Thursday, May 03, 2007

Foooooooooooooooooooood


Well, its no good just growing it if you don't eat it. This is last nights tea. It is a homegrown cauliflower (next doors plot) and the tail end of our leek cheese. Sprinkled on top was a big handful of our overwintered spring onions.

It was nice having a meat free meal for a change and was I must say, very tasty indeed.

Wednesday, May 02, 2007

Easy planting






Every year I grow the vast majority of my plants in modules and then transplant them out direct into the soil. As this can mean planting out several hundred plants I wanted an easy method to undertake this that was time saving, efficient and did a good job.
The pots I use are 2" and are 40 to a tray. They come from Aldi at a cost of £2.49 but are available from most garden centres. The only other bit of kit required is a dibber made from an old fork or spade handle and most of us have one of those. All I do is dib a hole 3" deep with the dibber, and then drop the plant, sans pot into the hole. It is a perfect fit and requires no other action other than watering in. This method is so easy and quick that several trays can be planted out in an hour.
Enjoy.

Nick the Grief

This evening the Griefster came over to collect an IBC that was squirelled away for him. Kazzi recons he looks like my older brother but I fear the jury is out on that one.

A plum job!

Our festooned plum tree has set so much fruit due to being tied up that I will extend the practice to other trees in our mini orchard. Every branch has fruiting spurs every few inches and in all there must be several hundred plums set. Hopefully a few will get to ripen.

Gooseberrys


Last year we didnt harvest a single gooseberry as the birds scoffed the lot whilst they were semi ripe. This year however we have a cunning plan. The fruits are already swelling and there seems to be a bountiful amount of them, so in an attempt to keep them on the bush till we pick them, a net has gone over the first row. This will be joined by a net over the second one in short order.

The nets can be removed after harvesting and used on brassicas and the like to keep the pigeons off over winter.