What have you done in the garden today?

As Bertie says at the end of the above post the small size of beetroot and onion can be simply not enough water. UK gardeners say don't water onions but if you want largish ones and its not raining much they do need some water - but not so much the ground stays wet for long. Beetroots are heavy drinkers! They can be too strong flavoured if not watered enough.

Mulching over the beds is a very good thing to be going this time of year, with as much stuff as you can find!

I've managed to fork over (aerating and weeding top 6inches) 50sqm..only another 250 to go....

Starting to plot and plan how I'm going to garden when everything needs to be rather portable; also rather liked the tips I've read about how to keep cats out of raised beds as the neighbourhood I live in is plagued with cats, and I really need to keep them out of my beds this year.

I'll be planting the broad beans (was supposed to do in November, but will try now and see what happens), clearing out the chicory, sticking bits of bramble all over to keep the cats out of the beds, counting my pots to figure out what will go where. I've ordered only five packets of seeds this year to keep things small and manageable whilst at the same time still in keeping with growing even a little something to supplement our diet, especially now child is so keen on certain veg.

Got outside to enjoy the sunshine, and pruned my apple trees and gooseberry. They say you learn all the time - I hadn't realised until I saw some clear photos in a magazine article that a fruit bud on an apple tree is slightly different to a leaf bud. Have had a good peer at my trees - the two trees which had no fruit at all last summer have a reasonable number of fruit buds, so will have to look out for bullfinches.

Hath - I use large cloche hoops at each end of my raised beds, with netting streched across to keep cats and pigeons off my crops. You can make really big hoops with plastic tubing, which can be fitted over bits of cane or dowelling at each corner of the bed. Or even just strech out netting over the bed with no support while the plants are small.

Our polytunnel finally blew down in strong gales last year after five years of good use. I can't quite work out the size of the tunnel in the previous post but the following might be useful.
I determined I would rebuild ours larger and stronger and made very strong door frames of timber, with fence post supports driven into the ground. The doors themselves are pieces of polycarbonate sandwiched in wooden frames. I even built some vents in the same fashion above the doors. The sides are bolted between wooden planks meaning they can be raised and lowered, and the polythene tautened when necessary.
The result has been a much better tunnel with easy access and much better security from the wind and rain.
Once the 'skin' of a tunnel has been affected by high winds and doors blowing open in gales, the polythene starts to degrade and split. I'm sure now that the extra expense of doing VERY solid doors and vents is worth while.
It really isn't a good idea to erect a new tunnel in winter as the polythene will be cold and hard to stretch over the frame. When the warmer weather comes, the polythene will stretch and make the tunnel covering very loose. Far better to wait for a warm and sunny day when the polythene is supple, and then it will tension automatically on a colder day.
Having said all that, I hope your new tunnel is very successful and that you can tighten the polythene as necessary later in the season. I've just spent a happy hour or so pricking on seedlings and it was like walking into spring, with just a little sunshine to warm up the interior!

Found where the wretched hens kept on getting out and blocked it up

Moved a load of stone into a skip and a keeping place in the wood.

Ditto with lots of roof tiles.

Cleaned out Rabbits and Guinea Pigs hutches and scrubbed them and reinstated them

Cut down some perennials which the birds have eaten all the seed head from.

Looked at beds which need clearing but decided still too frozen

Re-cutting all the edges of the beds now that the fences are down...beds seem to always get bigger! Many many meters still to go!

Went into the greenhouse to see if it was still there - 30degC!

Bertie - our greenhouse was blown down in the Xenthia storm last Feb - it was over 180km/hr! When the wind blows in off the Bay of Biscay it always challenges the lightly made structures so "cheap" poly tunnels are sadly not an option at all here.

I have a box of twigs!!!! It's ridiculous I'm so excited about this but I am.




My minarette trees, mulberry and tayberry arrived today as well as some free strawberries! No idea where I'm putting the latter to be honest, I've loads of strawberries but I've heeled them in wherever there was some soil open for now. It's very frosty out there but I managed to bundle up and let the kits out, then heeled in the bare-root minarettes and secured the mulberry tree (I have a mulberry tree finally!!!!).

I'm stupidly chuffed but I've wanted a mulberry for ages, and having pears and apples which we could take with us wherever we move has been a goal of mine. I managed to scrabble just enough soil and compost together to get everything upright in pots but it's not enough. Bit skint at the moment but I'll get some dirt in from somewhere to start filling up the pots I have and planning seed allocation.

Burned a few spoons doing all that and was too excited to put sunblock on, but I wasn't out there long so I hope I can escape the rash-face thing today. Still, it was worth it.

Getting new trees is always so exciting. Trees are great value for money as usually they live for years and will produce fruit or flowers for a very long time. You can watch them grow and develop every year.
Seeds are also exciting, and I've just received my seed order from Graines Baumaux, including 50 purple asparagus seeds (already thinking of eating the asparagus three years from now!) and a few unusual vegetables. The sweetcorn packet contains 300 seeds, an enormous number for an F1 supersweet type, but I will make it last for several years by putting any not sown into the fridge with some dessicant gel.

