Slow progress

Not much to report.  The salad is growing as are the radish and we have bubble wrapped some more of the greenhouse.  Still not sorted which greenhouse heater to get as the choice and cost (of initial purchase and running) vary so still not sure what will be best.  Will have to sort something soon mind as its getting colder. 

On the plus side i'm off to get some guttering to attach to the greenhouse tomorrow! so we'll be one water butt better off, maybe two.......

Cold at last!

Just a short post today as we had a quick job of moving the salad we planted last month into a couple of grow bags.  The main lesson learnt today was sow the seeds straight into the grow bags but the girls had fun helping out in the greenhouse

I cut out the grow bags and the girls got digging, then chose which plants (more like mix and neither were too good at keeping the seeds separate when planting!)  they wanted to move into the grow bags, simple! 

The only problem we had was me explaining why the rocket and lettuce didn't need any canes sticking in the grow bags!

That was it for today garden wise.  We will plant some more of the same seeds next week (straight into the grow bags this time!) and get round to finishing the bubble wrap insulation.  Having looked into heaters to keep the frost off we're going to go for an 80w tube heater as we don't want the electric bill to overshadow the amount we grow (or don't grow as it may be................)

Veg to the future

Farewell August, hello September.  A finer month as far as we're concerned for many reasons, a big one being the apple tree which has done well this year.  The kids (and every adult to visit us) love eating a freshly picked apple when playing in the garden.

All our crops have been picked for this year which is sad but also exciting as we can get on changing the layout of the veg garden!

First we decide to grow some salad in the green house over winter! So we've started insulating it with bubble wrap which is an on going and slightly boring/frustrating job. Below is just the windows covered up which has already made a big difference.

I am looking up heaters to keep the greenhouse above zero in the depths of winter but hopefully i'll have plenty of time to research that as, as usual, we have no idea what we're doing. 



Anyway, greenhouse almost ready we went ahead and planted some seeds.  Hardy lettuce, rocket, some other leafy stuff that looked good on the packet, radishes and spring onions.

The girls had great fun using their fingers to make holes ready for the seeds to be dropped in

Liliana managed to keep different seeds in rows but Mimi decided they'd stand a better chance all mixed together!  When these greens get going (fingers crossed) we'll move them into some grow bags.  The spring onions and radish we sown in the larger pots so won't need to be moved (feel free to add a horticultural word if you know it)

Once the seeds were in they got another layer of compost because it seemed like a good idea and we had some left

After the seeds were finish we gave them another good watering and moved them into the greenhouse but I didn't get any photos as it was a delicate operation.  The only thing left to do was pick an apple on the way back down the garden, sit back and relax

For those of you who are interested in what else we have planned for the veg patch............... tough i'm going to write it here anyway!

Attach a water butt to the greenhouse and have another on the patio to collect grey water which won't be used for anything we plan on eating. I think its still worth mentioning as my local council gave me two old wheelie bins that I will be using (note apple being consumed own stage left)

The current veg patch will be split in two and extended up to the wall which will give us more growing space and better access for the kids.  (we have a few pallets to use for raised boarders)  Also to increase our growing space further we hijacked a flower bed ready to grow peas in next year which currently looks like that.

That must be the longest one i've ever written, sorry for that!  Hopefully we'll make some more progress soon and have a photo of some lettuce shoots! (touch wood)

Mixed fortunes

Yesterday was the day we decided to harvest our potatoes and carrots.  We were pleasantly surprised with the potatoes as we weren’t expecting much due to the questionable placement of them and the fact the plants above ground looked in poor health.  We ended up with around 2Kg (give or take some dodgy looking ones!) of potatoes so not a massive haul but enough to make into a meal for us all  As usual the girls loved helping digging up the veg patch and finding out what yummy stuff we'd managed to grow.  We even had our youngest, Serenity, come and help mummy operate the fork!

Alas we come to some bad news.  The carrots were not in good shape when dug up.   A lot had been eaten by something (carrot fly?) and the rest were all tangled together with very stunted growth.  We decided to compost the lot as they looked in a bad way.  Lessons learnt for next years crop.

As the carrots and potatoes were the last of our veg in the patch work can commence on the re modeling of the veg patch to give us more growing space for next year!

The waiting game....

Not much to report, we recently went away and had nobody to water the plants for us so we made makeshift drip waterers (I know that’s not a word) out of milk cartons with pin holes in.  Lucky for us the plants we OK and have resumed their usual fine stature. 

