Taking down the beanpoles and tidying up

Taking down the beanpoles, originally uploaded by mike1727.

There's no denying Autumn has arrived; most of the veg have finished so it was time to pull up dead plants, weed any tidy up ready for the winter. The veg beds are bare now, bar a few cabbages and some curly kale, all of which are going very well. (The kale is shaping up nicely for Calda Verde or Kale and Bean soup later in the year.)

With few exceptions it's been a disappointing summer for the vegetable experiment, both in the beds and the greenhouse. I'll blame it on the weather..

• Shallots 7/10. Grew well, not an incredible yield but they are tasty and very pungent- as I found out peeling some last night with streaming eyes. I'll grow more next year.
• Garlic 2/10. Poor yield, died back early. Planting in spring won't have helped. A possible for planting again in the next few weeks, there are already a few shoots coming up from bulbs I missed when harvesting them.
• Broad beans 5/10. Got off to a good start, minimal blackfly infestation once I'd nipped out the growing tips. The plants were battered by the rain at the end of May, then fell victim to some sort of rust-like infection. I'll plant again later in the Autumn at a slightly wider spacing and put in supports for next year.
• Potatoes 3/10. Not a great harvest from either the beds or the bags. The bags had plenty of foliage but few spuds, the beds were very low yield. I'm unlikely to bother with them next year.
• Runner beans 5/10. Not a huge crop, but OK- at least the poles stayed intact. When digging over the bed I noticed it was very dry where the means were growing, so they'll go in a different bed with more watering next year.
• French beans 2/10. Low yield and no-one in the family likes them enough for them to be worth the hassle next year.
• Courgette 3/10. Very disappointing, after being snowed under with fruit last year I'd expected a good yield, but many fruit rotted/mildewed at the tips before having time to develop. Need full sun for them next year.
• Lettuce 7/10. Good results- not show-winners but enough to make fresh salads. Need to pay more attention to sucessional planting next year.
• Carrot 5/10. Grew better than expected but were crowded out by other plants.
• Raspberry 8/10. Only a few fruits in the first season, but very tasty. I'll put in some more canes and better supports for next year.
• Peas 7/10. Reasonable yield and well liked by the family. Need to protect against pea moth and ensure sucessional planting next year- wider spacing would be a good idea.
• Cabbage/Kale 6/10. Looking good so far.
• Tomatoes. 3/10. Failed to control side shoots, resulting in lots of foliage but few fruit. What fruit there was tasted good. Need an earlier start next year, with fewer plants.
• Aubergines. 0/10. Abject failure- few flowers but no fruit. May try again next year but needs planting earlier.
• Chili 6/10. Produced fruit (still green)- no idea of the heat yet since they're still unharvested.
• Basil 4/10. Grew OK but nothing spectacular due to overcrowding from other plants. Needs more space and full sun next year, I think.

The compost heap's gone critical. .

The compost heap's gone critical. ., originally uploaded by mike1727.

The compost heap is cooking away nicely- in fact it's steaming.

A quick probe registered temperatures around 62C in the centre of the pile- that's 143F, which is plenty hot enough to kill weed seeds and other nasties, and indicates that the carbon:nitrogen balance is about right.

Cornell university has a page on composting physics which describes the temperature characteristics of decomposition.

Material choice is key- the last load (which was around a 30cm layer over 1sq m so about 0.33 cubic metres) consisted of:

• 2 grass boxes grass clippings (form a recently-fed lawn so probably high in N)
  1 shredder box (40cm*15cm=0.045 cubic metres) of shredded paper (bills, very satisfying)
• approx 4 kg spent coffee grounds
• approx 3kg kitchen waste (veg peelings, coffee grounds, teabags and paper kitchen towels)
• 1 large cup Garotta compost accelerator.

No leaves this time, unlike previous loads.

This was mixed together, on top of (but not mixed with) an already-composing layer of much the same material. No added water this time since the grass clippings were fairly moist.

