Two Potato Plants

Yesterday I wanted some potatoes to roast (Greek style) to enjoy with green beans cooked with tomatoes. So I went to one of the Toluca rows - they really are the most potatoey-tasting potatoes - and dug up 4 monsters, which I have kept for today's dinner. So, I went to a row of Harlequin, and dug, and dug, and just kept digging and they just kept coming, what a haul from one plant. The picture tells it all, a few giant Toluca, and the rest of the basket all Harlequin, one plant of each dug up.

Harlequin and Toluca potatoes

See how the Toluca have that creasing/indentation, they always seem to do that with mine.

Watch Out For Your Potatoes and Tomatoes

I have just had an email from Blight Watch warning of a Smith Period in my area, and with all this wet, humid weather, it's probably widespread.

There is useful advice about Potato Blight here and Tomato Blight here.

Potatoes, the good, the bad and the struggling

The bed of early potatoes is not doing as well as the later potatoes. Oddly enough, some Charlottes in the earlies bed aren't doing as well as Charlottes on the other. I puzzled over this for quite some time,  until the other day I saw some soil collapse by one of the earlies plants and I saw revealed - a nice mole hole!

The Earlies bed is on the right in the picture. The other picture shows some potatoes I dug this morning and then cooked as Greek roast potatoes.

Earlies on the right

Premier, 1st early and delicious. 

Bee and Spider

I have just spent a rainy morning in the potting shed, sowing a range of salad leaf seeds. Now,  I suppose there may be, somewhere on the planet, and yet to be discovered, a spotlessly clean, spider's web-free putting shed;  mine is not that shed.
I had just finished off and, heading for the door, saw a bee fly in to become immediately entangled in a huge web. My first instinct was to free it, but my instincts are plainly not as finely tuned as those of the resident spider, who was onto the bee in an instant.

The Veggie Garden in Summer

At the start of May, I did a post with pictures of the beds and greenhouses. Here is an update, all pictures taken on 5th June 2013, just a month after the previous ones. It has been a cold spring, and you can see that some progress has been very slow, especially the potatoes and the tomatoes (in an unheated greenhouse).

The potato beds, with the 2nd earlies (on left) looking more advanced than the 1st earlies.

On the right, gone-to-seed land cress, climbing beans (French and runner) hardly showing,
but mange tout peas off to a good start. Broad beans, slower than usual in the middle. The green on the path is the pulled-up green manure for composting.

Garlic onions and shallots on the right. Brassicas on the left, where I had left mustard to grow with them,  which I had just started clearing back. The mustard had protected the young brassicas well.

Detail of young brassicas exposed after removal of mustard green manure.

Spring planted onions, spring greens and peas, all looking quite happy.

Spinach, parsnip, carrots and beetroot under the near net and more brassicas (Brussels sprouts and Tenderstem broccoli) under far net, with mustard green manure having been cleared from around them).

The cucumber plants, surviving rather than thriving after the cool spring.
Sunflowers in 2 pots in the background. Lettuce leafed basil not exactly coming on by leaps and bounds.

Tomato plants, marigolds and lettuce in the other greenhouse

The two upright-habit courgette plants looking quite happy in their pots, hardening off outside the greenhouse.

Welcome to Autumn

No, I haven't moved to the southern hemisphere, but I have just come back indoors, having walked the dog, and peeled off my waterproof and fleece hat that I usually reserve for cold days or mountains!

All the plants and trees are straining under the weight of new growth, laden with rainwater; on top of which, there is a weather warning in force for high winds, exactly what is not needed right now.

Talking of warnings, I had an email from Blightwatch, we have just had a near miss "Smith Period" - so it looks as though it could be another dodgy year for potatoes, tomatoes and the like.

It's not all doom and gloom though. We had a delicious stir-fry the other day, including from the veggie patch: mangetout peas, broad beans, courgettes and pak choi.

