I made it to the allotment on Sunday but didn't stay very long. I wanted to get all the chicken poop on to the pond bed and make a start on some of the beds ready for planting. I've found that onion sets have a bad habit of bolting when exposed to hard frosts so I've been a little reluctant at planting out too early (and my plot at the bottom of the hill would get all the cold air dropping down) but the month of April is flying by rather quickly and I want to get them in sooner rather than later now.
When I arrived, I called in at the allotment shop for some Growmore granules and some slug pellets - just preparing myself for the onslaught of the beasties especially in the greenhouse and polytunnel. When I got to my plot, there was something different - the end plot that has been vacant since 2011 has been taken on and someone has made a start on clearing it. I'm not sure how I feel about a new neighbour ... it should be a good thing to get the plot cleared and cultivated, but with it being right at the bottom is prone to flooding (my plot is bad enough) because there's nowhere for water to drain - and that means new tenants quickly give up. Fingers crossed this one does better.
The bed I had planned on using had been the summer/autumn cabbage bed last year ... some cabbages that had gone past it had got left behind but miraculously, from the mouldy looking shrunken heads there was new growth. I know they would go straight on to flowering but it's the first time I'd seen that before. They had to come out anyway, so a nice spring greens feast for my chickens at home. The soil was ... just dreadful I can't believe how heavy the clay is despite all the digging in I did last year. And worse, loaded with marestail. I really did not feel up to spending the morning picking out roots so just got on forking over the entire bed to break up the surface. I hate to say it, but we need rain as no doubt the clods will bake into hard clinkers. Looking at the forecast, it looks like my wish will come true for this coming weekend.
I left the netted cage over the bed (that had been protecting the cabbages) - one to keep the cats out, but the other is my neighbour's plot about to burst into dandelion seed. Despite the marestail, there was very little else growing in the bed so would be nice to keep out any other weeds. Another reason is onion fly - some of my onions have been affected by onion fly as well as allium miners in the past so I'm hoping the netting might keep them out. The downside is that the netting might create a humid environment which might provide a haven for rust which can also be a problem on my plot. If I didn't like onions or garlic so much, I think I would forego growing them because of one problem after another.
Talking of garlic, most on the plot are well away now and leaves are about 10-12 inch tall. All look very good and healthy for the moment, no yellowing or strange die-back. One thing I did learn is that garlic planted in pots and then planted out do not like it. I thought the battered Cristo was due to strong winds soon after planting even though they had been outdoors all winter, but the same happened to the Thermidrome garlic too. Thankfully all have produced new leaves and are recovering but clearly they don't like any amount of disturbance. The late purchased Provence seem to tolerate the disturbance a lot better - but I had planted them in much bigger pots due to the size of the clove so perhaps that helped? I think in future I would like to get the garlic planted out in autumn.
On the chilli front, the repotting is taking too long (but then I did go overboard with the seeds ) The problem is actually window space - I simply don't know where to put the pots. I contemplated on the greenhouse but the nights are still way too cold even if it is not frosty, and daytime temperatures are shifting back down again although to be fair, greenhouse temperatures in good sunlight can get very hot now. The other day when preparing another batch, I thought I'd given the seed tray a good watering before repotting only to find the roots were still in dry compost. I know I've been very cautious about overwatering but clearly not giving them enough. That's when I gave all the pots and trays a thorough drenching with seaweed solution ... whether it's the seaweed or just getting more water, but in the past week the plants have really got a move on now, thank goodness!
In recent weeks I've been giving the chilli project a great deal of thought and realised it was a lot more complicated than originally planned. With looking at different aspects of what I had in mind, I finally drew up a set of experiments and have now started on getting my stuff together. The whole point was to try and achieve superhot chillies outside scientific research - in other words, apply what I've learned out of the laboratory into "field" conditions (meaning the greenhouse and polytunnels in my garden rather than under environmental control) It has to be (1) simple and (2) affordable (3) non-toxic for obvious reasons!