Gardenblog- battered veg!

Flattened, originally uploaded by mike1727.

The veg project was going well until the inevitable bank holiday downpour wreaked havoc. Beans were the main victims- broads flattened to the ground, runners and French were battered by the rain and hail, lost leaves and had a couple of broken growing tips. A bit of time with string and cane should've saved the broads, and with luck the runners and French will re-grow some more stems. I need to plant up a tepee of runner/s French for a second crop anyway The outdoor tomatoes took a hit too, but tied in they seem OK.

Elsewhere in the veg project, the lettuce is going well and is producing enough leaves for tasty salads. Spring onions are just about OK but not really growing as strongly as I'd hoped. There's another gutterfull germinating in the greenhouse waiting for planting out in a sunnier location, assuming I can find some space. The first sowing of spinach has been similarly disappointing so there's another gutter of that under way.

The courgette plants are in, and I planted a couple of spare cucumber plants in the bed to see how they fare- better than chucking them on the compost. Also crowding into the second bed are a couple of butternut squashes which I'm hoping to grow up stakes: the idea is to have courgettes and cucumbers rambling at ground level to block out weeds while the beans, squashes and tomatoes work vertically. I've a feeling this bed is too crowded, but only summer will tell.

In the greenhouse, I'm beginning to regret planting so many tomatoes..I've planted up the ones I want to grow and the remaining dozen or so plants are either being given away tomorrow or going on the compost. Chillis and aubergines are growing well and will be in growbags soon.

Spuds seem to be doing well, though I'm not sure they are meant to have such rampant foliage- possibly a result of growing them in compost?

Sowed recently: in the greenhouse; spring onion, spinach and cabbage in gutters. Outdoors- country cottage mixed flowers in gaps in the beds, (which have germinated OK) and cornflower (which haven't).

Planted out: 2 courgettes, 2 butternut squash, black Geranium, Cosmos, a Day Lilly-like plant which I can't remember the name of, loads of Nasturtiums.

What to do when the shop only has thin canes...

Bean supports, originally uploaded by mike1727.

Runner beans are heavy when they're fully grown- last year's bean teepee partially collapsed under the weight. The plan had been to use 1" poles this pear, but in the end all I had was these thin and whippy 6' poles. Delving into memories of long-past engineering lectures I made the joints out of wire for extra rigidity and added diagonal cross braces, resulting in a structure that is a lot stiffer than its components suggest. Time will tell if it's up to the job.

Compostblog

I am compost geek, originally uploaded by mike1727.

Air temp 11C
Compost in bin 1 34C
Compost in bin 2 24C
Soil temp 13C

Composting

Compost coffee, originally uploaded by mike1727.

Composting is a good thing (tm), pretty much all our veg waste, paper towels etc get chucked in a dustbin which I add to the heap once it's full. A couple of weeks ago we had a semi-annual purge of old paperwork which needed shredding and therefore wouldn't go in the recycling. Rashly, I put the lot in the compost- a good 2 bin bags full. This was rapidly followed by a load of kitchen waste and a lawn's worth of grass clippings to try to rebalance the green:brown ratio , in order to avoid a stinky mess of sludge at the bottom of the garden.

The Starbucks concessions at work give away their used coffee grounds for composing, so I picked up a couple of bags, mixing coffee into the pile in the hope of getting everything cooking nicely. The following day the compost felt warm to the touch, so I shoved the greenhouse thermometer into the middle of the pile to check...85 degrees F. Not bad. The pile was steaming when I added another six bags last night so I'm doing something right. There's still some way to go before I get to the 150F or so required to kill weed seeds, but it's a good start.

The Starbucks Coffee Compost Test- chemical analysis of soil nutrients in used coffee grounds.

Starbucks page on coffee composting

YouTube video (Which I've not watched yet, so don't blame me if it's crap

Bike training note- riding home with 8 kilos of coffee grounds in your rucksack is good training. Now I need to see if I can get away with storing tens of bags of coffee in my cupboard at work ready for a single trip with the bike trailer...

