All posts tagged Vegetable Garden

Improving Soil in Our New Raised Beds

We’ve made a start on extending the vegetable garden, adding three 10 x 4 ft double height raised beds. After years of being part of a well-worn lawn, the soil would benefit from being improved with organic matter. We emptied most of the contents from one of the large pallet compost bins into a waiting wheelbarrow, the compost wasn’t quite ready but it was lovely all the same – just perfect for mulching and adding nutrients to the dry, hungry soil in our new beds.

One of our German Shepherd dogs certainly likes our compost, I guess she can smell rotting chicken poop. Eww.

I still find it amazing to see the contents of a compost bin change into earthy compost, we add lots of organic matter to our bins such as chicken manure mixed with straw, kitchen waste (vegetable peelings etc), used tea bags, coffee grounds, egg shells, cardboard, paper, green waste from the vegetable garden, grass clippings, nettle tops, comfrey leaves and horse manure from our village stables when we can get it.

Our bins are full of tiger worms, they’re perfect little composting machines. They adore kitchen scraps and if you watch your compost bin carefully you will see them surface to feed, starting the magical process.

The contents of our compost bin became darker and more like compost towards the bottom, we had to be really cautious with the spade and fork, lots of toads hide in and around our compost bins! I almost speared one by accident, just goes to show how careful you have to be. Now is a good time to empty your compost bins before creatures such as toads and hedgehogs start to look for places to hibernate over winter. Don’t empty them completely, leave some material in the bins for them.

Another magical ingredient for compost bins is leaves. The huge old oak provides these for free, they rot down faster than other leaves. We have a leaf bin too, taking longer to rot down but lovely as a mulch.

Isn’t it a magical, majestic tree? I think it’s wonderful, it makes me think of the green man or ‘The Oak King’. I love to listen to the wind whistling through the branches, at the moment it’s home to lots of nesting wood pigeons.

Plus, it helps to make this lovely stuff:

14 Comments
by The Garden Smallholder on August 24, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Vegetable Garden
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Posted by The Garden Smallholder on August 24, 2012

http://thegardensmallholder.wordpress.com/2012/08/24/improving-soil-in-our-new-raised-beds/

Cutworms

I was admiring how well the onions were swelling the other day, suddenly I noticed some of the leaves had been chewed in a neat circular way. Something had completely sliced open the tips of the leaves (bulbs are fine), so I did a bit of investigating to see what it could be. It didn’t take long to find the culprits way down inside the hollow leaves, complete with lots of green poop. Nice.

After a bit of research it appears the podgy caterpillars I found inside my onion leaves are cutworms. Cutworms are the larvae of several species of night flying moths, they’re not actually worms at all. Apparently, they’re a common visitor to the vegetable garden but I’ve never noticed them before, I mean, they’re not exactly easy to miss.

They hide in soil or under leaf litter, feeding on crops and other plants at night (more common early in the year), often cutting young plants or seedlings straight down to ground level. I guess that’s how they get their rather cruel name. When alarmed they curl into a C-shape, my personal observation is they have very sticky feet, making them difficult to pick off plants. They’re large and meaty so I didn’t fancy squishing them (I’m useless at killing things anyway), they’d make a heck of a mess. I simply moved on the ones I found and did a bit of hoeing to see if I could spot any lurking in the soil.

Gardening organically and living where I do I’m always going to have the odd ‘pest’ problem here and there, that’s how it goes. I don’t use nasty chemical sprays, my preferred method of natural control will be to keep a close eye for more, picking them off if I see them, digging the onion bed over after harvesting to expose any I may have missed. Cutworms have many natural predators including wild birds, our chickens will scratch in the onion bed later on in the year too.

Cutworms, your days are numbered.

6 Comments
by The Garden Smallholder on August 13, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Pests & Diseases, Vegetable Garden, Wildlife
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Posted by The Garden Smallholder on August 13, 2012

http://thegardensmallholder.wordpress.com/2012/08/13/cutworms/

Vegetable Garden in Photos

I wanted to share a few photos of my favourite place to be, our vegetable garden. The photos were taken last summer when everything was looking its best, the plot looks more or less as you see here once it gets going, I just haven’t included the greenhouse or wildlife pond. As you can see, I like to include flowers to attract and help pollinators. Vegetable gardens can be a thing of beauty too.

When we moved into our property in 2008 there wasn’t a vegetable garden. The area we designated to be our future veg patch was a sight for sore eyes, overgrown and completely neglected, bursting at the seams with rubble, rubbish, brambles and the remains of an old stable. Once we finished chopping our way through the dense jungle of brambles, the plot had to be levelled using a mini digger. Gradually and ever so slowly, we began to put the bare bones of our vegetable plot together.

