Dwarf Beans

I loved these last year but i didnt have enough. I am growing Tender Beans i think. They are in with the onions and stuff in the raised bed.I use sticks to keep them off the ground. I have also used the weed control cloth. I cut holes in it and planed the plugs i grew through the cloth. After a couple of days i noticed that the slugs were about to i used the blue pellets and the next morning i couldnt believe how many slug trails there were on the cloth!!! It looked like someone had scribbled all over it with a silver pen. Little shits, they thought they would eat my plants and make an invisible getaway. No way lol.



This was about a month ago i think. All growing great. Everything in this bed looks after itself really well.

Runner Beans,

Bit of a disappointment for me this year. Normally i have no problem growing from seed but this time most of my bean seeds turned to mush and didnt germinate. I am thinking maybe the g/h was too hot, i dont know. I started off using seeds i harvested. Only a couple grew so i used a different variety i had. Blue Lake i think. I didnt have much luck with these either lol. So, this year i have an unfinished bean plot. I will germinate some more beans and do them in the house i think.

Me and my son constructed a solid structure this year as the wind wrecks the beans as they are not built for hurricane conditions. I drilled through the canes and threaded wire through and attached them to the fence. There is no way that the wind can do any damage this year. :o



I have planted a few more since this pic was taken



I dug over the roots from the last years beans as the roots store nitrogen so its good to keep them in the ground. I also added loads of farmyard manure, stinking chicken manure pellets and compost from the composter. I was planning to give them a really good start but i didn't grow enough to start with. That will be rectified soon with the second planting.

Shallots, and Oniony Things.

I thought i would squeeze them into one blog entry. They are all growing in my new super dooper raised veg area. I no longer have to bend down so my foofed back is happier. The only thing i dont like about the raised growing area is that it looks ugly, but i can work on that hopefully.

This picture was taken last month.








I used sticks and wires to keep all veg in place. I am trying really hard to keep everything off the ground away from the slugs.
The shallots are on the far right with the garlics. The red and white onions are in the middle and the leeks are at the far left end. I also have my dwarf beans and parsnips in here too.

Carrots.

So far, always a success. I plant in troughs from Wilkinsons in rows of 4. I use permalite and vermiculite in the compost and firm it into the troughs. Then I water it completely till the water seeps out the bottom. By this time the level of compost has dropped so I add more and water it well again . Then I use a bamboo cane to make grooves in the compost to put the seeds, Early Nantes. I press the cane down until it leaves channels. I put the seeds in the channels, it keeps them really neat, then I sieve compost on top to cover the seeds and water with the mist setting so you don’t disturb the seeds, cover and wait! The first 2 troughs I did in the greenhouse but not at the same time. I feel driven to keep a good supply going. I think I am getting too much sun la la la.

As I was saying, I am growing perfect straight healthy carrots and not a hint of a carrot fly, ever. This may be because I live fairly high up and I have at least 6ft fencing around my back garden.

Peppers.

Here are my peppers in the carport.

This is the best place for them as they stay in the heat and have no wind to damage them. I have a few varieties, Yolo, California Wonder, Hot red, mini sweet red and some orange ones. They were planted out about a month ago in the picture. I have thenraised up so that they are not in any shade.




I have 3 bags of spuds growing in the carport too. Every year the wind does terrible things to them and they always fall over and snap etc. I cant bear to see a plant suffering so this year i made a botched framework for them to grow within. So far its working.

This May i seeded parsnips, carrots runners and dwarf beans, 4 tomato varieties, cucs, melons, red and white onions, shallots, garlic, leeks, peppers and so on. I started everything my greenhouse from seed. I use troughs to grow most of my stuff in. They are large enough for anything and they dont dry out too easily in the heat. I have water trays for them too.

I have used my greenhouse for the cucs and melons. Every year i get the powdery mildew on my Telegraph cucs and it gradually spreads but this year i have only used Marketmore cucs. So far not a sign of disease!!! Market more are a little bit slower but worth it. They are a bit shorter than the Tels. F1 Emir is the melons i have. Last year i had a result so i am sticking with it.

Last year I used canes to prop everything up and not very successfully. What started off looking ok didn’t really have the balls to do the job. There was also the danger of a cane poking me in numerous place and causing injury so the whole set up was flawed. Everything had to be constantly adjusted and fiddled with. I was also washing the leaves with soapy water to clear the mildew so I spent a lot of time in my greenhouse. As soon as I would get up I would be out there opening the g/h up to get the air in, searching for newly infested leaves and getting prickled to death by the cuc leaf hairs. But I had a fantastic harvest from all the plants until the Tels gave up the ghost and passed out. Unbelievably the Tel cucs were as big and bigger as the shops and the MM’s were bigger than average too. I now know that if you fight the mildew you can get a good result but you will rarely beat it, leave it and it will destroy everything and you will have nothing. I have no fight this year so I am making it easy.
I have drilled holes into the floor of the g/h and put canes into them then threaded horizontal wires through the canes at different heights. I have secured the wires to the framework of the g/h so they are very secure. It was guesswork for the horizontal wires but I can add string later on if I need to. My cucs and melons are in the troughs and there are 2 plants in each. It was so much more difficult with the horrible cane structure that was put up last year. I now have loads of room and no dangerous canes sticking out everywhere, result!


This picture was taken in May 2010. I am still constructing the support system.





Next are my toms. These are in my carport. I grow them up against the wall as its in the full sun all day. This picture is from the beginning of June. They are very small in this picture. You can also see melons here and my potatoes are growing in the bags.



If all goes well i will have Gardeners delight, Moneymaker, Plum and Gartenperle which are basket i think. The carport is great as i can keep everything out there when its really cold,its better than the g/h.

The Here and Now.

I am going to start adding some more relevent pictures so i am more up to date. I have tried to improve on the way i did my grow last year. I am now single and have had to do everything completely on my own. Blood sweat and tears and broken fingernails but it was worth it.


This year i started very late growing from seed. From past experience when i have seeded very early i dont gain anything apart from frostbite. Plants dont really flower any earlier but the plant itself is bigger but not necessarily better. If anything the plants will be stretched from reaching for sun that doesn't exist, take up too much room and generally be a pain as it needs more support.

Most of my grow was started in May. Another reason for it being so late was because i was trying to construct a solid set of steps half way up the garden so i can get my nan up to there. I have had to stop now as its so hot but i will discuss that later.

I am going to forget last year for now.....




This year we had that really bad snow so i didnt go into the garden for a while. I knew the damage was there but there was nothing i could do about it. Also as i was on my own i didnt know where to start. Once the snow had gone i could see some damage but i knew the rest would become apparent when the spring arrived. The worst casualty for me was my beautiful palm. I showed it earlier looking so healthy. Here it is then and now. I am gutted and if anyone can help me get it back on its feet i will be eternally grateful. I do not know if it is dead or alive. I have had it for 10 years now and it has never lost any colour until now.




Is it dead or alive?