Potatoes in containers, potatoes in the ground and sweetcorn

The Wilja second early potatoes that were sown in containers a couple of weeks ago are coming along very well. Probably due for their first earthing up by the end of the week.

The same can be said for some of the potatoes sown in the ground. These early potatoes were sown about 8 weeks ago in soil that was unknowingly contaminated with the aminopyralid manure in the winter. Anyway, these spuds went in before I knew the herbicide even existed. You can see from this next photo that the leaves on the plants on the left dont look as bad as those on the right so the manure cannot have been spread very evenly. The vast majority are all showing signs though. I cant really be bothered to just dig them up and burn them now as I may just aswell get even the smallest of harvests from them by just leaving them in.

A close up of one of the badly affected plants:

On a happier note, the sweetcorn plants (hardy to aminopyralid) are growing rapidly in the greenhouse:

The carrots in the greenouse have well and truly germinated. The pipe is used for watering – to direct water deeper into the container and hopefully therefore the carrot roots to make longer carrots!

Thanks for reading!

BBC Dig In seeds arrived…

Yes, the long awaited seeds from the BBC arrived this week. Fantastic.

They are a great freebie. And I mean FREE. All you had to do was submit your postage and email address and your seeds were promised to be delievered within the month.

5 packets were delivered, tomato, squash, lettuce, beetroot and carrot. Some will be saved for next year but I think the squash and the beetroot are going to go in this week.

I believe they have run out but the offer can be found here. I’m not sure whether they will be running it again, only I know that they should.

Brilliant!

All risk of frost has passed.

I have come to the conclusion that all risk of fros has passed, for me anyway.

• It’s mid-May
• I’m by the coast
• There hasn’t even been a light frost for about two months

I surely can’t see there being any more…

So, last night I went ahead with an experiment, putting some of my celery plants out in the ground without hardening off (under fleece of course and in a sheltered trench). Also I put a few french bean plants out, I seem to have hundreds still in the greenhouse and could afford to lose a few.

After an inspection this morning, all seem to be doing well. It appears that everything got a good soaking last night which is the way it should be. Wouldn’t it be brilliant if it rained in the nights and was sunny and warm during the days all spring and summer!!!

Two celery plants have also been planted in an old roses tin in the greenhouse. An early crop would be very welcome!

Talking of early crops, I emptied the potatoes that were sown in containers in February in the greenhouse, the ones that unfortunately suffered from the aminopyralid manure, there were no tubers to be found anywhere!!! Very strange!!!

Anyway, about three weeks ago, when I found out about the aminopyralid, I planted, in about 7 containers, some Wilja (second early potatoes). They are just beginning to show through and It shouldnt be long before I’m earthing them up. Im going to need some more compost to do that though.

Runner beans seem to be doing very well and are already beginning to climb up the frame.

Nettle tea, smashed glass, c**p weather and the first lettuce…

On an otherwise miserable day weatherwise, a lot has been completed this bank holiday monday.

Firstly, upon opening the newly created coldframe this morning and leaning it against the conveniently positioned runner bean frame behind it, a heavy gust of wind brought it back down and managed to smash three panes of glass. Luckily I wasn’t stood inside it and should really consider myself lucky to be alive! (The gap in the ‘air tight’ seal has now been filled with a couple of binbags nailed to the wood.)

Note to self – build working locking device into coldframe asap to reduce mid-morning fatality risks to closer to zero.

Secondly, the weather today has been truly miserable. The worst I’ve been out in for at least a month. This however didn’t give me any excuse to put off the work that was required:

• runner beans had to be potted on
• tomatoes for school plant sale had to be potted on
• another batch of carrots, salad onions, beetroot and lettuce had to be sown

Later in the day, browsing through the forums of allotment.org.uk I came across a post regarding ‘nettle tea’ – a fertiliser for brassicas. This interested me and as there is a rather large patch of nettles doing little more than stinging me every time I walk past I decided to give it a go. Instructions are as follows:

Into a bin or suitable bucket, add 1 gallon of water for every 2lb of nettles. Leave for two to three weeks, stirring occasionally. After this period, dilute liquid at a ratio of 1:10 anduse to water plants.

Apparently this is meant to enrich the soil with nitrogen and is consequently a good idea to use on brassicas as they are ‘nitrogen hungry plants’ ~ apparently!

The first lettuce of the season was eaten this evening. The first crop of 2009 however was three stems of rhubarb that were eaten on Friday…

Furthermore, debris netting is now on order to cover the brassicas 2MX50M of it! I was using some bog standard 10mm netting but apparently this isn’t up to the job, I was informes on the forum, as the cabbage whites just stroll through it and take even greater pleasure in laying their eggs.

At least I can end my hunt for comfrey now after my discovery of ‘nettle tea’.

On the lookout for comfrey…

I have come across a plant on allotment.org.uk called comfrey (never heard of it before). It is recommended every gardener grows a bed of it: its apparently very much under-rated. It sounds increddibly useful and I think I might try and track some down. Briefly, its allotment benefits include:

• acting as a compost activator, enriching the matter and speeding up the process
• as a chicken feed (not that I have any chickens)
• as a potato fertiliser (from the leaves)
• as a mulch and as a liquid feed for tomatoes, runner and dwarf beans

The article I read can be found here. Meanwhile, today, outdoor cucumber plants and celery have found their way to my greenhouse. I am going to begin hardening the runner beans off over the next couple of days. Actually, half are getting hardened off and half are getting potted on and placed back in the coldframe for another couple of weeks incase there is any failure. I anticipate getting the fleece out once or twice in the next month as I know its probably too early to be completely sure there are going to be no more frosts but the plants are very potbound!