Believe it or not, getting the equipment together is taking up most of my time - the automatic watering system that Thomassio has set up is looking very appealing as it not only means cutting down the time it takes me to go round watering all the plants, but I can set up individual tanks containing the various supplements I intend to add. That means I also need tubing, T-pieces and water butt taps (to fit to big crates like a tank system - if it doesn't work then I might have to get a series of small water butts) ... one thing I noticed is that these have shot up in price since the last time I considered an automatic watering system about 10 years ago, but thankfully I found some good sites on ebay. For the moment I've only ordered one of the Autopot aqua valves (@£8.75p each) and will set up a system to see if it works.
Chillies don't like sitting with their roots in water - I learned that in 2013 when we had a heatwave and I overfilled the trays with water ... for a few days after, the plants flopped over and I regretted it. As the watering system is about filling the tray with water and maintaining it at that level, I've decided to try out a wick system. I thought of putting pebbles in the tray so that the pots won't be actually in the water, but thread a piece of wick material in the base of the pot so that water is drawn up - this wikihow page gives you the general idea but I will be using capillary matting cut into strips instead.
One of the other things I'll be looking at is mycorrhizal fungi - last autumn I dosed all the garlic before planting and will see how they turn out this year when I come to lift them in July. A lot of websites highly recommend mycorrihizae for chillies implying growth of plants are better and fruit yields are improved. I've already made a start on the Beaver Dam peppers when repotting, but I ran out when I used the last of the packet on the onion sets. It could be purely coincidental but the batch of onions that did not get the treatment are much slower at starting to grow than the treated ones, and the chillies do look marginally different so I'm encouraged by the results so far. I purchased a 400g pot for just £6.49p which I thought was a bargain (most cost about £5 for just 100g) and then realised it was for hydroponics - to be perfectly honest I don't think that is going to make much difference but I did notice that it had far fewer cultures than another product I found so I decided to get a 200g pot of that as well (I can always mix them up) I think I should have more than enough to also trial it on the winter squashes and sweetcorn later in the season. For the chilli project, some will be grown with the fungi to compare with those untreated.
If only work didn't get in the way as I'm raring to get on with it now but I guess it pays for all the things I keep buying so shouldn't complain too much LOL
Glad you went for the aqua valves. Im sure you have researched this anyway, but the aqua valve will never maintain a water level, it acts as a flood/drain system so there is a dry cycle as well which obviously allows the roots access to oxygen so no worries about them sitting in water. Of course trays need to be perfectly level in order for all plants to receive equal feed. I know a fellow in devon (Devon chilli man) who uses them almost exclusively for his produce and has a glass house bigger than most peoples gardens - in fact I believe he has recently upgraded to a set of 8 X 32' polytunnels! As you mention, the feed in the tanks is a huge bonus and its much easier to monitor and adjust the amount of nutrition the plants get. My experimental early tomatoes have been out for a couple of weeks now and are doing fine. The rest will hopefully go out this weekend. Good Luck LL, looking frward to seeing how your season gos!
Thomassio wrote:but the aqua valve will never maintain a water level, it acts as a flood/drain system so there is a dry cycle as well which obviously allows the roots access to oxygen so no worries about them sitting in water
ah brilliant, I did not know that. I found a youtube clip on how it works which explains it very well. That should save me trying to fill trays with pebbles now LOL.
I had planned to do so much on Saturday but it went a little pear-shaped when I realised the chickens were running out of feed and had to go to Derby instead. Suffice to say, none of what I wanted to do got done Then on Sunday I was torn between going to the allotment, much needed house-work or get the last of the chillies repotted. With the dire weather forecast for the next week or two, I decided to hold off planting anything outside and instead stayed at home. After a quick tidy up in the house, I got on with the mammoth task of repotting the chillies.