The tomatoes are still being picked regularly and consumed quickly!  Blackberries are abundant so we have been freezing some for the winter.

Other than that we're waiting for the carrots and potatoes to be ready to harvest then, after that, the re modeling of the veg patch can begin!

Onion Harvest

Today we harvested our onions, which caused great excitement with Liliana and Mimi who, as usual, were very helpful. (Mimi even helped dig out some weeds once all the onions had been collected!) Unfortunately due to bugs and whatever else kills onions we ended up with 15 onions after having 27 growing at the height of onion virility!

Mimi takes gardening very seriously!

The onions were then washed, peeled, diced and put in the freezer ready for whatever Candice makes that involves onions.

Also today we got another glut of blackberries (again made ice cream) and some good looking chilis

Blackberrytastic!!

Today we harvested some of the wild blackberries which grow between the greenhouse and fence.  As it is quite a deadly job involving balancing one foot on a planter and the other astride a fence post I did it myself and have the cuts to prove it!

As you can see I got quite a few which were promptly made into blackberry ice cream.  The ice cream was then promptly eaten as a very refreshing pudding for lunch

Just in case you wonder how such a marvelous pudding is made:

• squash the blackberries through a sieve into a bowl
• add some castor sugar to taste (we like it quite tart)
• add some natural yogurt (ok, ok, so its not a proper ice cream)
• mix it up and put in an ice cream machine (or a tub in freezer technique)

Also this evening the pea plants that fell foul of slugs were cleared to the compost bin and the broad bean plants have been dug into the soil as I have been told the nitrogen is good for it.  Next Monday the girls will be pulling up the onion crop which should be pretty exciting!

Tomato Glut

All this sun means lots of ripe tomatoes and a lot of watering to keep up with.  Work on re modeling the veg pach will continue after the weekend, we have already claimed a flower bed which will be used for a 2nd  crop of peas!  Liliana was a great help.

Recent harvest

A couple of photos during a harvest.  Mimi holding up an onion (that isn’t ready but never mind) whilst preparing the broad beans and eating a mouth full of peas!

Broad beans ready to be turned into pesto, as modeled by Liliana (who is recovering from chicken pox)

I heard rumour some tomatoes were picked too but, as usual, none made it to me.

The following is what we grow and how successful/popular said veg has been

When we moved in there was (and still is) an apple tree, a rhubarb plant and some wild blackberries.  The apples aren't ready yet but many are growing and the rhubarb is just awesome and replenishes quickly.  The blackberries will be made into an ice-cream but may have to bulk up from other sources.

Now for the stuff we planted:

Peas - kids love them, pods get picked and peas promptly eaten for a tasty sweet snack.
Broad Beans - grown ok, broad bean pesto is amazing.
Runner beans- not many yet, few we cooked we’re popular with the kids (and adults)
Carrots-  seem to be doing well, not ready yet
potatoes- as above
onions- again seem ok
Tomatoes-kids love picking these and they seldom make it to the house before being eaten
Cucumbers- 5 or so fine and tasty ones in May/June then nothing!
Chilies- few fruits but none ready yet
Peppers – same as chili
Aubergine- disaster.  No fruit then destroyed by some insects.
Raspberries- very tasty, shame we’ve only had 5 all year
Strawberries- not much fruit all of which has been eaten by birds/bugs
Spring onions- tasted odd, maybe they weren’t ready!

Think that’s everything.  I should have pointed out in my first post that none of us have ever grown anything before this year and have pretty much no idea other than what we’ve read in books, on internet or the back of seed packets!  We didn’t even have any garden tools until someone kindly lent us some.

The veg so far

Hello and welcome to our blog about our little veg garden.  It has a greenhouse, a veg patch roughly 2.5m x 2m, 2 compost bins,a water butt and various planters.  Thats the veg patch explained, now for the angels....

Liliana is 3, Mimi (who is actually called Imani but shall be refered to as Mimi) is nearly 2, Serenity is 3 months (ok so she isn't very active in the garden yet) and my wife Candice is around 21 or so.

Thats it really, the girls and I love the veg patch, the little uns learn so much from harvesting, helping to prepare then actually eating what they picked.  It also draws everyone into the garden and is pretty sociable helping each other look after the fruit n veg not to mention promoting healthy eating.

There is a lot more left to harvest this year and we are planning a make over during winter to make 2 smaller veg patches which are more accessable to the kids while also supplying more growing space.

Hurrah!