Today is beautifully sunny here now, after a frosty start, but I've just discovered that I left the propagator in the polytunnel closed. Result.... half a tray of good pak choi seedlings are all withered. I have watered them but doubt that they will recover.

However, the mangetout pea seedlings are just poking through the soil in the bed. This afternoon I will sow my crimson flowered broad beans (in the tunnel as I want to use the first year's crop to multiply the number of seed... the stingy seed company only gave me about 30 bean seeds... Thompson and Morgan, not Graines Baumaux.)

The bees are flying well, the catkins are in full flower, and spring can't be far away. I always get taken for a mug by these early warm days, and will probably get caught the same way this year again, sowing things too early. Still it's fun!

I finally got the ex-pallets cut to length & denailed for the two ends, back & some of the front of our new compost bins...

Had a worthwhile chat with next doors builder...

I also noticed that one of the rhubarbs has a bud showing...

Trudged through the snow and fed my alpaca...

I braved the elements of humidity and sunshine (at least its only 29) to weed through the herb garden and plant some more marigold seeds. My mission is to have enough growing so they self seed throughout the garden. I also have potted a few big ones to give as gifts, as they grew a little close.

Ginny wrote:Trudged through the snow and fed my alpaca...

Now that is a show stopper of a line!

I've finally finished clearing beds for this season, I can't wait.. but I'm gonna, I am.. I must... *clings to wheelbarrow*

Heh, have to say feeding alpacas tops chitting my spuds but that's all I've got today! Seed potatoes arrived and I may possibly have over-ordered the things again. Way too many, I will be Our Lady of Tatties to friends again this year and save them a bit of dosh as I have enough for several families!

Yesterday the sun shone & I started to clear up in the garden. Found a couple of parsnips & a beetroot.

Potatoes are chitting nicely, also got some onion sets & shallots.

Question about seed potatoes. I've read in some things that you can seed your own from the "chiterlings" of your year's lot. But to do so over too long of a period causes a build up of blight viri in the spuds. As a result, you'd have to order new, blight free seed potatoes every few years to ensure minimal potatoe blighting. How often do you order chits? Every year? Every three?

Every year I order in fresh seed potatoes.

AND make sure I remove as many "volunteer " ones from the ground.

Blight is endemic around here so it just isn't worth the risk.

Blight is not the only reason why you shouldn't always use your own seed potatoes. Potatoes carry a great number of viruses and in our warm climates (summer at least) these are passed from plant to plant by aphids.
Therefore the vigour and cropping potential of potatoes decline year on year unless you buy fresh seed.
Seed potatoes are raised in cooler places where aphids are rare in summer months so they don't become infected. I suspect they are also raised from tubers grown from meristem culture too now, which is where the few cells at the tip of a plant are taken and are usually virus free.
Blight will happen when it's going to happen, but allowing volunteers to come up here and there will undoubtedly make it more likely. (Although there are other members of the solanaceae which will also overwinter the blight spores).
Blight will usually happen in humid warm weather, and short of spraying with a copper fungicide like Bordeaux mixture (or far worse products) , you can't prevent it. Just hope for dry sunny weather and you won't get it.
If blight does strike, you have to follow the usual procedure of cutting off the halums and removing them so the tubers are safe below ground.
To come to the point (ok, I'm very verbose!! Comes of having been and English teacher), I think I WOULD give it a go in saving your own tubers for seed potatoes for a year or two, but get new seed potatoes as soon as the crop starts to go off. Some of the rare heritage varieties are very expensive and you can't afford to buy new seed every year.
Dust them with sulphur if you like to kill off any blight spores in storage.
A strong infusion of mares tail (equisetum) is also supposed to deter blight as it contains a lot of silica. I haven't properly tried it but as we are infested with the stuff I really ought to.

"Comes of being and English teacher"......

I'll swear I never typed that!... Comes from being... or having been.... an.....

I blame this tiny keyboard!

I saw that and could just see my great-gran descending upon thee with her dreaded red pen! (she used to mark our letters to her!)

Bestowing friend with tatties this weekend and a few more later on so I can get rid of entirely too many seed potatoes, it's beyond mad how many nets of the things I've got!

I, on the other hand, am thinking maybe I need to get a few more.....

I'll send you some of mine, CW! Got more than enough to spare, just have to be able to do the Post Office Deathwalk one of these days.

I wasn't hinting!

Have you signed up for the Seed Swap? You could put some in to that, if you like....

Nah, knew you weren't but I've got the things! Only problem with doing the swop is I can't commit to going to post office whenever, it's too far for me to walk now unfortunately so I'm slow. Will think of something, I really do have too many and they'll just go to waste.

Nuffink..
But on Saturday I'm orfed to the Chilli nursery, soooooooooooo excited, give me this over clothes carp shoppnig any day...

And.. and over half term, Ol is making me more raised beds... so any day now, I'm hoping to really kick into action... I feel all bubbley and excited...