I was considering putting some of the hardy chillies into the greenhouse because it does get very warm in there during the day, but night temperatures are still not too clever and the prospect of frosty nights put me off. Last week I was able to take some trays of chillies to work and put them on the office windowsill - the sun hit them from about midday and then they got uninterrupted afternoon sunlight until sunset. I took this photo on Friday and this morning I swear blind most have almost doubled in size so obviously a good spot to be:
Some of the people in the office want me to leave some of the chillies to grow on as it made it look greener (and we are actively encouraged to bring house plants to work anyway), so I will select a few and put into bigger pots later. Most of the rest will go for sale. Bringing in these to work opened up some space on the pasting table at home which I quickly filled - luckily we have 2 big windows in the office so I will bring some more in this week. There's only 2 more trays to do but ... I've run out of small pots and even the potting on compost although general purpose compost will be fine (and cheaper!)
Now is about the time I would be sowing my other seeds for the allotment such as the sweetcorn, winter squashes, beans and peas. It looks like we are in for a late spring plant instead.
The weather forecast for Saturday night and Sunday morning sounded so dire with heavy rain, that I never gave the plot visit another thought especially with my plot at the bottom of the hill where water would accumulate. However, rain for Sunday was very light and by late morning gave way to a lovely warm sunny afternoon ... typical. When I went to the plot yesterday, the beds looked surprisingly drier than expected so not the torrential rain as forecast.
Still, I spent Sunday finishing off repotting the last of the chillies The bad news is that the earlier repottings are now ready to be moved into their final pots ... and that means they will have to go into the greenhouse or polytunnel. Weather-wise I'm feeling a lot more confident that they will be fine now - even the odd overnight frost shouldn't do too much damage, but the risk of winter returning should be hopefully fading away now. So my next task is to get the trays ready ... easier said than done. The pots need to be off the ground where cold air sinks, but with 2 polytunnels I just do not have enough racking. I had the idea of using breeze blocks on which to put lengths of wood on which the trays would sit but - with pay day still another 3 weeks away, I've already spent up and can't afford to get any. So I'll have to give this more thought.
This morning when I got to work, the chillies on the windowsill looked amazing and had grown a couple more inches over the weekend - definitely a great place for growing them on. To be fair, these are the annuum type (the chillies most people associate with cooking such as the Jalepenos, Espelette, Padron and Ancho Poblano to name a few) which are growing well at home too and quickly getting ahead of the chinense type of chilli (the hot ones such as Habaneros, 7 Pot, Trinidad Scorpion, Nagas etc)
Yesterday I just had to go to the allotment to plant the onion sets and some potatoes. I haven't been to the allotment as often as I should and so I just didn't know what to expect when I got there. Suffice to say the early sprouting broccoli are now flowers, and even the last of the swede are now bearing blossom All the garlic are well into good growth but I think the dry spell over April might have just knocked them back a little as I would have expected them to be much further ahead given the mild weather we had. I don't want to jinx it by saying that overall the garlic plants look very healthy at the moment Weeds on the other hand have sprung up in hordes with dandelions especially in full flower and shedding seed I must get my act together and try and get to the allotment more often before the weeds take over.
The onion sets should have been planted about 2 weeks ago at the latest but preparing the bed I had chosen to grow them was putting me off - heavy clay and lots of marestail coming through ... wouldn't it be nice to just be able to plant stuff without having to de-weed it every time If the sets didn't go in the ground this weekend, I might as well toss them in the bin as they would never bulk up enough in time (I hate small fiddly onions for cooking) So first task was to find an alternate bed ....
