We Are Moving to iGrowVeg.com

Two years on, I thought it was about time for an updated look, catchy name and new location for my blog. So please join me on my vegetable growing adventures now at:

iGrowVeg.com

New Posts on iGrowVeg.com include:

• What’s in my Compost Bin This week?
• Carrots Steer the way with new vegetable based racing car,
• 8 Reasons to Start Growing Vegetables Now!

Moving Instructions

Email Subscriptions
If you are reading this post through an email subscription, just sit back and relax, you don’t need to do anything as you will automatically start receiving emails from tracey at igrowveg.com when I post something new on my blog.

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Fellow Bloggers
If you have linked my blog on your Blogroll or on a post in your blog, please can I kindly ask for you to update the link to http://igrowveg.com/

Bookmarks
Please update your bookmarks and favorites to iGrowVeg.com

Newsletter
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See you all there!
Thanks
Tracey

Join me on my voyage of veg discovery at iGrowVeg.com

Bambino, Orla and Cara Potatoes

Bambino, Orla & Cara Potatoes

Apologies for not posting any news for sometime, I am in the progress of upgrading my blog and its taking a little longer than expected. So here’s a few catch up posts of what going on in my Vegetable Plot at the moment.

Potatoes

Four weeks ago I planted my Bambino and Orla Potato tubers in pots. This week the foliage has started to appear above the soil in the pots which were filled one third full of soil.

I have decided to grow the following varieties this year:

Bambino – Organic Salad Potato
It is a light and creamy but less waxy variety to other new potatoes. It has good resistance to tuber and foliage blight and scab.

Orla – Organic 1st Early
A reliable 1st early with good disease resistance to blight and scab. It is oval with white skin and creamy flesh.

Cara – Organic Late Maincrop
Cara is a soft, robust and waxy potato suitable for baking and roasting. It has a good resistance to eelworm, drought and blight. It is an oval variety with creamy flesh and pink eyes.

Cara will be planted out into pots this weekend.

Bambino and Orla in pots

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This post has now moved to my new site iGrowVeg.com.
Please view the new post on the link below:

• Growing New Potatoes in Pots

Slug-Free Lettuce – 3 Weeks Growth

Lettuce in wooden seed trays

One of my new year resolutions was to have Slug-Free Lettuce. For the past two years every time I try to grow lettuce in my plots, slugs from miles around arrive to munch on it. So I have given up with trying to grow it on my plots but definitely not given up on growing lettuce.

Here’s my solution – grow it in seed trays in the mini greenhouse and so far so good.

I decided to buy some wooden seed trays so they would look nice in the mini greenhouse. They do until they come into contact with water and heat and then the bottom slightly buckles a bit, but there are still holding the soil and seedlings so I’m not complaining and most importantly it has been a slug free zone.

Here’s the varieties of Loose Leaf Lettuce I am growing:-

Lettuce – Belize
A green oakleaf type with bright and slightly bubbled leaves. It is resistant to aphids, mildew and bolting.

Lettuce – Oakleaf
A dark green leaf tinged with red to bring a bit of brightness to my salad. Large lobbed leaves and is resistant to bolting.

Lettuce – Salad Bowl
A curly edged bright green leaf, a popular choice.

Other Posts on Topics – Slugs and Lettuce:

• Summer Lettuce (Balmoral) 2008 – 13 weeks then eaten by slugs!
• Summer Lettuce (Tin Tin) 2007.
• Pest Control – Slugs and Snails

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This post has now moved to my new site iGrowVeg.com.
Please view the new post on the link below:

• Growing Slug-Free Lettuce

Spring Cabbages have Bolted!

Cabbages Plot 15.04.09

Just when you think everything is going swimmingly and you’ve been waiting all winter for some tasty spring cabbage leaves, this happens!

Bolting
Bolting is where the plant puts on a sudden spurt of growth too quickly and uses up all its energy, then flowers and seeds. It will stop growing as it has completed its life cycle.

Why does bolting occur?
Flowering plants like cabbage, lettuce or spinach have a photoreceptor protein which is sensitive to seasonal changes or hours of darkness. These long day plants require fewer number of hours darkness within a day to set flower. A cold spell of weather can also assist with bolting.

Bolted Cabbage 18.04.09

Solution
According to the RHS, they recommend to sow your spring cabbages at the end of July to prevent your cabbages from bolting early (they will bolt later instead) or sow a bolt resistant variety like Hispi F1, Advantage F1 or Pixie.

I have picked off the leaves of the cabbage plants for the kitchen and thrown the rest of the plant in the compost bin.

One of my plots will be empty for a while until the next lot of cabbages (Minicole F1) grow, so I will be sowing a ‘catch crop’ (a fast growing crop grown in between other slower growing crops) of radishes, small chanteny carrots and leaf beat, so the area doesn’t go to waste.

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This post has now moved to my new site iGrowVeg.com.
Please view the new post on the link below:

• Spring Cabbages have Bolted!

Spring Chicken Fertilizer Pellets

Its finally springtime, the crocus’s are flowering and daffodil stems are shooting up with the first full days of sunshine we’ve had this year. Its a lovely start to the year and for me a few days of sunshine kick starts my growing season and gives me a gentle prod that I should be preparing the vegetable plot for the year ahead.

After 2 years of vegetable growing I have only ever added compost to my plots and I’m sure I need to add some organic fertilizer to replenish the nutrients in the soil.

So its down the Garden Centre, sidestepping new plants for the garden and straight onto the fertilizer section. The huge stack of orange boxes of Organic Chicken Manure Pellets is glowing, its a bargain alert – buy 1 box get one free, excellent just what I wanted. Now what do I do with it?

Organic Chicken Manure Pellets
These are compressed composted chicken manure rich in nutrients and organic matter. This type of fertilizer can be applied to vegetable plots and borders from February to October by scattering the pellets onto moist soil and forking them in.

It can boost areas where greedy crops have previously removed trace nutrients. It improves the soil by making it moisture retentive and by adding organic matter to the soils structure. Apply to the soil 1-2 weeks before planting out seedlings as it may burn them or add to the soil around winter cabbages, broccoli etc for an added nitrogen boost. Please check your box or tub for recommended applications.

Next Week I Will Mostly Be:
- Buying and using Nemotodes (before this years slugs hatch – hopefully),
- Sowing seeds in the mini greenhouse,
- Checking on my chitting Potatoes.
- Updating My Compost Bin contents list and photos.

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This post has now moved to my new site iGrowVeg.com.
Please view the new post on the link below:

• Spring Chicken Fertilizer Pellets

Compost Watch 2009

5 Weeks have passed since my last post however I have been busy. I have been composting.

I have succeeded in achieving one of my new years resolutions in buying a cheap compost bin so I have setup a separate page on my blog dedicated to my quest for the finest and richest of all the mucks!

If you cannot contain your excitement, please head on over to the ‘Compost Bin‘ to find out how to setup your own compost bin, what to add and more about my project.

For the past two years on my vegetable plot, I have never quite got around to sorting out a compost bin. This is why I urge you to setup your own compost bin as think how much compost I could have made in 2 years! Go for it this year, setup your own compost bin and you could be saving money and recycling your kitchen and garden waste which is good for the environment and your wallet!

Kitchen and Garden waste = Free compost, that sounds like a great credit crunch idea to me.

Where do we start?

1. Introduction to my Compost Bin
2. How to build your own wooden compost bin.
3. Buying your own compost bin.
4. What can I put into my Compost Bin?
5. My Compost Watch Project – updated every week with photos and contents.

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This post has now moved to my new site iGrowVeg.com.
Please view the new post on the link below:

• Compost Watch 2009