Sprouts & Cabbage Planted

Bed prepared for the Sprouts & Cabbage.

Room on the left for Broccoli.....

Foreground - 12 x Brussels sprouts (Trafalgar)


Background - 10 x Cabbage (Stonehead)

All of the plants are in & watered












Now covered & protected from the birds

Boad Beans Support

Step 1 - install the posts around the broad beans

Step 2 - tie rope to the posts



Step 3 - wait for the broad beans to grow!

Pea Netting Installed

As the Peas (Kelvedon Wonder) have grown to a reasonable height, the netting was installed today to encourage growth and support the plants















The plants look dwarfed by the tall netting, 0.9m high. 

Hopefully they should be soon climbing to the top!

Sugar Snap Peas Planted

Marking-out the bed

Sugar snap pea plants in one of the lengths of guttering ready to plant out.

Using the gettering has been a great success and has stopped the mice and rats eating the seeds!

Sugar snaps planted after sliding them down the guttering

L-> R : broad beans, peas, sugar snaps


Peas protected by netting and slug pellets

Early Potatoes Banked-Up

With the threat of frosts in the next few days, without any action the tender shoots will be damaged.

Earthed-up soil after using the Mantis and a rake

The finished article, with flat tops

Early Potatoes Sprouting

Rocket and Kestrel shoots are showing thru

Risk of frosts next week that could devastate the tender shoots!!!!

Seeds Planted - Carrots & Peppers

2 rows of carrots in the new raised bed

 The new seedlings are next to the carrots, parnsips & radishes planted previously

Pepper seeds - a first attempt at growing these

Chilli peppers and mixed sweet peppers

In theory they should germinate in less than a week!!!!

Seeds are shooting....

Some apples have set

Sugar snap peas are shooting

Celery

Radish

Carrots

Spring Onion

New Water Meter

 Home-made water meter installed on the right of the 1000L water tank.
















With the gauge reading almost empty, we could do with some rain!!!

Ready for the rain.....!

New water butt installed this afternoon (14th Apr 17) ready for the Easter rains!











This will be filled from the 1000 litre storage tank filled from the summerhouse guttering.....

Maincrop Potatoes Planted

After chitting in the greenhouse for a couple of months the Desiree maincrop potatoes were planted out on 8th April 2017.  They were put in 5 rows, 10 pots long.









With the earlies - 30 Rocket and 30 Kestrel, the 50 Desiree makes a total of 110 seed potatoes now in the ground.....

Peas & Beans planted out

After successfully planting the peas in guttering, it was a simple job to slide the pea shoots out into a trench in the legumes bed. 



A wire mesh cover should keep the birds off!















 






Next to the peas went in the broad beans.  




All planted out on 6th April 2017.....

How to beat the mice & grow peas!

After disasters on the pea-growing front the last few years, radical action was required......






So planted the peas in guttering that was then suspeneded from the greenhouse roof.

And it worked, pea shoots appeared after a few days.......

Runner Bean Bed Preparation

The runner bean bed on Dane Road was prepared by digging a trench either side and filling it with compost.  This was completed on 3rd April 2017 well in advance of planting due in June.....

Early Potatoes Planted

Planted 2 rows of Rocket (1st earlies) and 2 rows of Kestrel (2nd earlies) on 25th March......

Carrots & Parsnips

The carrot & parsnip seeds were planted in the new raised bed on 1st April 2017.  Two rows of each were planted with space for 2 more rows of carrots later.  Following advice from John the parsnips included radish seeds sows alternately......

Note the new extended carrot-fly screens!!!

Raspberry Bed Replanted

Due to the loss of many raspberry plants, the bed has been replanted with new plants from Malcolm's allotment.......

Unwanted visitors...

These were the unwanted visitors......

And this was the extra fencing needed to keep them out......

Garlic & Onions Planted

Planted out the garlic and onions on 24th Mar 2017.......

Maincrop onions -
60 Stuttgart
75 Sturon

135 in total

Rotovated Beds

Rotovated the big planting beds on 14 Mar 2017......

Rough Digging

All rough digging completed on 4th Feb 2014......