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
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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

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!

Veggy Plot pictures and pages updated 17.01.09

Finally a break in the weather on a bitterly cold but fine sunny day means I have managed to take some new photos (with my new camera, a xmas present) of my vegetable plots for 2009 to see how they have survived through the winter.

So here goes (click on the pictures to enlarge them):-

Plot 1 Broad Beans and Peas

Plot 2 – Carrots and Onions

Plot 3 – Cabbages

Everything seems to be growing strongly thanks to my homemade fleece cloches – click here if you would like to know how to make your own small fleece cloche.

All my vegetables have survived the winter frosts unlike my poor frost bitten mallow (lavatera) shrub in the plant border.

New Blog Pages for 2009

I have had a bit of a spring clean with my blog and added some new information to the pages. I have setup 3 individual pages for each plot this year to record my sowing and harvest dates with slideshows:

• Plot 1 – Beans and Peas,
• Plot 2 – Roots and Onions,
• Plot 3 – Brassicas.

My About Me page now has details about my vegetable plot and a picture of all three plots.

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

• Veggy Plot Pictures and Pages Updated 17.01.09

Happy New Year and Master Plot Plan for 2009

Happy New Year to everyone!

I like the festive period off work because I always have enough time to sit down and plan what vegetables I’m going to grow in the next year and actually purchase the seeds online. I also can plough through the seed company catalogues and try and choose the best varieties for my vegetable plot.

I have also been looking at my plot and areas to improve on. I have reviewed the on/off haphazard cloche system of enviromesh held up with bamboo canes and then last year I tried to upgrade it to build-a-ball to make a cube cloche over the beds but that was a disaster as well. So this year I’m hoping for third time lucky and decided to do a ‘Geoff Hamilton’ special cloche and build it myself from 2 x 2 timber, water pipe and enviromesh covering, so watch this space for news of that project coming soon. To wet your appetite for this project, here’s a garden blogger who has already had ago at this method.

My New Years Resolutions for my vegetable plot are:

1. Buy a cheap compost bin.

I have been growing veg for 2 years now and in that time I keep thinking I could have a good supply of lovely homemade compost out of my garden and kitchen waste, so this year I’m actually going to do something useful with this waste!

2. Buy a water tank/butt.

Again for the last couple of years, I have seen hundreds of litres of rainwater pour off our workshop roof and make muddy puddles on our pathway for me to try and avoid them when maintaining my plot. This year we are going to put up guttering and a downpipe to fill up the water tank so I can water the garden and vegetable plots and not waste our money from using tap water from the water meter.

3. Remember to add Nemotodes to the plot in March before the new ground slugs hatch for the season and they eat my veg.
4. Come to terms with the fact that I cannot grow lettuce in my plots (because of the slugs) and grow it in planters instead.
5. Grow a new vegetable that I have never tasted before – this year it will be Kohl Rabi and Sweet Fennel.

Here’s my Seed List of what I’m going to grow this year:-
Plot 1

• French Climbing Bean – Cobra. Sow April – June, Harvest June to Aug,
• Runner Beans – Scarlet Emperor. Sow April / May, Harvest July – Sept,
• Runner Beans – White Embargo. Sow April / May, Harvest July – Sept,
• Pea – Cavalier. Sow Apr – July, Harvest June – Sept,

Plot 2

• Carrot – Nantes 2. Sow Feb – June, Harvest June – Oct,
• Carrot – Napoli F1. Sow Feb – June, Harvest June – Oct,
• Carrot – Chantenay. Sow March – June, Sow June – Oct,
• Carrot – Flakkee. Sow April – July, Harvest May – Oct,
• Carrot – Eskimo. Sow April – June, Harvest Nov – Jan,
• Swede – Helenor. Sow April – June, Harvest Oct to Feb,
• Fennel – Romanesco. Sow May – July, Harvest June – Nov,
• Kohl Rabi – Olivia. Sow April – June, Harvest June – Sept,