It has gone through a lot of changes over the years, gradually increasing in size and maturing, looking now as if it had always been there.

Do you like our scarecrow? Our children made it a few years ago. It’s very weathered now and blends in a bit too well. The wood pigeons completely ignore it.

A lot has changed since we first started and will continue to keep changing for a while yet. I hope you have enjoyed a quick tip-toe through our vegetable garden.

10 Comments
by The Garden Smallholder on April 5, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Uncategorized, Vegetable Garden
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Posted by The Garden Smallholder on April 5, 2012

http://thegardensmallholder.wordpress.com/2012/04/05/vegetable-garden-in-photos/

Planting out my Leggy Broad Beans

There has been much drama in the legumes department. Last autumn I popped a few rows of  hardy Aquadulce Claudia outdoors in an attempt to get a slightly earlier crop – I lost the lot. The snow, extreme cold and prolonged cold/wet soil from December onwards took care of that idea for me and just to stick the boot in even harder, claimed my hardy Meteor peas too. Bah! I’m such a fool! I should have covered the rows with cloches rather than relying  completely on the word ‘hardy’. I guess the seeds weren’t hardy enough to cope with a foot of snow and then ice on top of the soil for weeks on end, they rotted away. Poor things. It’s OK though, I’m getting over it.

Good job really that I’m not a massive fan of broad beans, I’m also not able to control the weather either (now wouldn’t that be nice!?) so, I have decided to sow broad beans directly into the garden around March time in future – I would rather wait a few weeks longer to pick broad beans if need be to avoid all this hoo haar. Failing that, if I do decide to give autumn sowing another try I will remember to use some common sense ( I do have some, although it’s fleeting) and cover with cloches. I think I prefer waiting till March idea best - they usually catch up anyway.

I did sow more broad beans indoors in January, the plants are healthy at the moment but rather leggy which I find does happen to broad beans started off in small pots. The plants have been hardening off outside and are ready to go in the veg garden, but because they are so leggy they are too tall for my tunnel cloches so I will pop some fleece over them at night for a while, keeping my fingers tightly crossed for them. All is not lost, there is still time to sow broad beans outside and that is what I shall do whilst mumbling a little prayer for my leggy broad bean plants.

One of these years I will crack the art of growing them without any false starts. I will! I will!

EDIT: I’ve had a late thought. Perhaps mice got to them? We certainly have a lot of field mice here. All I found in the soil were soggy broad bean skins here and there and no sign of the peas!

10 Comments
by The Garden Smallholder on March 1, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Vegetable Garden
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Posted by The Garden Smallholder on March 1, 2011

http://thegardensmallholder.wordpress.com/2011/03/01/planting-out-my-leggy-broad-beans/

Giving Brussels Sprouts Another Go

A couple of years ago I grew sprouts for the first time,  it went OK  but I made mistakes. I didn’t pick the buttons quick enough and they all ‘blew’. This was not due to having too many plants to harvest all at once but more a case of  being a bit too relaxed about it. Aim to pick sprouts while they are small and firm, start from the bottom and work your way up the plant – you can use a sharp knife or simply snap them off with a downwards motion. Downy mildew proved to be a bit of a problem later on, I thought I had allocated enough space between each plant, obviously not enough. Remove leaves that have started to yellow (usually from the bottom first) to reduce the risk of disease.

I have decided to give sprouts another go this year and have chosen Bosworth F1 with good resistance to downy mildew. Seeing as I am the only one who likes sprouts I don’t have to grow many plants - just enough for me. Yay!

6 Comments
by The Garden Smallholder on February 18, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Vegetable Garden
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Posted by The Garden Smallholder on February 18, 2011

http://thegardensmallholder.wordpress.com/2011/02/18/giving-brussels-sprouts-another-go/

My Wish List

I always have a list of fruit and veg that I would like to grow, it’s constantly being added to so I have to be realistic and try a few new things at a time – I think it’s fun to set myself a little goal and go from there. As long as I don’t completely under-estimate growing space going spare I usually get stuck in and get my hands dirty. This is my list of new things that I’m going to try to grow this year:

  • Jerusalem artichokes
  • Asparagus (from seed)
  • Purple sprouting broccoli
  • Borlotti beans

Do you have a list of new things to grow this year?

