What’s happening now?

Potatoes

The beds for next year’s potatoes are still resting under their duvet of manure, covered by a bedspread of black plastic. Peeking underneath I see that the worms have not pulled it all into the soil yet. I may well have to fork the rest in myself.

I would like to be already chitting some potato tubers by now, but they haven’t arrived from my supplier yet, so I will just have to be patient.

I have planted 6 bags of first early potatoes in compost in the greenhouse. (These are from saved seed.) Hopefully these should give the first new spuds of the year sometime in May.

Leeks

The last of the old leeks are hanging on in one bed. I got a far better crop than ever before last year  by planting them after the first early spuds, so I will do that again.  There was a gap at one end of the bed where I sowed some overwintering salad onions in the autumn, and they too are doing well.

The new leeks I sowed last week have come through and I have moved them to the window sill. At the moment however the germination seems to have been patchy. I may well sow another tray in a week or so unless more start showing.

Onions

The autumn-sown onion sets are growing strongly. I hand-weeded between them this week. I am still undecided whether to top dress them with an organic fertilizer. They may well  have enough nutrients from the compost that went in for last year’s potatoes, but I don’t know. Maybe the answer is the top-dress part of the bed and then compare.

The final bed in the allium break is also under black plastic, waiting for the spring-sown onion sets to go in towards the end of March.

Garlic & Shallots

I have one bed shared between garlic and shallots. The garlic, which I planted in the autumn, is growing strongly. However the shallots have been slow to get off the mark. If you remember, I decided to plant shallots at three different times, and compare results. Some fresh bulbs which I bought in the garden centre, went in in the autumn. Some bulbs I had saved from last year’s crop went in the week before Xmas. And the rest of the saved bulbs I planted in modules in the greenhouse last week,a la Monty Don. Well the autumn planted bulbs are just poking through the soil now, but  the Xmas bulbs are not showing yet.

Salad Veg

The last of the forcing chicory was used up a week or so back.  The lettuce that have been growing in the greenhouse and indeed outside has survived well and is starting to come back to life. I will need to transplant  some of them into the brassica bed, interplanting between the cauliflowers (or rather planting them out, leaving gaps for where the caulis are going to go).. 

According to my plan. one bed ought to be down to overwintering salad veg, such a chard, leaf beet, corn salad, land cress, etc. I did sow them in rows between some lettuces, with the intention of planting out the lettuces elsewhere leaving room for the other plants to grow on. Unfortunately, my overenthusiastic wife weeded out everything between the lettuces when I wasn’t looking. Oops! No chard, leaf beet etc this year!

The "All Year Round" lettuce I sowed last month have been transplanted into pots and transferred to the greenhouse staging. Today I sowed some "Webbs wonder" in the propagator to follow on.

Peas

I prepared the pea bed this week. Firstly I  removed the black plastic, then put some boards along the centre of the bed (to walk on), and finally unrolled a fence along the middle of each half.  My intention is to have four sowings of peas, one each in early March, April, May and June. These will each fit along one side of the fences.

The first peas I sowed were Meteor about a week ago. They are a hardy, round-seeded variety, not as sweet as the later wrinkled-seeded peas, but they do come a few weeks earlier.  I soaked the seeds overnight first, as if I were preparing beans for sprouting, then as soon as they started showing, I planted them in modules and put them on the window-sill in my conservatory.

Broad Beans 

The Aquadulce Claudia broad beans I sowed in September are now about a foot tall and looking good.

The field beans sowed in November are also showing 2 or 3 inches above the ground. They look identical to broad beans at this stage - it will be interesting to see how the mature beans differ. If used as a green manure, they should be dug in now to give nutrients back to the soil. But I am intending to use them as dried fuls mesdames instead. There are a few gaps though, where mice or weather have taken their toll. I think I will transplant from one end of the bed into the gaps and then sow some spring onions in the space. Or even use it as a holding bed for the new season’s leeks, once they need transplanting out of their trays.

I will need to sow one final bed with broad beans, a longpod variety, this next week, to provide beans to follow on from the Aquadulce.

Brassicas

The 2 beds destined for early brassicas  are still sleeping under plastic and will receive calabrese, early caulis and early cabbages once the seedlings are ready. This week the seedlings which have been growing on the conservatory window sill, started showing their first true leaves, so I transplanted them into modules and took them to the greenhouse.

Of the overwintering brassicas, the kale is looking good. I have been taking pickings once or twice a week for stir fries, braising and also the smallest leaves are great in salads. 

The brussel sprout bed has been cleared and the last of the sprouts are safely in the freezer. 

Some red cabbage I planted out in the late summer are looking good – I really had no idea what to expect as I bought them as remaindered seedlings from the garden centre when one of my intended crops failed, and just put them out hoping.

There is half a bed of sprouting broccoli that is still biding its time.

Greenhouse staging

When I bought my greenhouse I bought one staging 6 ft long. But nowadays I need more space, so I decided to make my own staging.  I  modelled it on the existing one. I bought some aluminium lengths of right-angled cross-section from B&Q (on Wednesday, so I get my over 60s discount!) and spent a days sawing and drilling and bolting until I had a staging framework ready. Next I need to buy some wood for the cross slats.

Greenhouse crops

The tomatoes, aubergines , chillis and capiscums that I sowed a few weeks ago are generally doing well.  Some of them did cook one day, when i went out and forgot to leave the conservatory door into the house open, and I lost a few, but most survived.  I planted the tomatoes out into pots this week and took them to the greenhouse. The others are growing more slowly and will need a while longer in their seedtrays.

Parsnips & Celeriac

A couple of days ago I sowed parsnips indoors. I used the variety "White Gem"  Parsnips are notoriously slow to germinate, and last year I lost my entire crop underneath weeds. Unfortunately they don't like root disturbance, which makes them fang, and so the story is that they cannot be transplanted. However I am challenging that notion. Instead of pots, I used the cardboard inners of toilet rolls, filled with multipurpose compost, and sowed 3 seed in each. They are now sitting on the window sill.

 I sowed a tray of celeriac this morning and put it into the propagator. This is my first attempt at celeriac, and I understand they are very slow to get going, so I will have to be patient.

Carrots & Beetroot

3 weeks ago I placed some cloches on the ground to warm it up. Tomorrow morning I will sow some early carrots underneath. The varieties I have in mind are Parmex and Zian. Parmex is an early  stump-rooted carrot. Parmex is a bunching carrot.

I sowed some Boltardy beetroot in modules this week, 2 or 3 per module, and put them on the window-sill to germonate. This another idea of Monty Don's, to plant the modules without thinning to get a clump of small beetroot rather than fewer large ones. 

It's only when I read over what I have written that I realize quite what a busy time it has been!