Wild Strawberry flowering

Last year I found a British wild Strawberry growing at the back of the house that had started to shoot runners out. The runners where grown on in little pots and then transferred to my old plastic strawberry planter and have done very well.

I was quite surprised however to find that one of the plants has started to flower already. Not that I know anything about wild strawberries but this seems a little early in the year. On the plus side, it means soon I'll have some of those little yummy berries to munch on or like we did last year when we went out foraging, a wild strawberry liqueur.

New home for the Chillies

Picked up one of those 4 tier mini greenhouses from town this week for a home for the Cape Gooseberries and Chillies. All set up in the back garden to get plenty of sunshine. With the weather as mild as it is at the moment I have already put my Chilli, Cape's and Tumbling Tom seedlings in there, and they seem to be all doing well. Just need to keep a very close eye on the weather in case we get another cold snap.

The plan is, as the plants grow, to remove the shelves one by one till the "hothouse" is full to bursting with lovely chilliness. The chillies had been planned to grow inside on windowsills but this way they have their own little home.

Before..... and After.... 13 days on

Our first set of before and after pics, done in 13 days

 



 

The Hard Work Continues...

Two more days of hard work up the allotment and it really is starting to look a lot tidier and loved.  All the main beds have now been dug, Bed 5 was a nightmare, looked reasonable on top but underneath was a bit of a problem, stones, bricks, bits of wood, old nails, plus weeds!  Took all of our Sunday session to clear 3/4 of it, dumped some well rotted manure on it after it had been dug over as that corner is definitely going to need a little bit of help.  Still digging up little potatoes from that area though so the previous tenant must have used it in its poor state.  Whilst I got on with the digging, Simon did a brilliant job with some old stones and slabs and made a recycled rhubarb bed.  Very pleased with it and got some manure in it and a rhubarb straight away.  He planted some comfrey seeds in the first raised area, good for compost and liquid fertiliser.



Went back for more punishment today, armed with a roll of roofing felt for the little shed and while Simon got on with that I finished Bed 5.  Still had some energy left so tackled the flower bed next to the path and planted 3 dahlias, a little early, it said plant March on the packets but its almost March and has been very warm this week so fingers crossed!

 Dug up some more strange bulbs again and put them in the first planted bed - not sure what they are.... any suggestions?  Weed or worth keeping?



 

 

So, the main digging done now and really satisfying to see the before and after pictures.... will be even better when theres green stuff growing - got one garlic up already!

 



 

Other jobs done today - ordered the 8ft canes online for the beans

- planted some celeriac seeds and popped them in the heated propagator

- took pumpkins out of propagator and put them on the kitchen windowsill

- planted the anemones in the tubs at the allotment and had lots left to do the front border in the garden at

home where all the spring bulbs are looking fab

 

Will be glad to go to work tomorrow for a rest!

 

 

More Digging....

Sunny Saturday and perfect for more digging.  Had to go do boring shopping type things first and ended up in the garden centre AGAIN.... funny how that place is like a magnet at the moment!  Went to look at fertilisers and got completely befuddled with all the science and stuff and instead of getting the wrong thing we thought we would just see how things go with the hop compost and if things are looking a bit sad later in the year we would feed it all up then.  Difficult when you are taking a plot over to know what care was taken over the soil before, but by the size of the dandelion roots and the healthy weeds, the ground appears to be to notch.  So for the first time ever ... we left the garden centre empty handed!  Still in shock now as I type this!  That's unheard of for us, we usually buy SOMETHING!

So arrived at the allotment and got digging again, tackling 'bed 4 & 5' today and these are possibly the most difficult so far.  Bed 5 was plagued by grass and was a bit back breaking.  In reality though it could have been a lot worse, we are lucky that the plot isnt very overgrown at all.

 Lovely to dig in the sunshine though!  Simon was busy the other end of the plot, he raked out Bed 2 and then planted onions - Sturon, Red Barons, Hercules and Centurion spaced 4 inches apart and 10 inches between each row.  Which is what the book said to do..... That should keep us going in onions, especially as we have some growing in the raised beds at home too.  Then he planted a couple of rows of Picasso Shallots and a row of Marco Garlic.  Some space still left for the leeks which are started in module pots at home.  The spacings on the growveg website planner were a little out unfortunately and what Simon planted today took up a bit more space than anticipated when planted the correct space apart so unfortunately it looks like no room in the allium bed for the spring onions, will have to do those in the raised beds at home.

Onions all covered up with recycled bits we kept when we cleared the plot in an attempt to keep the wildlife off.  Looking into getting proper canes and netting but using this for now.  Luckily we managed to get some free canes from Dave who was sorting out a vacant plot today  - long ones though so will keep those for some of the bean supports, not sure how we are going to fit 8ft canes in a Nissan Micra!  At least now we wont need to get so many!  Dug up some strange bulbs as well today, not sure what they are, maybe tulips.... put them in the raised bed to see what they do.  They were dug up along one edge of a bed so likely to be flowers.  Also dug up another plant which remains unidentified..... so that has a new home for now too.

Ran out of steam part way through Bed 5 and decided to call it a day, will come back and finish off tomorrow.  Stopped at B&Q later and picked up a mini greenhouse for at home for Simons chilli plants to go on the patio, and treated myself to a new rhubarb plant for the allotment - Simon will sort out another raised bed tomorrow with the slabs and bits left over and will take over the sack of manure left in the greenhouse at home and plant the rhubarb.  Have rhubarb at home already but felt it was only right to have some on the allotment as well!  You can never have too much rhubarb....   Collapsed now, another busy day but feel like we have achieved a lot again.

Cape gooseberry "Little Lantern" (Physalis edulis)

Well is says on the packet that these can be grown outdoors in very mild climates, I wonder if Somerset is mild enough to grow these on the allotment?

I didn't expect many to germinate so I put quite a few in each coir plug, and was only intending to grow on 2 0r 3 of these plants.



As ya can see, I have quite a few to prick out and seems like a waste to just compost the little seedlings.  We have a spare spot I can plant these in, so might be worth a go at planting a few of these outside.

I'll be keeping a few back to grow alongside my Chillies in pots on the windowsill just in case.

Tumbling Tom's

Last year I had 4 Tomato Tumbling Tom's that we bought as plants from the garden centre, growing out of the top of an old strawberry planter and got a quite decent crop keeping in mind I just left them to do their own thing.

Well last year following a Tomato seed saving guide that I found on the Internet I saved the seeds from my Tumbling Tom's and to my surprise they all germinated.



The plan this year is to plant them into a hanging basket that we have and look after them this time with a proper tomato feed and hope for a bumper crop.