17 Comments
by The Garden Smallholder on February 13, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Plans
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Posted by The Garden Smallholder on February 13, 2011

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Plot to Plate Parsnips

My second attempt at growing parsnips and these have to be the best yet. No sign of disease, over wintered well, and very tasty. The variety is Gladiator and I bought the seeds from Suttons.

I am very impressed with the size of them too which is just incredible, particularly because my other attempt (different variety and position on the plot) were just OK by comparison. I lifted some for yesterdays Sunday dinner and  I still have some left. I just wish I’d photographed some of the biggest ones!

6 Comments
by The Garden Smallholder on January 31, 2011  •  Permalink
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Posted by The Garden Smallholder on January 31, 2011

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January in the Garden Smallholding

It sure is cold and miserable out there but I have still managed to get a bit of gardening done. The last of the Leeks have been pulled (some were suffering from rust so were forgiven for looking a bit scruffy) and the plots given a good digging over and general tidy up with organic home compost forked in. I weighed down my collection of empty compost bags on top of the plots to help warm the soil for spring sowing, this should suppress the weeds for a while too. The sunflowers that were left for the birds to strip were mouldy and water-logged, no more seeds remained on the heads so these got the chop, bit of weeding and digging were needed to get the ground ready for spring. I just adore sunflowers and itching to get growing them again.

Already there are signs of life from the rhubarb patch, fat buds of Timperley Early are pushing through the soil just to tease me, I would love to force it but it needs at least another years growth with light harvest in order to make it a stronger plant. I shall resist the temptation. On the subject of forcing I have been hunting around lately for a terracotta forcing pot, they look so stylish nestled amongst the fat green rhubarb leaves don’t you think?

Seed potatoes are readily available now, just lay them out in a tray or egg boxes to chit with eyes uppermost in a cool frost-free place and by March /April they will be ready for planting out. I will probably get some Charlotte salad potatoes but I need to make my mind up on a main crop variety. I cut the autumn raspberry canes down and collected up what felt like a ton of leaves from the lawn for the compost bins and potted up autumn sowing broad beans – the bad weather claimed my outdoor sowing in December. With the constant wet weather I fear my new seeds will rot off in the ground, I don’t want to risk another disaster so germination in pots it shall have to be.

Daffodils are just starting to appear, lighter nights and a change in birdsong have me feeling all excited for the coming gardening year.

What have you been doing in your January garden?

2 Comments
by The Garden Smallholder on January 21, 2011  •  Permalink
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Posted by The Garden Smallholder on January 21, 2011

http://thegardensmallholder.wordpress.com/2011/01/21/january-in-the-garden-smallholding/

A New Year

Hello blog!

It’s been a while since I last updated my poor neglected blog – I know, I’m crap! I’m sorry to report a few more losses within the flock, sadly Rose and Dolly have passed away so this now leaves 6 hens here at the garden smallholding. At the moment they are all getting along just fine and just starting to come into lay again. Bringing more hens in at this point would probably cause unnecessary stress and problems for them, to be honest I could do without the hassle. Six laying hens are plenty for our needs.

The vegetable garden was a hit and miss during the harsh weather, the good old leeks, garlic and parsnips survived their blanket of snow and ice, but the young peas and winter onions are all but a distance memory. Never mind, I can always get going again with the peas, the onions can wait. Besides, I still have some left in store from summer so all is good.

So how have YOU all been doing with your winter growing (if you did any) and your chickens?

2 Comments
by The Garden Smallholder on January 18, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Chickens
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Posted by The Garden Smallholder on January 18, 2011

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Poor Pumpkin

I decided a little late in the year to try growing Pumpkins, something I have wanted to try for a while but concerned as usual that there would not be enough space. After a lot of mumbling and frowning I did a last-minute sowing of Racer that produced 2 strong plants, I then planted these in an unused patch of weedy ground, and pretty much ignored them. To my horror one of the plants gave up and died, the other kept growing away happily and produced a fruit. Just as I was starting to feel very smug about my baby Pumpkin, I suddenly remembered that we were having a new fence put up. You guessed it, the new fence would be built right where my poor Pumpkin was! I had no choice but to harvest it while green and then place it in the sun to cure and ripen. A few weeks later it doesn’t look too bad and is almost completely orange now, not a bad size either considering. Oh well, I will probably let my children have this one for carving (hopefully it won’t rot in the meantime) and start again next year.

What are your favourite variety of pumpkin to grow?

5 Comments
by The Garden Smallholder on September 23, 2010  •  Permalink
Posted in Vegetable Garden
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Posted by The Garden Smallholder on September 23, 2010

http://thegardensmallholder.wordpress.com/2010/09/23/poor-pumpkin/

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