Veg to plant in April and things to do.

[Deleted User]

I have just been to the allotment and the clay soil has gone rock hard. Grhhh, I now admit defeat re sowing carrot seeds, I did make a tilth but even that has gone lumpy. So carrots are out and I have come back with a bit of a sinking feeling, remembering how darn hard the ground was last summer. I see that some parsnips are up in the 6" raised bed so I will nurture those and keep watering the ones that still haven`t appeared. I started the allotment just last august so must stay upbeat, knowing that it is now down to improving soil condition. It is so much easier to grow veg in raised beds at home but I will persevere

ginvzt

I know what you mean about the hard clay. I have it my back garden - you work to make nice bed for your new seedlings, only for he soil to go all lumpy in the few days. It is a hard work. I was breaking the soil up around my onions/shallots/garlic. I have mixed in a lot of compost/manure/soil improver/sand in this bed, and it is still going hard!

I have planted out some more salads (mizuna and mibuna) into my 'salad' bed. And then I have sown some more radishes in one of the troughs I have empty from transplanting the strawberries into the ground. And decided to sow the squash, butternut squash and pumpkin (just two pots each, two seeds in each pot, and left out in the greenhouse - no space in the house at the moment!). And then some rockets as well. And some poppies into modules...

Realised that there is no rain promised, so decided to water in the weed & feed in the front garden. The grass is quite tall, but before cutting it yesterday, decided to treat it to weed&feed, so I can cut it in a couple of days, will be ok for Easter. But, to be honest, it is mainly weeds at the moment, so once the 'weed' part of the granules did their work it will be very patchy front lawn!

mountainviews

Just a few photos of my veggies in my garden so far, and a couple of my plants still in the greenhouse, also a couple the view from my garden..........

http://s46.photobucket.com/albums/f116/dijo1000/my%20veggie%20garden2010/

mrbadexample

mountainviews wrote: »

Just a few photos of my veggies in my garden so far, and a couple of my plants still in the greenhouse, also a couple the view from my garden..........

http://s46.photobucket.com/albums/f116/dijo1000/my%20veggie%20garden2010/

Whereabouts are you? Is it not too early to have runner beans out?

mountainviews

Believe it or not North Wales! and yes it is too early, as my dad keeps telling me, but I have some some in reserve in the greenhouse, in case it all goes wrong! it has been quite mild here and I got carried away and planted everything out!

lolly5648

posted in error

[Deleted User]

It grieves me to do the things I have to do. Thinning out and rejecting. I tell myself that there is no point, no none at all in growing on too many plants above what we need plus a few spares. My lovely tomato plants are down to 30 specials in trays of six plus several spares. I quietly disposed of the rest yesterday.

I spent a couple of hours working out exactly where I was going to put these plants and I am all sorted. All of them will have cover provision, some just a large bag with holes in it but others will have pop up covers and a lucky few will have the patiogros. I am just envisaging the normal uk summer ie wet wet wet

The allotment looks better today after a good watering yesterday. I sowed more parsnips in gaps, gosh it is such a luck of the draw with parsnips. Lots of beetroot coming up in various stages but not a single carrot. Oh well

I keep looking at my fab healthy and strong young cabbage plants here and then I look at those already planted by others in their allotments. They seem to get such a shock to the system up there. I think I`ll sit tight for two more weeks and anyway I have sown more in little rootrainers this time

10 sweetcorrn are up and have been rushed out to start to harden off. I think I`ll grow a winding squash or two underneath, later

[Deleted User]

Its the middle of april and I have decided to pull some threads together. I did that with the tomatoes yesterday and my nind feels decluttered re them but my brassicas felt messy so I tackled them today. It`s all too easy to forget to keep the continuity going ie no good sowing 20 hispi all at once when I might need just 3 a week at the most.

All my kales came up but I was far too early with them and they are going great guns but tbh I really wanted them for sept on through winter so I have put 3 red russian and 3 starbor closely in a sunny raised bed and I`ll pick on them through summer but those aren`t meant for winter. I have planted them with flowers so they will look fine. I have kept a few more kales for friends but the rest have been (whisper) `dumped`. Same with hispi cabbages as I already have succession sown duncan and minicole and new hispi

I have started a new system. I bought rootrainers at a show this year and I like them so much that I have bought a lot more in several sizes. I love the way that they form strong plants and the easy way in which plants can be removed without prising out with a pencil. Basically I have rows of 4 with variety and date and then 2 or 3 weeks later I sow another row with always a couple of extra seeds in the last one, which I remove if not needed. I have a whole rootrainer tray for lettuces and one for duncan cabbages, another for a row each of everything from pentland brig kale to psb. You get the picture, they are like filing cabinets and have given me an ordered system

I am also finding it very easy to sow about 10 seeds in a small plantpot and I plick out when they have seedling leaves so the root system doesn`t get disturbed too much. It is working well so far as it`s easy to transplant small brassica seedlings into rootrainers. My first season with rootrainers so I am experimenting

I also spent quite a while pricking out lots of poached egg plants, tagetes, 10 week stock and so on. It`s very satisfying to find that they look very comfortable in a shady place. That is where everything goes for a few days if I have messed with their roots. You should see my chard, which I confess to mangling ie stuffing into rootrainers (should have done it weeks ago), they look very sad but they will be ok by tomorrow. I just had to sort those out too as I had far too many. Anyway it is all done and I am putting my feet up

funkymonkey849

Our garden is such a mess at the moment because we're moving everything around - but we have 4 raised beds up and running so that's all that matters at the moment!

Bed 1 - roots. Tried a variety of methods to germinate parsnips (toilet rolls, on kitchen paper, straight in the ground). After a LOT of hard work we now have a row of strong looking seedlings and hopefully more to come! Them parsnips need more attention than a newborn baby. Will sow carrots this weekend but need to construct a carrot fly barrier first!

Bed 2 - leeks. These are finally starting to pop up, took almost a month to germinate and was beginning to get seriously worried! Have a row of little gems in between the leeks which are growing fast.

Bed 3 - beans. Started some frenchbeans in the coldframe, but stuck one straight in the bed to see what happened and it's germinated!

Bed 4 - courgettes and other misc. No action yet.

Also got some radishes growing in a pot in the coldframe and new potatoes in bags. It's all going a bit too well this year! Something must die soon I'm sure of it.

grrmich

I love reading about everyone's progress. It's helping me to get motivated.

This weekend I painted my shed (boring dark brown wood stain stuff).

I sowed some cabbage, spinach, lettuce, love in a mist and poached egg plants.

I sowed some asparagus seeds indoors (was given the seeds for christmas and thought I might as well use them) Seed packet does say that germination is erractic!

Tonight I will be potting on tomatoes from a seed tray. They've all done much better than expected, so I've earned myself lots of brownie points at work by offering spare tomato seedlings to everyone!

Looking forward to next weekend already