Planting things beginning with P

So yesterday was very much a "you can plant anything you like so long as it begins with P" day - potatoes (see other post) parsnips (Gladiator F1) and peas (Oregon Sugar Pod Mangetout). For the peas we had some very convenient pea sticks:



Since we are growing mangetout it's handy that the sticks are quite long. Anyways, we dug an area over, marked out two rows:



and planted about 50 peas - so we could end up with a lot of mangetout in May...



At the same time we dug a trench on the other side of the onions and filled this with compost (thus making some soil available to fill potato bags - nothing like joined up thinking eh?)



We then filled the trench with compost (parsnips get real ugly in rocky soil) and direct sowed the seed - so nothing to see here really...



These are here for the long haul - with a tail wind we may be eating parsnips for Christmas.

Potato experiments - boring "lab book" update for future reference

Last year's potato harvest was so rubbish we were almost tempted to grow no potatoes at all. That said we have heard of people getting better harvests from potatoes grown in tubs or bags, so decided to do some experiments.

So, this years potato planting was only 11 seed potatoes -

• Charlotte x 3
• Rocket x 2
• Lady Christl x 3
• Swift x 3

These are all 1st / 2nd earlies. We had a couple of potato planter bags and decided to extend the experiment to a couple of "bags for life" from the supermarket and an Ikea bag:

The potato bags are a motley assortment - three different sizes. The bags were just over half-filled with a mix of allotment soil, compost from the raised bed and well rotted manure, with some chicken manure pellets for good measure. We planted 3 x charlotte in Ikea:

then 2 x rocket in the tall spud bag:

then 2 x lady christl in low spud bag #1, one in orange carrier:

then finally 2 x swift in spud bag #2, one in blue Tesco carrier:

These were obviously all covered with a couple of inches of soil, but we left some space to further earth them up as they grow. Theory states harvesting should be trivial - tip the bag and pull - we shall see...

Planting onions

It's that time of year when we plant our main crop onions. I'm sticking with my old faithfuls - Sturon. We always buy the bolt-resistant (heat-treated) sets which are slightly more expensive but always give us great results. We are also really keen on shallots but we did'nt have a lot of success growing them in our raised bed last year. This year we will try planting them straight in the ground as we do for the other onions. The two varieties we are growing are shown in the below pic:

After forking over the ground , the shallots and Sturon sets were planted in rows alongside the cabbages:

In total there were 85 Sturon sets in the bag. These have been covered to stop the birds pulling them out:

The netting will be removed once they have become established.
I'm still not overly impressed with our autumn-sown onions:

The Japanese onions in the foreground are doing okay but I think we have lost many of our Snowball and Red Baron onions. I reckon we will be harvesting only 20-30 of the 50 onions sown.
In other onion-related news, the spring onions have been pricked out of their pots into a large container in the greenhouse:

These are looking promising (despite the unflattering photo!), there are 20 in total. I have also sown a couple more pots indoors in the hope of a continuous supply.

Inspection of plot (and seedlings)

Last weekend we spent a bit of time up the allotment weeding in preparation for rotavating:

We are hoping to get the main-crop onions and shallots in soon. Talking of onions, the autumn planted ones are not doing great:

We planted a mixed pack of onions (red baron, right), snowball (left) and Japanese onions (left) at the beginning of October. It's a bit hard to tell in the above pic but the Japanese onions are by far the strongest-looking plants. I think we have lost some of the others...

The garlic variety Germidour (sown at the same time as the onions) are doing well (100% success rate there) and to the left of the garlic in the below pic are a few slightly slug-damaged spring cabbage that are beginning to heart up:

These were kindly donated to me by my dad, the variety I think is "Offenham".

In other news we have lots of seedlings. Great success has been had with the chillis... after covering each pot with a plastic bag, every single seed germinated so now I have a total of 17 seedlings! The spring onions are doing okay, good germination rate there too:

Not a huge number I know, but will probably sow some more now I can get them to grow (hopefully I won't kill them when I transplant outside!). Mixed success with the pots of herbs:

The coriander, parsley and purple basil germinated quickly but the green basil and Delfino coriander have not germinated at all. I'll perhaps give them another week and if nothing appears I will chuck the seed and empty the pots.

Talking of poor germination less than a dozen leeks have germinated and most of those have just sat there peeping through the soil, not growing at all. I know from experience they can take a long time to germinate. 2 years ago I sowed a second batch of leeks after only a few germinated by the 4 week mark. Eight weeks later I ended up with hundreds of leeks!! I will try and hold off for a bit although I think I may sow some winter leeks anyway.

The tomatoes are up and running. Reasonable success there too with 3 or 4 plants per pot (4 seeds were planted per pot):

 Despite some of the seed being 5-7 years out of date, most have germinated. It would'nt surprise me if we get a 100% success rate!

Chitting seed potatoes

This year we are dramatically reducing the number of seed potatoes that we are planting out after 2 years of very poor harvests. We thought we would trial a few potatoes in containers instead:

From top to bottom we have:
3 x Lady Christal - first early
3 x Charlotte - second early (RHS AGM)
2 x Rocket - first early
3 x Swift - first early

We bought the potatoes about 3 weeks ago from our local garden centre and left them in the garage. We have now brought them into the house and put them on a bright windowsill in a cool room (radiator turned off) to chit before planting out sometime in the middle of March.

Toms

It's that time of year again when I sow my tomatoes. Our absolute favourites are Garden Pearl - a determinate (bush variety) cherry that produces masses of sweet firm fruit. I'm also sowing 3 other varieties simply because I have the packets of seeds:

Duchy Originals Falcrosso F1 Hybrid - Large plum-sized cherry. I think this is a bush variety as no pinching out of side-shoots is required. Seeds in date.

T&M Black Cherry - The clue is in the title with this one! This is a cordon variety. Seeds are 7 years out of date.

D.T. Brown Bejbino F1 - Another cordon variety, seeds 5 years out of date.

Unlike some types of seeds, tomatoes will often germinate and grow on to produce healthy plants well past their sow-by date. I am sowing 5 seeds of Garden Pearl and 4 each of the others in 3 inch pots.

In other news we now have lots of seedlings in the pots on the windowsills. The leeks sown 19 days ago are germinating - I counted 5 this morning. To my absolute delight the spring onions sown 9 days ago are also germinating. In the chilli department we have 1 Cayenne pepper and 2 Aji Wrecking Balls. The lettuce are germinating and so is the parsley. It has definitely been milder over the last few days and is likely to remain so for the next week so maybe spring is just around the corner...

The last of the leeks...

This is the last of the Musselburgh leeks:

Leeks always do well on our allotment despite getting a bit of rust in the Autumn. So far there is no sign of any leek seedlings sown 12 days ago (or chilli seedlings for that matter). The purple-leaved basil is germinating though, and so is the coriander:

This year I thought I would have  another go at growing spring onions. Usually I sow the seeds outside in the spring. After 3 or so weeks only a handful germinate and then they die before getting to a useful size. This year I am going to sow a few seeds in pots indoors as I would for leeks to see if I have any success this way. I'm going to try sowing 2 different varieties:

Finally, I thought I would get some hearting lettuce started indoors. The UK's salad shortage is set to carry on for many months yet so I want to make sure we have our own supply asap! I'm sowing some mixed lettuce seeds (All The Year Round, Black Seeded Simpson, Catalogna, Iceburg 2, Lobjoits Green Cos, Lollo Rosso, Merveille des Quatre Saisons, Romaine Ballon) plus some Little Gem lettuce for good measure.