Plant List, 2013

You may spot some flowers listed, that's to help Mrs Soggy, or bees (or both)

BASIL Lettuce Leaved
BEAN CLIMBING Borlotta Lingua di Fuoco
BEAN CLIMBING Fasold
BEAN CLIMBING, Moonlight
BEAN BROAD Aquadulce Claudia
BEETROOT Boltardy
BEETROOT Cylindra
BROCCOLI Purple Sprouting Red Arrow
BROCCOLI Tenderstem
BRUSSELS SPROUT Bosworth F1
BRUSSELS SPROUT Revenge F1
CABBAGE Celtic F1
CABBAGE Christmas Drumhead
CABBAGE Marner Early Red
CABBAGE Ruby Ball F1
CABBAGE Tundra F1
CALABRESE Belstar F1
CARROT Amsterdam Forcing
CARROT Autumn King 2
CARROT Fly Away F1
CELERIAC Monarch
COSMOS Brightness Mixed
COURGETTE Black Forest F1 (Upright)
CRESS American or Land
CUCUMBER Bella F1
GARLIC Thermidrome
GARLIC Elephant
GREEN MANURE, Mustard
GREEN MANURE, Phacelia (sown on bank for the bees)
KALE Dwarf Green Curled
LEEK Giant Winter
LEEK Oarsman F1
LETTUCE Little Gem
LETTUCE Lollo Rossa
MARIGOLD French
ONION Salad Performer
ONION Senshyo Yellow
ONION Troy
ONION White Lisbon Winter Hardy
PAK CHOI Green F1
PARSNIP Panache F1 (T&M)
PARSNIP Pinacle F1 (T&M)
PEA Mange Tout Kennedy
PEA Mange Tout Norli
PEA Oregon Sugar Pod
PEA Rapido Petit Pois
PEA Twinkle
POTATO British Queen 2E (White Fl)
POTATO Casablanca 1E (White Multi)
POTATO Charlotte 2E (White Firm)
POTATO Harlequin EM (Waxy)
POTATO Orla, EM (Multi)
POTATO Rosabelle 1E (Waxy)
POTATO Sherine 1E (Floury)
POTATO Premier 1E (Floury)
POTATO Toluca 2E (Multi)
ROCKET Salad
RUBBECKIA Cherry Brandy
SALAD Leaves Speedy
SHALLOT Jermor
SPINACH Medania
SPINACH Tirza
SUNFLOWER Giant Single
SWEDE Magres
SWEET PEA King Size Navy Blue
TOMATO Black Prince
TOMATO Cosmonaut Volcov (Semi bush) - did not germinate, I think I kept seed too long.
TOMATO Ferline F1
TOMATO Legend F1 (Bush)
TURNIP Snowball
WILD FLOWER SEEDS Floral Meadow (For Bees) Mix Anual and Perennial

Still for sowing: some over-wintering carrots (Eskimo) and Spring Greens (Durham Early)

The veggie beds in Spring

 Potato beds, with the wild flower and elder bank behind

Broad beans, climbing beans and peas

Brassica and leek seedlings in trays) under net. Garlic, elephant garlic, onions, shallots and spring onions

More broad beans on a spare patch

Last of the Spring greens with more onions behind, plus petit pois

Brussels sprouts, calabrese and broccoli, with recently hoed mustard green manure 

Cucumber, French marigold with odds and sods sheltering from  frost

Tomatoes, plus two climbing courgettes in pots, plus some more tender plants hiding away.

Black Gold

Black Gold was a term (according to Wikipedia) coined during the outbreak of the Industrial Revolution concerned with the value and usefulness of oil. It has probably been assigned to other things as well, and I'm surely not the first gardener to think of compost or soil in those terms.

The other day, as I was emptying compost from one of my several compost bins, more or less with every fork or spade full, I was thinking what valuable stuff this is, and all for free! It has now been spread onto some of the veggie beds, with some held back for Mrs Soggy's tubs and baskets.

It can be disheartening if efforts at making compost do not turn out fine and healthy results, just getting a few things right can make a big difference  perhaps the most important of which is to get a good balance of material to compost. If you pile in lots of grass cuttings and little else, it'll just be a slimy mess you produce;  on the other hand, lots of egg boxes, cardboard and shredded prunings will likely stay pretty much looking like a pile of dry kindling. However, mix those 2 together and you should be in business!

For some good advice, visit Garden Organic or the RHS web sites.

Digging out from a compost bin

Each bin yields between 2 and 3 barrow loads.
(Next to it you can see the last of the shredded Brussels Sprouts stems
going into the bins for the whole cycle to start again).

Hot Weather Tolerant

Just doing plant labels (while I wait for it to warm up before heading out onto the veggie patch today) for April sowings and just had to share the banner emblazoned across the Calabrese "Hot weather tolerant" - so am I, but will either I or my Calabrese ever get any to tolerate, it doesn't feel like it right now with a northerly wind whipping 2ºC air round about outside.