kitchen garden « Penny Golightly

Event: My Seedy Valentine

November 8th, 2011 by Penny Golightly

If you have a small kitchen garden, or you’re growing edible plants on windowsills or in window boxes, you only need a few seeds to fill the whole space with plants. Unfortunately, you usually have to buy the seeds in large quantities, and they don’t always stay fresh and viable for that long after you’ve opened the packets.

It’s a bit of a waste, and it doesn’t help you to get much variety into what you’re growing, and variety is half the fun. To partly counteract this, I sometimes swap a few seeds and bulbs with other small gardeners via websites here and there, although it’s a rather piecemeal process. It got me thinking about how great it would be to get all my swaps done in one go next year so I could get straight on with the sowing and growing, and how other urban gardeners were probably in the same position.

So I’ve decided to arrange a swap shop for urban gardeners in early 2012, before the growing season starts. I’ve picked Sunday the 5th of February, the weekend before Valentine’s Day, which will give growers enough time to start off the earliest seedlings. The location isn’t decided yet, but it will be a central London location where people can drop in after lunch to chat and swap. Probably a cafe or a pub where we can book a booth or table.

Who’s invited? Anyone who wants to grow edible plants:

On a windowsill (even if it’s only a couple of pots of herbs)
In window boxes
In pots on a patio or fire escape
In a small garden
On an urban allotment

All you need to do is turn up on the day and bring at least one thing to swap, whether it’s seeds, bulbs, seedlings or rooted cuttings. Please don’t bring anything that’s been opened for more than a year, or is past its sow-by date, and make sure you know what the variety of the plant is – instead of just ‘tomato’, be able to tell people it’s a ‘Marmande tomato’ and so on, so they can find out how to look after it.

The plants can be from any of these categories:

Herbs
Vegetables and salads
Fruit trees/bushes/crowns – ones suitable for small gardens only, please
Edible flowers
Plants that encourage bees and other good wildlife
Companion plants that protect edible plants from pests or diseases

If you’re an experienced gardener, why not stick around for a chat and a drink or two, and pass on your tips and skills to the newer gardeners. I’ll bring along a few small envelopes too, in case people want to split up larger packets between several swappers.

There will be more announcements nearer the time about location and the plants on offer, but for the time being can I get a rough idea of how many people might be interested in joining in? Leave a quick message in the comments below or drop me a quick email at penny @ pennygolightly dotcom.

Tags: get seeds for free by swapping your extra ones, kitchen garden, not as filthy as it sounds if you don't count the compost, swap meet for gardeners, swapping party, urban garden, windowsill kitchen garden
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Penny Golightly and the Green Tomatoes That Would Not Ripen

October 23rd, 2011 by Penny Golightly

Last year I grew a few tomato plants and they were tasty so this year I grew a few more. I went for more varieties this time round, but they nearly all ended up with the same thing in common – the tomatoes wouldn’t ripen (apart from the Yellow Pear toms which I’ll certainly be growing again next year).

It was mainly down to two things. Firstly I didn’t plant out some of the tomato seedlings until July so they didn’t all get the chance to get up to speed. Secondly the summer didn’t have enough sun until it was kind of too late.

I did eventually get most of these stubbornly green tomatoes to ripen, so here are a few tips if you find yourself with the same problem.

If your green tomatoes are still on the plant, there are two main things you can do:

1. Move tomatoes in pots or growbags so they’re in the sunniest and warmest spot in the garden.

2. If your tomatoes are cordon tomatoes (also called vine tomatoes, or indeterminate tomatoes) rather than bushy/determinate tomatoes, you might need to limit their growth so they put their efforts into growing and ripening fruit instead of growing lots more leaves and stems. Nip out sideshoots with your thumb and forefinger when you see them starting to form, and also ‘stop’ the plant (usually done in August) once it’s formed for or five trusses (bunches of tomato flowers) by nipping out the top of the main vine.

If the green tomatoes are fully formed but they just won’t ripen, you can remove some of them from the plant to ripen separately. There are a couple of things to try, but avoid putting them all in a closed greenhouse on a sunny day as they’re more likely to cook and rot than go red.

Things to try if they’re already picked:

1. Pop them onto a windowsill and check them every couple of days.

2. Put them into a drawer/cardboard box/paper bag with a ripening banana. It gives off a gas that’s supposed to kick start the ripening process.

You might still end up with a few that stay stubbornly green. If that happens, cook them up. You can make fried green tomatoes, green tomato salsa (look for recipes that use tomatillos and use green toms plus a pinch of sugar), or green tomato and date chutney.

And of course there’s next year to think about.

Next year I’ll remember not to choose everything from the late ripening category. I’ll plant at least a couple of varieties that naturally ripen mid-season, and at least one tomato that does well in relatively cold weather. You can easily find this information out by looking at online seed catalogues from the big manufacturers.

After reading around the subject a bit, I think I’ll avoid the ones that ripen incredibly early though as they sound kind of watery and flavourless. If it isn’t tasty, it isn’t making the list.

Do you have any handy tomato tips to add?

Tags: Golightly gardens, grow your own veg, how to get green tomatoes to ripen, how to ripen tomatoes, kitchen garden, seasonal vegetables, what can I do with green tomatoes
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September and October in Golightly Gardens

October 2nd, 2011 by Penny Golightly

It has been an interesting couple of weeks in the kitchen garden, mainly because we’ve had a bit of a heatwave which has had a positive effect on some of the plants.

For starters I was convinced there would be no aubergines, then this happened:

The big butternut squash ripened, but it somehow got bruised so I had to cut it down and cook the undamaged bit. There were lots of small fruits that never made it to the flowering stage, then the plant decided to throw out seven healthy looking buds – I knew there was no hope of them all ripening, one would be a miracle at this stage, so I nipped four of them out last month and hand pollinated the remaining three to see if anything grew.

The Japanese onion squash (red kuri) had the same problem of fruit buds going yellow and not opening, so only one pumpkin grew on each vine. I’ve cut them today and put them on a windowsill indoors to start the ripening process, where the skin thickens and the flavour sweetens.

Both buckets of beans were still flowering in late September, but I think we’ve had the last proper serving out of them now.

The courgettes are still going, although they’ve had a bit of downy mildew (more about this another time). I’m hoping we might get one more to grow into a marrow, but we’ll see.

The crookneck squash plants are doing well…

… so are the cucumbers, after some hand pollination to make up for their well-hidden female flowers and lack of male flowers.

The tomatoes are still a law unto themselves, so I’ve had to cut some of the fruit and put it in the sunniest spot of the garden to see if more of it will ripen. Unfortunately it does look like blight has set in to a couple of plants in the last three or four days, but our neighbours have had it for several weeks already so all things considered maybe we had a good run here compared to most.

I’ll be writing about autumn garden tasks and planting soon, and catching up with the windowsill kitchen garden too. Might have to do a short series about garden pests and diseases as well, if there’s time.

How’s your garden growing? Are you thinking ahead to next year yet?

Tags: British garden kitchen, grow your own herbs, grow your own veg, grow your own vegetables, growing vegetables cheaply, growing vegetables on a budget, hand pollinate vegetables, kitchen garden, mildew on courgettes, seasonal fruit and veg, vegetables in season
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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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