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Vegetable garden update: End of Feb

February 27th, 2011 by Penny Golightly

There isn’t much to do in the garden at the moment, apart from tidying up a little, keeping an eye on the sprouting broccoli and spring cabbages, and giving the soil in the raised beds a good dig to finish breaking up the soil after the winter frosts.

Lots of overwintering herbs, salads and greens are sprouting away in the mini greenhouse, which is doing its job really well, and will eventually provide some overspill space for any windowsill plants that get too big for their boots in late Spring.

Today I’ve been digging, lugging bags of compost around and doing one batch of planting. Late February seems to be a good time around here for planting Early Onward and Sugarsnap peas, including a few extra ones to eat as pea shoots in March and April salads.

These have both been grown in pots, and I’ve sown a variety of different radish seeds in between the peas as a catch crop, plus some winter-hardy lettuces to add ‘living mulch’ and help keep the soil moist. The three different plants are traditionally thought to grow happily together, and my gardening experience last year seemed to bear this out.

I’ve been keeping a close eye on the budget for the year, and it’s going OK so far:

The £10 for seeds has all gone now. If I need anything else it’s going to involve bartering or swapping. Or asking nicely for a few Sunshine F1 kabocha squash seeds for my birthday – hint hint, Beau. Subtle, huh? *cough*

My £20 compost budget has gone too. I managed to find a special offer on some nice peat-free organic compost at Harrod Horticultural, plus a voucher code and some cashback. Managed to get 250 litres of the good stuff, very pleased.

The remaining £10 for ‘general garden stuff’ has had £4 spent so far. I used £2 to get some extra-long garden canes so I could grow French, runner and borlotto beans on wigwams, and a few extra to train climbing squash plants up. Another £2 went on some heavy duty weed fabric. This is partly to keep weeds down in the raised beds, but mainly it’s a last ditch attempt to stop M-Cat digging every living thing in the ground up (and crapping on it as the final insult).

What’s left? There’s only £6 to go for the rest of the growing season. I have plenty of pots, bird-scarers and supports, so all that’s really needed is a little fertiliser and some tomato food. Nipping out later to get a packet of Growmore granules from Poundland. Rock and roll. Woo.

I’m going for a very low maintenance, high-yield bunch of crops this year, and have been looking into all sorts of ways to stop the soil in pots drying out. I now have various water reservoirs, recycled heavy duty plastic soil covers and living mulches sorted out, and am looking forward to lots of healthy eating and not too much associated faffing about.

Edited to add: now spent the last few quid on some Growmore to rake into the soil and prepare it for planting in a few weeks, plus enough vegetable and tomato feed to last until the Autumn. Hoping to keep the garden pesticide free, and will be planting some of the three packets of wildlife-friendly seeds I’ve kindly been given to encourage lots of pollination and natural pest control.

Are you growing your own this year? What are you growing? Do you have any tips for low maintenance (but cheap) gardening? Please let me know!

Tags: bad kitty, British garden kitchen, cheap fruit and veg, grow your own veg, grow your own vegetables, growing vegetables cheaply, growing vegetables on a budget, kitchen garden, money saving tips, seasonal fruit and veg
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Dealing with garden pests and diseases: Pigeons

February 11th, 2011 by Penny Golightly

I mentioned on Wednesday this week that I was going to write a few articles here and there about garden pests and diseases, and how to deal with or get rid of them cheaply and hopefully also organically where possible.

There was a little competition to see whether anyone could work out what had caused the mess below. This particular pest is a problem in January, February and March on brassicas, and in the Spring they like to attack pea plants as well.

… and the answer was pigeons. More specifically one very cheeky wood pigeon that is now so fat it can hardly fly, the greedy B. Here’s some more of his handiwork.

So, one birdy seems to have made short work of some of the sprouting broccoli and the last sprout top. I was amazed he had the nerve seeing as we have two free range cats, one of which is a good little hunter. Well, birdy’s smarter than you might think, because he swoops into the garden in the morning while the kitties are inside having their breakfast.

I’m not fretting too much though. First of all he doesn’t seem to be inviting his mates over, and secondly he hasn’t attacked the main growing points of most of the plants he’s pecked. Also, he seems to have gone for the weedier plants and has mostly left the big strong ones alone.

The RHS website suggests that you can shoot pigeons, but that isn’t practical or safe in a tiny garden and besides it seems cruel and pointless – other birds would fly in to replace him soon enough. I was rather hoping that my cats would scare most birds away but they seem to have spent most of February asleep indoors instead.

So it seems that prevention is better than cure. In future I will be guarding my brassicas more carefully, and maybe also my peas. One of the best things you can do is to use netting, but unfortunately one of the cats insists on getting tangled up in anything like that whenever I try to use it.

I’ve had to improvise with what’s lying around, including bubble wrap and string for the smaller plants (looks terrible but seems to work).

At the suggestion of Alys Fowler I’ve also used some upturned hanging baskets to protect the growing points, and this seems to be working too. What I like best about this is that the green wires and green twine don’t show up so much, less of the ‘municipal tip chic’ look.

It was time to bring in the last of the sprouts at the weekend, so I left the non-useable remains of the sprout top out for the pigeon to peck at in the hope that this will take his mind off the other plants.

One more thing I would say is if you suspect pigeon damage, take action quickly, in case they come back en masse later. A hungry flock of winter pigeons can strip your plants back to the stems in a few minutes. Prevention is better than cure and you can’t rely on nearby cats to keep the pests away in cold weather.

So there you have it – cheap and easy ways to stop wood pigeons eating your cabbages, broccoli and pea plants.

