The plot of the unknown vegetable
At last, I have been able to get onto the plot for more than half an hour. Between work, working on the house, and watching the Giro d'Italia, the lottie has suffered the last week or so. So I made up for lost time today, the intention being to clear and plant another bed. Now it may seem that progress here is very slow, but as the entire plot is covered with a combination of nettles, dock, couch grass and mares tail, the only way forward is slow but sure. A couple of weeks ago, I turned a patch of the plot straight up and down. Today, another bed's worth (4.5 metres by 1.5 metres) was completely stripped of any form of weed and weed root. It is hard work, but god is it worthwhile. After turning it over a couple of times, using the fork like a seive, I was able to erradicate pretty much every trace of weed within this bed, and it only took a couple of hours to do (he says sarcastically). So, with the ground prepared, the timber was cut to form the raised bed. Luckily, last week I was able to borrow a van from work, so I moved a load of broken down pallets (axle box pallets and the like from work), which are about three metres long over to the allotment. So the framework quickly went together, then the rake came out, to prepare the soil. A good rake over, breaking up the lumps gave way to another prepared raised bed. 2 down, 7 to go (for the left hand side of the plot anyway). 
With this plot prepared, it was time to plant it, so out came the tray of plants donated by my neighbour. Unfortunately, we do not know what these plants are. He had his granddaughter at the plot the other day, who decided to play with the plant labels, so they are either cabbage or sprouts, but who knows. I suppose I will found out when they grow.
Anyway, two rows of these cabbage/sprout plants went into the ground, as well as a row of Autumn King carrots, a row of Callabrese, and a row of Holland White Turnip. Now I know it is a bit of a mixture, but it's more of an experiment to see what actually grows, and to take photos of the shoots as they come up for future reference. As for the unknown plant, here is a bit of a close up, please feel free to leave a post on the forum if you recognise it, I sure don't, but then, this is my first year at growing.
Answers on a postcard please. From the look of the stem, I would say that they are sprouts, but I could be (and most probably will be) wrong. Either way, the ground was firmed up around them just in case. As for the rest of the plot, well, the greenhouse has been planted up, I now have three plum tomato's three Gadreners Delight and three Garden Pearl tomato's in the groud, as well as two cucumber (burpless variety), three Jalepeno chilli and two Sweet Pepper plants growing. These were transplanted from pots about two weeks ago and are doing fine. They are watered every night if need be, and the greenhouse has an autovent on it, to control the temperature so they don't scorch. ( I think I'm getting quite good at this veg growing lark now). They are about two weeks behind, due to late planting, but hey, it just means I will be eating fresh tomatos and peppers a couple of weeks later in the season, no major drama. The early potatos are booming, after being earthed up at first showing, as are the shallots, as you can see below. My main crop spuds will hopefully be going in next week (assuming I can get another bed prepared in time), and I know that this is a couple of weeks later than usual, but with the weather we have had, I don't think this will be a problem. 
I also managed to aquire a compost bin last week, a friends mam had had enough of it being in the back garden, so that was moved up to the plot, and is slowly filling up with veg peelings etc.
With this plot prepared, it was time to plant it, so out came the tray of plants donated by my neighbour. Unfortunately, we do not know what these plants are. He had his granddaughter at the plot the other day, who decided to play with the plant labels, so they are either cabbage or sprouts, but who knows. I suppose I will found out when they grow.
Anyway, two rows of these cabbage/sprout plants went into the ground, as well as a row of Autumn King carrots, a row of Callabrese, and a row of Holland White Turnip. Now I know it is a bit of a mixture, but it's more of an experiment to see what actually grows, and to take photos of the shoots as they come up for future reference. As for the unknown plant, here is a bit of a close up, please feel free to leave a post on the forum if you recognise it, I sure don't, but then, this is my first year at growing.
Answers on a postcard please. From the look of the stem, I would say that they are sprouts, but I could be (and most probably will be) wrong. Either way, the ground was firmed up around them just in case. As for the rest of the plot, well, the greenhouse has been planted up, I now have three plum tomato's three Gadreners Delight and three Garden Pearl tomato's in the groud, as well as two cucumber (burpless variety), three Jalepeno chilli and two Sweet Pepper plants growing. These were transplanted from pots about two weeks ago and are doing fine. They are watered every night if need be, and the greenhouse has an autovent on it, to control the temperature so they don't scorch. ( I think I'm getting quite good at this veg growing lark now). They are about two weeks behind, due to late planting, but hey, it just means I will be eating fresh tomatos and peppers a couple of weeks later in the season, no major drama. The early potatos are booming, after being earthed up at first showing, as are the shallots, as you can see below. My main crop spuds will hopefully be going in next week (assuming I can get another bed prepared in time), and I know that this is a couple of weeks later than usual, but with the weather we have had, I don't think this will be a problem. I also managed to aquire a compost bin last week, a friends mam had had enough of it being in the back garden, so that was moved up to the plot, and is slowly filling up with veg peelings etc.
You can probably see from the photo's that the beds have small paths between them covered with bin bags at the minute. These will be covered with bark chippings at a later date, to create maintenance free paths between the beds. Also, following a quick scout of ebay, a couple of packs of stained glass copper tape is on order,(which is exactly the same as the anti slug tape that is advertised in several places, just at a fraction of the price), at about £5.00 for 30 metres. This will be applied to all the beds when it arrives, to keep ths slugs under control until the pond is dug out.
Well, that's about it for this week. See you soon.
Tony
posted by Pinsrap at
3:51 PM
