgloves beginning to flower. These were sown from seed last year!