Spring!

originally uploaded by mike1727.

Spring has arrived, bringing with it our customary Easter period of sunshine. It's been unseasonably warm (10 degrees above average last Saturday) and the forecast is good until next weekend.

As a result, we've been busy. Easter weekend saw the arrival of the 'great anti child fence', partitioning the greenhouse and working area from the rest of the garden and screening the piles of bricks etc which remain from previous projects. It's a simple (ie cheap!) post and wire fence fronted with fern screening, probably not the most long lived material but it looks good.

Growing peas and lettuce in guttering has been a great success, with three gutters' worth of peas now transplanted into the beds along with a gutter shared between lettuce and spring onions. There's a further gutter of lettuce & spring onions growing now, but that's it for the moment as the beds are full or earmarked for the runner and French beans and courgettes which are germinating in pots in the greenhouse. I've sown catch crops of lettuce, carrots and spinach next to the courgette bit of the bed as they should be ready by the time the courgette grows big enough to shade them.

Shallots, garlic and broad beans are shooting up in the next bed, where the potatoes are also finally showing. I'd almost given up on the outdoor spuds- in contrast the bagged spuds in the greenhouse are way ahead and got their first earthing up. It's going to be a race for light between some of the beans and the spuds since they're quite close together.

I'll be dotting Marigolds into gaps in the veg beds to attract hoverflies, and I'm on the lookout for other companion plants to attract blackfly-eating insects to protect the beans.

The latest batch of tomatoes was potted out last weekend, adding to the tomato forest in the greenhouse. I grow tomatoes. You grow tomatoes. Everyone grows tomatoes, it seems.
The kitchen-window-ledge cucumber plant is safely in the greenhouse, and growing strongly- it'll need potting on into its final pot this week.

Planted recently:

• Outdoor sowings of peas, lettuce, carrots, spinach.
• Indoor sowings 1 doz each Chilli, Aubergines in propagators indoors.
• 3 more cucumbers in pots in the greenhouse propagator.
• Hanging basket plants (inc Petunia, impatiens, Lobellia) in propagators indoors and in the greenhouse.
• 6 each of French and runner beans in pots in the greenhouse. (More to go in in 2-3weeks)
  

Gardenblog

A busy weekend in the Spring sunshine, potting out, planting and sowing.

Existing plants are pushing their way through, Autumn plantings are doing nicely, with good colour from the hyancynths, crocus and primulas though they're a bit sparse and will need more planting this year. Tulips are still growing, though this isn't too surprising since most pf them were planted very late. First signs of shoots from lilies in containers (though not in the beds), hopefully they won't get munched by the Scarlet Lily beetles which decimated the container plants last year.

The pear and peach trees are budding. We had some problems with the peaches last year so they'll need wrapping with fleece this weekend since there's a frost forecast. I think I've left the pruning too late for most of the fruit trees, so they'll have to wait until June or July except where the branches are getting in the way. The furtinia is lookng a bit unhappy in its container so it will need planting out into the last gap in the main bed soon- this is good since it will give some winter interest as well as a bit of vertical definition.

There are signs of growth from both shallots and garlic, which is very encouraging given how wet the soil was when they were planted. No sign of activity from any of the spuds though.

Peas are doing well in the greenhouse, they'll be ready to harden off once the forecast frost has passed before transplanting in 10 days or so. Sweet peas are doing well, and the first few broad beans are coming through. The first batch of tomatoes are safely transplanted into pots and stashed on the new racking, which is filling up fast.

I need to get hold of some more guttering- freecycle seems the best idea.

Planted this week:

• Another gutter of peas, planted nearer the centreline of the gutter this time to see if it makes a difference to root growth.
• A gutter each of lettuce and sping onions.
• Basil- a six pot tray under a propagator in the greenhouse and a girly pink 6" pot on the kitchen windowsill.
• Cucumber- 4 in pots on windowsills.
• Tomatoes- 8 each cherry/moneymaker/beef as before
• Spinach- 2 rows
• Spring onion- single row between the spinach to see if it works as a catch crop.
  

