Garlic planted at last

I managed to get outside for a few hours today so I dug over the raised bed and removed some tree roots and a ridiculous number of stones.

I've planted some of the garlic in the garden.  I have no idea if it will be ok or not and it seems I should have planted them months ago!

Now I'm enjoying a well earned cup of tea and a biscuit.

Growing well

The sunflower and tomato seeds have really come on this week.

  

The Cauliflowers have made a recovery too!

Still no leeks though :(

Success and the brink of failure

Sunflower seedlings have appeared at last.

But I have noticed that my Cauliflower seedlings have gone all floppy.  After a bit of googling I think they need more light so I've moved them through to a sunnier window ledge.  Hopefully they will recover.  

Sweetcorn plant

I was working today so I got no gardening done other than attending to my indoor plants.  The sweetcorn is doing really well but still no leeks or sunflower seedlings.

Chitting potatoes

I love growing potatoes.  This is one that has been on my kitchen window sill for a month but it pretty much came out of the packet like this.

Busy day

I got so much done today.  I went to B&Q and bought a new fork, it's a 'proper' fork and I am ridiculously pleased with it (my £3.99 one bent on the first day - not entirely surprising).  It is a Joseph Bentley fork and it looks like a solid, old fashioned tool.  I feel like I know what I'm doing when I'm using it.  Now I just have to make sure not to bend it.


I also got  four bags of manure, five 30 litre grow bags which were down to £1 each and a kiwi fruit plant for £4.50 since it was last year's stock.  There is some healthy new growth on it so I think it will do fine, I've been stalking those kiwi plants for about 9 months waiting on them being reduced so it was a very successful trip.

After lunch I single dug the left bed and dug half of the manure into it.  I then covered it all with damp cardboard and put compost on top.  It looks great and is all ready for planting.

I've done about half of the right bed (the easy half of it where there are no roots to pull up) if I can get out tomorrow morning I'll try to dig up some more of the tree roots in the difficult end of the right bed.  The earth is much more healthy in this bed than on the other side of the garden which is good.

Cauliflower seedlings

I was quite excited this morning because overnight some of the Cauliflower seeds have sprouted, I only planted them last weekend so it was a nice surprise to see them this morning.

Planting more seeds

Yesterday turned out nice, well, dry and clear at least so I dug up loads of tree roots from the left veg bed and dug over all of the earth.  I put our new compost bin on top of the old tree stump and used the gritty earth to build up the level beneath the compost bin and a slab in front of it.  I'll get some manure at the weekend and dig it into the ground then put a mulch down on top and then I'll call that bed done!

http://www.sankeygrowyourown.co.uk

In the evening I planted some Cauliflower and Leek seeds in seed trays and two varieties of sunflower in my newspaper pots.

I need to get rid of a lot of old crazy paving slabs, it's going to mean many trips to the dump but at least I can collect some free compost (and perhaps old cardboard) while I'm there.

More origami plant pots

I made more plant pots this afternoon and I thought I would share how I do it.  As I mentioned in a previous post, I modified instructions I found online to make them a bit neater.


1. Start with a piece of newspaper, this is tabloid size.  Fold it in half from left to right.

2. Fold it in half from top to bottom.

Transplanting

It is raining as forecast this morning so I transplanted  the rest of my seedlings to the newspaper plant pots and planted a couple of Sunflower seeds.

One of the Sweetcorn seeds had massive roots!

I'm hoping to go shopping later for a compost bin and more seed trays, I'll fold up more plant pots and plant some Cauliflower and Leek seeds.

Digging digging digging

http://www.arthursclipart.org

I spent about three hours today digging holly tree roots out of the left veg bed.  I've got most of them and the earth is starting to look good.  I have less than a square meter to clear around the stump, I'll probably just cut the big roots as close to the stump as possible now and call it done.  I'll put one of my big plant pots or a grow bag on top of the stump to use the space.


I'm still worried about the amount of grey sand in the earth but there is much less of it close to the tree.  I was going to skim it off the top and throw it away but it is deep in places.  My new plan is to remove as much as possible and mix a lot of fertiliser into the earth and then do a cardboard mulch with compost on top which I'll make into a raised bed.


It's expected to snow all day tomorrow which is a real shame because I would have liked to finish the stump and digging on the left bed this weekend.  I'm also regretting putting down the cardboard mulch on the right bed without digging first so when I finish the left bed I'll move the compost & mulch from the right to the left and start digging the right bed.

origami newspaper plant pots

I made 30 newspaper plant pots tonight.  A whole newspaper's worth!  My fingers were dark black by the end.  I'm going to transplant the rest of my tomato and sweetcorn seedlings into them.  The rest will be used up as I need them for seedlings not yet planted.

 I followed the instructions here http://www.forgreenies.com/origami-newspaper-seedling-pots2 but I didn't like the 'ears' and they kept unfolding themselves so I changed the last few steps.  If I get some time over the weekend I'll photograph what I did so that I don't forget for next year.  (Edit: I've made a tutorial here)


I also ordered the last of my seeds from a really interesting website: http://thomasetty.co.uk/ the catalogue is a really good read and made me giggle!

Day off - all the slabs are up!

I have a mid-week day off today for my son's birthday and it is a beautiful day to be outside.  One of those lovely cloudless winter days with lots of sunshine.  We went for a walk in the morning and I bought two small bags of cheap seedling compost and three seed trays so that I can plant more seeds soon.


While the little one was having his afternoon snooze I did some work in the garden.  It was cold but I was lifting the last of the slabs so I had to take my jacket off.  It's very true that "if you're cold you're not working hard enough"!


I didn't spend long on the slabs, when my son got up from his nap we played in the garden and he had a lot of fun digging with his plastic spade where I had loosened the earth already.


I now have all of the slabs removed from my veg beds but the slabs are in big piles on the patio.  I'll need to take them to the dump in batches when I'm collecting free compost.  It'll be heavy work and I'm not looking forward to it.


After dinner the local paper arrived so I started making last week's paper into origami plant pots.  After a few false starts I made a dozen and transplanted the biggest of my tomato seedlings into them.


A very productive day!