Do you have any other advice about how to keep wood pigeons out of your garden and stop them eating your crops? Please tell me all about it!

Tags: allotment gardening, common garden pests, dealing with garden pests, get rid of pigeons, grow veg cheaply, grow your own veg, growing vegetables cheaply, growing vegetables on a budget, how to stop pigeons, keep wood pigeons off garden plants, kitchen garden, money saving tips, stop pigeons eating crops
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Garden planning for 2011

January 26th, 2011 by Penny Golightly

There isn’t much to do, garden-wise in January. Mostly you just wait for the season to change, and make plans for the year ahead.

I’ll be growing as many veggies and herbs as I can again this year. Flavour is the most important factor, but I’m also looking at getting as much value for money as possible and keeping the whole thing within budget.

This year’s food gardening budget is being set at a total of £40. That’s £10 for seeds, £20 for new compost and £10 for everything else. A budget’s definitely necessary as you can easily get carried away and spend a small fortune in garden centres or online shops, ask any gardener what happens when they start looking at those tempting catalogues filled with new-season packs of seeds…

The available growing space currently isn’t big enough to completely supply the household with veggies and salad all year round, so I’ve decided not to grow potatoes, maize and onions this year. They take up too much room (or compost) and they’re pretty cheap to buy, so the space is being given to other ingredients that give a higher yield and/or cost more in the shops.

I think I’ll get the best value this year from:

Herbs: parsley, coriander, mint, Italian and Thai basil, wild garlic, chives, chervil, lemongrass and a few others
Salad veg: lettuce, rocket, spring onions, radicchio, land cress, radishes, cucumbers, tomatoes etc
Greens: pak choi, mizuna, mini cabbages, kale, kohl rabi
Legumes: sugar snap peas, early/late peas, French beans, borlotto beans
Others: mini carrots and parsnips, Florence fennel, chillis, sweet peppers, green and yellow courgettes, winter squash

The seeds budget has pretty much been spent, but if I can get hold of some runner beans for free then I’ll grow them as well. Got me some tomato and sweetcorn seeds to swap, so let’s see.

Last year had a real element of trial and error, but the experience has helped me to learn more about the microclimate and other limitations of gardening in this spot. I’ll be taking action against some pests and diseases so that I can still grow most of my favourite things, but it’s also time to admit defeat against some problems. Garden pests and diseases are many and varied, so I’ll write about them another time.

For the moment, let’s just say that it’s not viable to grow the following on the tiny plot, for reasons of space, cost, or susceptibility to local pests/diseases:

Most root vegetables
Broad beans
Calabrese
Maincrop spinach and chard
Permanent plants (asparagus, rhubarb, globe artichokes)
Most slow growing plants (cauliflower, big brassicas)
Fruit trees and bushes

But that still leaves a lot of sowing and growing to be getting on with once the weather starts to warm up.

Are you growing your own this year? What are you planning to grow?

Tags: British garden kitchen, grow your own salad, grow your own veg, growing vegetables cheaply, growing your own gourmet foods, planning your garden for the year, small gardens, urban garden
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The winter kitchen garden and windowsill

January 24th, 2011 by Penny Golightly

The mini greenhouse and outdoor garden spent most of November and December asleep, or dead, under the frost and snow. Here’s a quick look at what’s survived, often against the odds.

First up, there’s one stick of Brussels left. That’s about six helpings of sprouts (nice halved and added to stir fries), and a full sprout top to cook as spinach/cabbage.

Next, we have the monstrous sprouting broccoli, purple and white varieties. It’s still a little early for them to start making their tasty bits, but I’ll start cutting them off as soon as they appear so the plants start to make more.

There’s also a little Spring cabbage and curly kale, and a few straggly Spring onions…

This growbag contains some unusual winter-variety carrots. I was given a free packet of these seeds in the Autumn and they’ve grown quietly and slowly over the winter. We’ve eaten some of the thinnings already, and the proper carrots should be ready in a few weeks. Quite good timing to fill the ‘hungry gap’ in the middle of Spring.

The mini greenhouse contains some winter sowings of chard, spinach, Arctic King and Tom Thumb lettuce, parsley, coriander, chicory and a few others. With hindsight I should have got these going as soon as I cleared out the greenhouse in the Autumn, to get the seedlings more established before the winter hit. They will be ready in a few weeks, it’ll just take a while longer for them to get going.

The surviving herbs (pic above) are thyme, sage, rosemary, chives, chervil, oregano and peppermint. There is some cold damage but I think it’ll be OK. They just need some dead leaves removing.

On the windowsill indoors we have winter sowings of parsley and coriander, plus a very healthy Sweet Genovese basil that’s survived since last Summer. The cat ate most of my baby lemongrass plant last week, but I hope it might somehow revive itself. Once again, bad kitty, bad.

And last of all we have a cayenne pepper plant, still making me hot chillis. One day M-Cat is going to eat one of these by accident, and I don’t think I’ll be entirely sympathetic when it happens.

In the next few days I’ll be writing about dealing with garden pests on a budget (and/or organically), and working out my wish list for this year’s planting plan. My seeds and new plants budget is strictly capped at £10, but that should be plenty I reckon. Let’s see.

Do you have any kitchen garden plants growing? Has anything survived the harsh winter where you live? Plant-saving tips and any garden gossip welcome!

Tags: British garden kitchen, container gardening, grow chilli peppers indoors, grow veg cheaply, grow your own veg, growing food indoors, growing vegetables cheaply, growing vegetables on a budget, growing your own food in winter, kitchen windowsill gardening, planning your garden for the year, small gardens, urban garden, window boxes, windowsill herbs, windowsill kitchen garden
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