Vegalots 2012 Diary

vegalot · Post by **vegalot** » 13 Jan 2012, 14:44

Decided to do a diary after all, :-D

so far I have made 8 global buckets, which will be used in the greenhouse.
Not the greenhouse I should have had, that one the wind kindly destroyed, before I got it, but my daughters bought me one of the plastic type ones for Christmas, so lets see if it works and survives the weather.

During this season, if I get the chance, I may build a timber one. )t'

Still have one raised bed to extend and several slabs to lay, the other beds are ready to have a final dig over, just to mix the layer of horse or chicken manure in, thats been overwintering on the top of them. I also have around 3 tons of soil that I need to sieve and add to the beds before planting anything.

I also moved my compost bins to a more out of the way area, was suprised to see that
almost all of it has broken down to a nice black material, once it starts composting it seems to turn very quickly, I could only see the last load I had added.

Veg for this year

Onions
Radish
Spring onions
Cabbage
Peas
Leeks
Broad beans
Sugar snap
French beans
Spinich
Carrots
Spuds (in containers)
Shallots
Celery
Tomatoes
Courgettes
Cucumbers
Chilli
Peppers
Marrow
Strawberry (from seed, just sown them)

That list will most likely grow after my trip to the garden center soon.

recoil · Post by **recoil** » 13 Jan 2012, 18:01

Wow! That is a lot of Veg ;) You're going to be busy. Good luck.

vegalot · Post by **vegalot** » 13 Jan 2012, 19:07

It does look a lot, and I missed lettuce on that list, but I don't grow a lot of each. The spring onions, lettuce and radish are grown in containers, the tomatoes, cucumbers,
peppers and chillies will be in the greenhouse. The rest will be to fill six 8' x 4' beds. And yet I still seem to run out of room. :-D

I'm off to the garden center tomorrow, and I'm going alone,wife is spending the day at the daughters, which means my veg fund may take a serious hit, Looking to try a few
different vegs, like squashes and whatever takes my fancy while wandering around. )t'

vegalot · Post by **vegalot** » 02 Feb 2012, 13:38

At last I have some time to spend in my garden, of course it's frozen solid, so it looks like I will be working in the shed. :-D

Spent the last 2 weeks making raised beds, out of pallets, for my step son, had enough wood left to make one for myself, and have laid a path around his beds.
Got to go and collect more pallets now, since I want to build a pyramid planter for the strawberries.

I bought a couple of windowsill propagators and will set off a few seeds soon, broad beans, leeks, peas and cabbage for now. Got hold of a couple horseradish plants, these have been planted in containers for this year, until I build a brick planter for them and some herbs. The strawberry plants are just starting to show now. :-D

Over the next few days I will have to rebuild my coldframe and put the greenhouse in place.I have decided to do half my greenhouse plants in global buckets and half in the ring culture pots, just to see the difference, if any.

vegalot · Post by **vegalot** » 11 Mar 2012, 03:15

After spending the last couple of weeks cutting, denailing, splitting logs, building wood stores (inside my sheds), I can at last get around my veg garden, all the wood and pallets were piled up on it.

The strawberry planter is finished now and filled.

Put the greenhouse up and every day its been up, we have had high winds, I was tempted to collapse it and put it away at one point, but it seems to be quite solid.

So I have started to fill it :-D

still have a few more things to set off over this weekend.

Broad beans are around 4" high now and will be planted out, under fleece, in the next few days, they have been in a cold frame for about 8-9 days. I planted around 100 onion sets and 50 red ones, the red ones have been placed among the fruit bushes. A couple of rows of spring onion and radish have also gone in now.

My global bucket idea has gone out of the window for this year, since I found out the buckets had toxic stuff in them, the ones I had drilled have been thrown, the rest I can use for other things.

I still have 40 or so paving slabs to lay around the veg garden (paths and a hard standing area for compost bins), it's a job I'm not looking forward to, so it keeps getting pushed to one side :oops: