So what’s on the go this year?

Potatoes

This year I decided I wanted to do potatoes again. It’s not easy when you don’t have much space but I got a couple of potato sacks and my Dad built me a couple of deep wooden troughs to use. So I’ve got 4 first earlies and 4 second earlies on the go, and I’ve got my main crop (King Edwards) sitting in an egg tray waiting to go in next month.

I planted the potatoes out at the beginning of March and they’re growing well, despite the cold weather we’ve had.

Pak Choi

I sowed some Pak Choi seeds out in one of the troughs next to a couple of potato plants around mid March. Despite not thinking to cover them over to protect from the cold weather, they’ve all germinated well. I now keep a piece of clear plastic board over the top of them just to create a mini greenhouse under it to help them along.

Pak choi can be picked as leaves and eaten in salad or you can let them grow and they’re like a chinese cabbage, great stirfried.

Carrots

I love raw carrot but I’ve never tried growing it. We got a baby carrot variety, designed for growing in pots. I’ve sowed a few rows of carrot seeds in the other trough, again next to a couple of the potato plants. These took longer to show the initial seedling however the main work is going on underneath the surface.

If you want to grow carrots you need to sow them where they’re going to grow as they’re obviously a root vegetable and will set the root in before you even possibly see the seed leaves.

Again, I didn’t think to cover them over for a few weeks but once I’d put the clear plastic board over them they seemed a bit happier. I’m not sure if some of the little seed leaves have been eaten by slugs however, as some have disappeared, hopefully they’ve not damaged the growing vegetable underneath.

Leeks

We got a baby leek variety (but can also be left to mature to a bigger size), and I’ve had some seeds on the go since January. I’m not sure if they’ve hit a wall in growth as they don’t seem to be doing much now! So I’m going to try another batch now that the weather is warmer and the light better, and hopefully get these going.

Red Onions

David loves onion, particular red onions for sandwiches, so I’ve got red onions growing all around the garden. They’re so easy to grow, just push them into the ground with the tip showing. I’ve put some in a plastic trough, which are growing very well (probably because they’re in pure compost), and I’ve also put some in a tiny patch of ground in the back garden, and then a few are dotted in between the flowers in the front garden!

Red Spring Onions

These we saw at a garden centre, pre-grown, with a long tray of them for just 99p. I’ve never seen red spring onions so figured it was worth a go just to see what they tasted like. I’ve split most of these up into their single plants now, there’s loads of them!

Cherry Tomatoes

Last year my Dad gave me a cherry tomato plant in a large pot. It didn’t suffer with blight (I’m not saying they won’t, but this one didn’t!), and it happily grew outside of a greenhouse. So this year I decided to do a couple and have them in hanging baskets instead. I’ve had these plants growing in the propogator and then in the conservatory since January, and now they’re in their hanging baskets outside.

Green Bell Pepper

We picked a few of these plants up very cheaply so I gave a couple away and kept a couple. I’ve put them both into large pots and am going to keep them in the greenhouse, or may even move them into the conservatory, depending on how well they do outside. I’ve never had much luck with bell peppers but I’d love to crack them as we go through about 3-5 a week!

Cucumber

I’ve never grown cucumbers before (well I may have when I was a kid but I’m sure my Dad will have helped me out there!). We picked up a cucumber plant for 99p and I’ve got that in a decent sized pot in the greenhouse for now. Cucumbers are ideal if they’re trained to grow up a net or frame so that the fruit grows off the ground, to avoid bugs.

Pea Shoots

David loves pea shoots as I do I. They’re great for going in sandwiches or having with salad, however they’re also very expensive to buy. We watched a programme on TV where this woman grew her own pea shoots a bit like growing cress but on a larger scale. She just had a small plastic trough/tub, filled with compost and a box of cheapy dried peas from the supermarket (the type you put into soups). She just put a good handful or two of these peas over the top of the compost and pushed them under the surface.

The pea shoots then grew to about half a foot (15 cm) high and then get cut off. Such a cheap and easy way to grow a fab salad leaf. So I’m giving this a go too!

Chilli Peppers

Every year I’ve tried different chilli peppers and this year we have two types. A hot carribbean blend and scotch bonnet chillis. These are all being kept in the conservatory as the hotter the environment, the hotter the chillis

Green/dwarf beans

I’ve had a few of these plants the last two summers, but they were pre-grown by my Dad and given to me, so this year I bought my own seeds to start them from scratch. We’ve got a couple of large plants at the moment and more seeds on the go. I’ve got them in a small wooden trough. They’re so easy to grow and the great thing with beans (plus other veg) is that you can blanche and freeze them for use later in the year.

Courgette

A couple of years ago we grew courgettes and found them to be one of the easiest things ever to grow. We go through a lot of courgettes so I decided that we’d get a couple of plants again this year. So simple to grow and all you need is a small growbag to put them in. As you pick the courgettes, more appear!

Garlic

Our garlic is still growing well. I’m hoping the really cold winter will have helped it as the colder the winter, the stronger the garlic. This will be ready around late June / early July.

Lettuce

Another easy salad item to grow. There is nothing like picking, washing and eating fresh lettuce. We’ve got a few different varieties in a seed tray at the moment. I got some new lettuce seeds of a frilly green lettuce, plus I’ve also put in rocket, mixed spicy leaves and a lettuce mix, all of which are older seeds so may or may not grow!

Easy to grow, but you need to keep a continuous supply of seeds on the go (a new crop every 1-2 weeks), and then you can enjoy them for as long as they’ll keep growing.

Radish

Something for David as I don’t eat it. Very easy to grow but you need to sow them where you’re going to keep them, so a decent pot and compost in it and away you go

Strawberries

As usual, we’ve got our strawberry plants. A few of the plants died off in the winter with the cold weather but we’ve still got a few going so we’ll hopefully get a small crop off them. Of course come the strawberry season and you can pick them up so cheaply off the markets or even find a ‘pick your own’ field. Personally I think strawberries are the best fruit you can get

Gooseberries

Our gooseberry bush is still going strong. It’s still in its large pot where it’s been for over two years now. Last year it had a semi good crop of gooseberries but the squirrels got them before we did! So this year I’ll be keeping an eye on it and possibly covering it with the strawberry netting once the fruit start to appear.

So, as you can see, we’ve got a fair bit on the go and besides a few onions in the ground, everything else is in pots of some sort. I’ll get some photos up soon and try and keep this a bit more updated with the progress of it all

• Bookmark this page at:
• Del.icio.us -
• StumbleUpon -
• Spurl

I’ve also planted some hot chilli plant seeds (scotch bonnet and habanero chillis) that we bought last week to keep David happy.

Whilst out last week we also picked up some packs of potatoes for growing, some red onions and a couple of potato sacks for growing potatoes in. I’ve got 3 types of potatoes, first earlies, second earlies and main crop. I’m hoping that I can time it so that the first earlies can be picked and then the main crop can go into the sack straight after, then plant some more after the second earlies are picked.

• Bookmark this page at:
• Del.icio.us -
• StumbleUpon -
• Spurl

We also went out to another local garden centre yesterday (I love these places!) to see if they had any scotch bonnet chilli seeds. Whilst there I also picked up a couple of potato grow bags (deep bags with a slit on the side) and 3 different types of potatoes which’ll be ready at varying times throughout the summer and the main crop (King Edwards) should keep a fair while (whether they last that long or not who knows!). We won’t get a massive amount of potatoes I doubt but it does mean we can get a few crops going.

I checked on my garlic yesterday too and all 6 cloves that I planted are now showing shoots, even the one that the squirrel dug up!

