The hard work is beginning to bear fruit

Not much to say again about the garden. The plants have been doing all of the work. I've just been looking at them and taking a few pictures.

The first piece of edible results happened at the weekend. I've had my eye on this strawberry for a few days and today I decided it had my name on it. It was delicious albeit a little tart but full of flavour.

I can almost taste the spuds. The flowers are emerging on the first earlies and look loveley against backdrop of the garden

I bought, on impulse, some chillie seed from M&S. They've started to appear this week


And on the same impulse occassion I bought some minature sunflowers in a bucket. Nice

I almost forgot the tomatoes

How could I forget the tomatoes. Grown from seed and nurtured on the window sill, they suffered some really bad weather - wind cold rain and tied to a badly built cane structure, they were really badly knocked about.

Despite this, they all seem to have survived. I looked at them early this morning and they've taken on a deeper darker green hue that makes them look like they're maturing. No longer seedlings.

I'm eager to see the first flower. I understand that that is the time to start feeding them.

Spring Watch

I see Spring Watch is back on the telly - this time without that twit Bill Oddie. Our garden is beginning to look like Spring sprang weeks ago. The blackbirds have fledged and we've even eaten al fresco this week.

There's not much gone on in the garden apart from keeping it weeded and tidy in the last few weeks. That is not to say that the vegetables haven't been working hard.

The potatoes are like triffids and the first earlies are just beginning to flower. We can look forward to eating them in a few weeks I hope.

The other crop that is flowering is the broad beans. These had an uncertain start but they are now looking beautiful. The flower, tiny as it is , is intricately gorgeous. White with a dark pattern. Really nice.

The peas are sort of a favourite. After a disastrous 100% failure, this line was planted late March I think. I didn't hold out much hope but they've come on great.

And the garden as a whole is looking just fantastic - although the sunshine does help

The tomatoes are like my children

I don't mean that the tomatoes are actuallylike my actual children - I mean I feel like I've given them life and I want to nurture them to maturity. Yesterday, they took a big step and have moved outside.






I've planted 4 so far. Three under cover and a single on without protection. That one survived the night and still looks healthy so I plan to put another 8 out later today.


The peas I planted in the spare pot are doing very nicely and I'm hoping that they'll give a nice display in the summer. Talking of which - the long term weather forecast is suggesting a long hot summer. Fantastic!

And finally... I saw these planters and saw some onion set and some leeks ready to be planted. I only went to the garden centre for some bark and tomato feed and came out with a car full

Spring Update

We've been blessed with good weather this weekend and a trip to the garden centre to buy bark turned into a whole set of new planting ideas.

I like garden centres but the queues on a busy bank holiday weekend are like anthropologist's laboratory. A mixture of grumpy old bastards who've been self sufficient in tomatoes since the second world war, aggressive idiots who've never steered a trolley outside of Netto and then there's the middle class self sufficiency converts looking for the right compost for the seeds they impulsively bought at the M&S checkout.

I should mention the gardening convert that gets excited about every possibility and stacks his trolley full of impossible projects too - but that me - and I only have sympathy for that customer - as well as some of admiration.

It was a good day in the garden. The first early potato bags are now full and swelling and looking fantastic.

The line of peas I planted after a 100% failure early in the spring have come up trumps. I've concluded that I was just a bit early with the first lot - planting peas and beans in February was just a bit optimistic.

Having said that, the beans I planted early, although there was a low success rate, are looking very healthy. My second row of beans have all come up - I'm chuffed.

And I think the garden generally is looking great.

My two best bits are for the next post. The tomatoes are doing brilliantly - I'm doing leeks and onions and - I'm transferring to a proper blog spot at peteloughlin.com - still under construction but it's getting there.

Grow your own Diary - Making the garden look nice

I don't want an allotment to look at when I look out of the office window. I want to see a variety of plants, flowers trees and birds. So the veg is strategically placed to be either hidden (the potatoes in bags) or complimentary to the garden (the peas and beans). I don't know where to put the tomatoes.

This weekend was a cosmetic weekend as far as the garden is concerned. The last lot of seed potatoes put in bags and the tired old dried egg boxes chucked. A decorative planter used to plant the rest of the peas. Some flowers planted before the rain this week and the border tidied.

We've had such lovely weather the last week. I hope the rain forecast doesn't damage things too much.

Grow your own Diary - Spuds

One seed potato to another: "What you doing bro?". "Chittin' innit"


The thing that inspired me to grow vegetables was the realisation that I didn't need to turn the garden into an allotment to get a decent crop of edible veg. Growing potoatoes in bags reduces the risk of pest damage, allows you to harvest your crop without spiking your spuds with a fork and the bags can sit neatly our of the way leaving the garden looking pretty.

My main crop potatoes are ready to be planted. They've been sitting outside for a few weeks chitting. These are Charlotte potatoes - my favourite. If they grow big enough they make perfect roasties and small ones are great in salads.

My second earlies (below) were planted about 3 weeks ago. I put 5 chitted seed potatoes on a layer of 6 inches of compost then covered them with another 4 inches. They've been watered regularly and you can just see the first leaves beginning to emerge.

The first earlies (below) have really come on quickly. They're only about 2 weeks ahead of the second earlies. As they grow, I'm putting further compost in to keep the stalks in the dark. This allows the tubers to grow white rather than green and poisonous. I'll have the first early bags filled to the top within a week I'm sure.