First batch of tomatoes growing well

First batch growing well, originally uploaded by mike1727.

They're growing nicely, there were only a couple of seeds which didn't germinate. The weather's looking good for the weekend, sunny and temperatures in the mid teens C- so not too much of a shock for the seedlings moving from a warm house.
That leaves me room for another batch, which will give me a longer harvesting season and some spare plants to swap.

Planting

First sowing, originally uploaded by mike1727.

Spring's so close you can smell it; crocus and iris in flower, tulips pushing through quite well, even in the containers at the front (north facing). Daffodils out everywhere (except in our garden), hawthorn(?) and a few cherry blossoms on roadside trees but nothing on next door's cherry trees yet.

The resident frogs have been busy spawning again; first croaks heard last weekend, first spawn around Wednesday and more appearing daily. Randy little buggers. Looking back, I photographed spawn in mid March last year; I think it was a week or two old then which means the frogs are spawning maybe a week earlier this year. That's not really conclusive evidence of any underlying trend, but it has been very mild this winter.

Planted this week:

• Early peas. Sown in guttering (2 x 1m rows) to get an early start and for easy transplanting once the seedlings are big enough to cope with pigeons and slugs.
• Broad beans. Red and green, 10 each in 3" pots- should do just under 1/4 square metre.
• Sweet peas. Mixed scented. Some in individual 3" pots, others 5 to a 5" pot. I'm not sure how well these will germinate in an unheated greenhouse, they probably need a propagator lid to get them going.
• Carrots. Early globe. Broadcast into a 12" bulb pot since all the beds have been heavily manured this season.
• Potatoes. First earlies. Some in heavy duty refuse bags filled with compost from last year(3 to a bag), 6 in one of the raised beds. The beds are still quite wet, hopefully not so wet as to cause rot.
• Shallots. A couple of rows in the sunniest raised bed. Probably squirrel food, they need protecting.
• Garlic. A couple of rows next to the shallots.

About half of last week's planting of tomato seeds have germinated; cherries first, followed by the beefs and Moneymakers. The biggest are about an inch tall and growing fast.

To do:

• Fruit tree pruning. Before they blossom, possibly a spray too though no sign of reappearance of the canker(?) they had a couple of years ago.
• Sowing. Another batch of tomatoes if I can find space for another propagator, half a gutter of lettuce, a few courgettes, sweet corn, cabbage (?), Marigold and a few other border annuals to fill in gaps.
• Hanging baskets. Look for plants to raise from seed.
• Slug traps. Drown the buggers in beer.
• Gate, fencing.

Spring stirs

Fumigate, originally uploaded by mike1727.

Spring is just round the corner, or so it feels. Learning from last year's hurried planting we spent the weekend clearing children's toys, patio furniture etc out of the greenhouse, replacing glass broken by falling conkers, cleaning layers of green crap off the glass and finally fumigating the whole thing to get rid of any nasties left over from the diseased vine which used to grow in there. We planted a bay to fill a gap in a evergreen herb bed and did a load of tidying up.

I planted the first batch of tomatoes last night- including 'Big Boy' beefs, which will allegedly yield fruits weighing 500gr each. We'll see.

Tonight's batch of planting will be a few pots of sweet peas and a couple of dozen broad beans, red and white- then garlic and shallots this weekend. Spousal objections to seeds trays and pots on every windowsill have limited the available propagation space so I'll see how the beans get on in the greenhouse- it was 50F in there yesterday with the door open, so it should be warm enough to get them going.

Elsewhere: new grass is yellowing a little and needs feeding, fruit trees need pruning soon (to spray, or not to spray?...), first show of green from some of the bulbs planted last year, a couple eof crocusses and a solitary iris. Fig cutting still ominously dormant.