• Bookmark this page at:
• Del.icio.us -
• StumbleUpon -
• Spurl

So, after winning some vouchers for a local garden centre, we finally took a trip over there today and I got a decent sized heated propagator (photos to follow once it’s set up!), plus a few packets of seeds designed for the compact/patio garden. I bought seeds for dwarf beans (I’ve grown these the last two summers in a pot), cherry tomatoes (going to put these in a hanging basket), spring onions, baby carrots and baby leeks. Plus I’ll be seeing if my existing seeds (courgettes, lettuce, radish and rocket) are still ‘working’.

My plan this year is to stick with the pots and growbags, as there is no ground space to put plants in. I’m also planning to do a couple of troughs of potatoes, using a couple of deep wooden troughs built by my Dad (from old scrap wood, no expense spared!). That, plus the pots and two wooden troughs I already have, plus maybe 3 growbags and I think we should get a nice little crop of vegetables and salad this year

• Bookmark this page at:
• Del.icio.us -
• StumbleUpon -
• Spurl

If you want to try growing your own then whilst it is a little bit later than the ideal time, you can still get them planted, but do it as soon as possible! Ideally you should buy specific garlic for growing from your local garden centre, but you can use normal garlic cloves, however the results may not produce large sized bulbs, but it’s still a good way to try it.

You need to plant them about half a foot to a foot apart (although I cheated, but we’ll see how they fare) and about an inch under the surface. You don’t need to ‘unwrap’ the clove, just make sure the pointed end is pointing upwards. Then you can just leave them until about the end of June or early July.

I’ll keep you updated on how mine go

One little fact, the colder the winter, the stronger the growing garlic will be!

• Bookmark this page at:
• Del.icio.us -
• StumbleUpon -
• Spurl

For a while I wondered if bringing them indoors was the right thing to do as the flowers were coming but just dying and falling off. Then I remembered what a friend of mine had told me last year about how he had manually pollenated his plants and cross pollenated them as well, and that suddenly hit me. Of course, being indoors, there are no bees/wasps/flies to help with the pollenation process, so with a little brush I’ve been keeping an eye for any newly opened flowers and get them pollenated, and most of them so far have started to product the chillis.

At present they’re still growing and still green, but judging by the packet they came out of they should turn red so I’ll just keep tending to them and hopefully they’ll start to turn to red at some point

So note to self, next year keep them in the conservatory and remember to manually pollenate them!

• Bookmark this page at:
• Del.icio.us -
• StumbleUpon -
• Spurl

Despite repotting the chilli plants, they’ve not been very happy outside, so I brought a couple in to our conservatory (came with the new house!) and they’ve perked up in there, so I’ve started to bring them all in. A couple of the taller plants have got flowers on them now so I’m hoping to maybe get a few chillis off each one if I’m lucky. It’s quite warm in the conservatory but doesn’t get too much direct sunlight so they seem quite happy in there.

That just leaves the gherkin plant, which has about one gherkin on. I’m not sure when to pick that however, so I’ll need to check on that and not leave it too long!

• Bookmark this page at:
• Del.icio.us -
• StumbleUpon -
• Spurl

We had a small crop of strawberries this year. To be honest I think unless you have them in a decent sized container or the ground, you won’t tend to get a good crop of strawberries, either that or the plants are too old for a decent crop now.

At present we’ve got a cherry tomato bush growing, a gherkin/cucumber plant, a few lettuces, some radish and a few fine bean plants going. These were all started by my Dad (thanks Dad!) as I’d packed most of my garden stuff away for moving so he brought these up with him when we moved.

We’ve got a nice little back garden now, although there’s no grass, just some borders and paving slabs. However there’s a nice little suntrap so most of the plants are sitting there as they’re sheltered from the wind but get a good watering when it rains, and any sunshine that’s out during the day. We have a front garden too, but it’s quite overgrown with bushes and flowers so I doubt I’ll plant anything out there.

So I hope your fruit and veg growing is going well this year, let me know what’s on the go

• Bookmark this page at:
• Del.icio.us -
• StumbleUpon -
• Spurl

I’ve got tri-colour courgette plants and so far had dark and pale green courgettes off them. Over the weekend we were visiting friends who were literally giving away most of their courgettes as they had so many, so we got a few yellow ones off them too. The yellow ones are much better than the dark green – a lot less bitter.