Plot 3

• Perpetutal Spinach – Leaf Beat. Sow April – July, Harvest July – Dec,
• Broccoli – Veronica F1. Sow April / May, Harvest July – Sept,
• Kale – Cavolo Nero. Sow April – May, Harvest Sept – Jan,
• Kale – Dwarf Green Curled. Sow April – May, Harvest Nov to April,
• Cabbage – Minicole F1. Sow March – April, Harvest Aug – Oct,
• Cabbage – Christmas Drumhead. Sow May – June, Harvest Oct – Dec,
• Cabbage – Vertus Savoy. Sow May – June, Harvest Dec – Feb,
• Spring Greens – Greensleeves. Sow July – Aug, Harvest Oct – April,
• Pak Choi – Canton Dwarf. Sow June – August, Harvest Oct – Nov,

Seeds to be sown in Planters/Pots

• Salad Leaves – Baby Leaf Salad Mix, Sow March – Sept, Harvest May – Nov,
• Salad Leaves – Finest Salad Mix. Sow March – Sept, Harvest May – Nov,
• Salad Leaves – Salad Bowl. Sow March – Sept, Harvest May – Nov,
• Leek – Siegfried (Giant). Sow March – April, Harvest Oct – March,
• Leek – Pandora. Sow March – April, Harvest Sept – Jan,
• Radish – Scarlet Globe. Sow March- June, Harvest June- Aug,
• Mange Tout – Ezethas Krombek Blauwschok, Sow March – April, H. June – Aug,
• Dwarf Beans – Tendergreen. Sow April / May, Harvest June – Oct,
• Dwarf Beans – Major yellow. Sow April / May, Harvest June – Oct.
• Potato – 2 Types – To Be Decided.

Please click on the below PDF documents to view my Plot Plans for 2009 (they can also be found on my Master Plan Page):

Plot 1 – Beans & Peas,
Plot 2 – Roots and Onions,
Plot 3 – Brassicas.

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

• Happy New Year and Master Plot Plan for 2009

Sowing Now – Broad beans, peas, carrots, onion sets, spring cabbage plants and chinese cabbage

Today I have been mostly sowing and planting:

Plot 1
Last year this plot had roots and salads in it, this year I have rotated my crops so that legumes are going to be grown here instead.

1. Broad Bean ‘Super Aquadulce’ (2 rows and 3 rows spare to sow in Nov) Sow Oct – Feb, Harvest June to July. Bought from Garden Organic.
2. Pea ‘Meteor’ (2 rows) Sow Oct to Nov, Harvest June to July. Bought from Garden Organic.
3. Parsnip ‘Countess F1′ (1 row) ready for harvest now to Nov from a sowing in February.

Tip for covering peas and beans:
I cover my peas and broad beans over-winter to protect them from the frost with enviromesh and horticultural fleece if snow is forecasted. I remove all covers in spring when flowers are forming so they can be pollinated by flying insects.

Plot 2
Last year this plot had brassicas in it, this year I have rotated my crops so that roots and onions are going to be grown here instead.

1. Carrot ‘Nantes Frubund’ (1 row and 3 spare to sow in succession) – Sow Feb to October, Harvest April to November. Bought from Gardens4less.
2. Onion Set ‘Red Cross’ (3 rows) – Plant Oct to Nov, Harvest June to July. Bought from Marshalls Seed.
3. Spring Onion ‘Hardy White Lisbon’ (2 rows) – Sow June to Oct, Harvest July – Dec. Bought from Garden Organic.

Onion Set Planting Tip:
I planted my Onion sets out in a mound with just the tips showing, spaced about a hand width apart in the row. This was recommended by an allotmenteer at Joe’s Allotment on Gardener’s World. He said this was better for drainage and sun exposure. Pea sticks or canes have been placed over the bed to protect from birds and cats.

Click here to see Friday 10th Oct Episode of Gardeners World on BBC iPlayer.

Plot 3
Last year this plot had beans and peas in it, this year I have rotated my crops so that brassicas are going to be grown here instead.

1. Cabbage ‘Greyhound’ plants – Plant Oct, Harvest April to May. Bought from Ebay.
2. Chinese Cabbage ‘Tatsoi’ ( 2 small rows) – Sow July to October, Harvest Sept to Dec. Bought from Garden Organic.

Tip on planting out cabbages:
Dig a small hole with a trowel, water the hole well, firm in plants with fingers and then firm in with heel of your foot. Cabbages require firm ground to grow in to support their stems and leaves.

And finally I harvested the last of the french beans and some parsnips for tea.

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

• Sowing Now – Broad Beans, Peas, Carrots, Onion Sets and Spring Cabbages