Courgettes are so versatile when it comes to eating them. You can add them to pretty much everything really. I’ll throw them in to risotto, soup, bolognaise, stir frys, I even added them in with beef stroganoff last night and fish pie tonight! You can also eat them raw, either sliced like a cucumber or sliced lengthways into sticks, great with carrot and cucumber sticks as crudites.

I don’t know how long the plants will continue to produce courgettes. At the moment they seem to thrive despite the lack of summer, so I’m hoping they continue to produce for a couple of months at least.

• Bookmark this page at:
• Del.icio.us -
• StumbleUpon -
• Spurl

Tomatoes

Both tomato plants have fared a lot better in their greenhouse this year, although they’ve probably gone without water a bit more than they should have. The downside to having them covered is that they don’t get watered when it rains (besides through the 3 air holes at the top of the greenhouse). However we’ve had half a dozen juicy red tomatoes off them so far and about another dozen or so to come.

Lettuce

My attempts at lettuce so far haven’t been so great. Our first lettuce were seedlings from my Dad, and these grew great, however the next attempt started well but just died off. I’ve now bought some new seeds (as my others were a few years old) and currently have a tray of small seedlings, plus some slightly larger ones from my Dad again so these are already in the long window box.

Chillis

The most successful pot plant so far this year! We’ve got 6 Jalapeno plants and a Scotch Bonnet plant. All of the plants have chillis on, the Jalapeno plants are in full swing with over 50 chillis in total. A couple of the plants are about 2.5 feet tall!

Strawberries

The strawberries are over for another year but we had a great batch from the various plants we’ve got. Having them in pots kept them away from the slugs and woodlice, although my hanging basket seemed to suffer from the strawberry beetle and none of the strawberries in the basket were any good. Next year I’ll put in measures to protect against this.

Radish

The last crop I tried of Radish, some came up great, some just grew the leaves but no radish. Again, old seeds so maybe they need a lot more than a window box can give them. However Dave’s got plenty of radish now so I probably won’t grow any more of that this year anyway!

Romano Pepper

I had a sweet pepper plant in between the tomato plants in the grow bag, and whilst it started off great, it seems to have hit a wall in improving. I’ve now dug it out and put it into its own pot to see if it fares any better, however I’m not expecting much from it. None of my pepper plants have ever done too well, besides just the one pepper (almost black and tasted horrible!) from a plant that was in the ground a couple of years back.

Aubergine

My Dad’s given me another Aubergine plant, however a couple of years back I had one from him that just took up a lot of space and did nothing! He got a few off a couple of plants, but I think it’s too late in the year and it’s in too small a pot for it to really do much. Still, there’s no harm in trying!

Courgettes

I’ve never grown courgettes before, however after seeing Jem’s posts about how she’d got courgettes off her enormous plant, plus seeing that I could still sow the seeds at the end of May (when I was nosing around the garden centre and spotted a pack of seeds. So I planted 4 seeds and 3 grew to small plants in the tray they were in. I separated these into individual trays once I saw how big they may get, and they just carried on growing! So a couple of weeks ago I took two of them and put them in a grow bag, and took the other plant to my Dad (see I give him plants too!).

My two courgette plants are quite large now and covered in a few flowers and lots of tiny little courgettes. I certainly can’t wait to start getting courgettes off these plants, and it’ll certainly be a permanent fixture in my choice of plants in future years.

Other Salads

My attempts at other salads hasn’t gone so well this year. Whether it’s down to the age of the seeds, or just the lack of decent weather, who knows. My spring onions have never grown too well anyway (I blame that on the lack of sun).

So all in all, the garden’s done quite well for being in pots, and it certainly proves that it’s possible. However, I do still miss having my own garden. Maybe next year.

• Bookmark this page at:
• Del.icio.us -
• StumbleUpon -
• Spurl