I had planned 5 beds for the potatoes but realised that one of the beds was large enough for 2 of the varieties together, so I had a look at the bed I'd allocated next to the comfrey bed. After digging in chicken manure and bedding in autumn, I had covered it with black plastic and left it - when I lifted the plastic up, the soil was actually very nice to work with. There were a few corn cob husks still around which I raked off - in my research on garlic/onion pest control last year, beds with a lot of organic matter can provide hiding places for those microscopic mites that caused problems. Having saying that, solar sterilization (putting plastic sheet over the bed and letting the sun heat the soil up) can kill them off so I'm half happy that the bed should be fine especially after recent sunny weather. Still, I decided to do the treatments I had done with the garlic cloves to try and eliminate any hitch hikers on the sets, so they had a bleach solution soak for at least an hour, then 2 hours in a seaweed solution before coating in diatomaceous earth. The raised mounds were topped with sterilised top soil which I made an indentation along the top and put some more diatomaceous earth on which the sets would be sitting on ... the logic is that any soil pests should be deterred from reaching the bulb where rot can set in, and the bulbs won't be sitting directly on top of damp clay soil. That's the theory LOL. In just a few weeks time it won't be long to find out whether this faffing treatment has been a waste of time or not when the first of the early garlic can be lifted up (from about mid-June)
Next, potatoes - after years of worrying about late frosts damaging the plants, I now don't bother planting them too early but I'm probably reaching the limits of how late to plant. Most are second early potatoes so shouldn't be too much of a problem except for the risk of late blight. As I didn't know how long it would take me to get the onion bed sorted, I only took 2 varieties yesterday - Shetland Black and Mayan Gold. When the potatoes were chitting on the windowsill, I had dusted them with green sulphur powder and diatomaceous earth - as you can tell, I'm into DE at the moment and preparing stuff prior to planting. I had debated on using the bleach and seaweed solution treatments as before but wasn't too sure as dormant onion sets and garlic cloves are different to chitted tubers - I read on some sites about "soaking" and then a big fat "don't soak!" on other sites ... I think this may warrant an experiment by trying a couple of potatoes next time and doing a comparison to find out for myself.
Despite the long winded post, that's the sum total of what I've done so far. Any day now and I'll be chitting the sweetcorn and squash seeds - a nice batch of forecast warm weather would be very helpful.
Amazingly the Beaver Dam chilli plants that are sitting on the windowsill at work are starting to form flower buds! Not sure why as they are not really mature enough but it's exciting all the same :
I looked back in the diary to the 2013 chilli challenge and flowers were appearing mid June/early July so are easily 6-8 weeks ahead this time. They are classed as "early maturing" and have rather large fruits as in these photos I took in 2013:
They are a dwarf type pepper plant, grew barely 18 inches if that with 4-5 fruits on each plant - the peppers were hot when eaten raw but on cooking the heat was lost but made a good alternate to sweet peppers. In fact, because they were easy to grow and fruits matured much earlier, I have decided to forego the peppers this year and have 10 of these plants instead. When the fruits ripen they can be frozen.
What I love about photos in gardening diaries is how you can look back and try and compare how things were looking about the same time of the year as they are now - I have been worrying about the chilli seedlings not growing fast enough but in fact they are at a very similar stage to the 2013 batch. And the plants weren't moved into the polytunnel until 1st June - I'm wondering if all the recent sunny weather we had made me think summer was well on its way when in fact it is still spring. So, I think it's time to stop fretting and just go with the flow now LOL.
With so much to do and well into May now, I changed my Saturday habits and instead went shopping on Friday evening (and again on Saturday evening ... I forgot the bread ) I also did some much needed housework and then settled down to have a look at my seeds - what should I sow next. May is a busy month for me - all the summer crops such as peas, beans, squashes and sweetcorn - but I like to try and combine it with a warm spell of weather to encourage germination and growth. Well the forecast sort of looked promising for early this week and then cold by the end of it ... not good for sowing stuff outdoors like the peas and beans that I usually do direct but I could get on with the sweetcorn. I got on with chitting the Quick Treat F1 - 62 seeds (although about 3 looked more like bits) so I divided them into 2 lots of 31 and have tried a new experiment. According to a few sites I've visited, soaking seeds in a seaweed solution is supposed to be better than plain water to get them to germinate more quickly and off to a good start. We shall see LOL. Also, this year I'm going to try the mycorrhizal fungi and inoculate the seedlings - 30 plants each will be a good trial to see if this will make any difference.
Yesterday (Sunday), I had hoped to get to the allotment early (that's from about 7.00am) but by the time I'd filled the car with bags of compost, top soil, used seed compost (from the chilli trays) and chicken poop, remembered to take as many gardening tools as I could find (guaranteed there's always something I need that I've left behind) as well as bring along some chicken manure pellets, Growmore granules, money and of course the last 3 lots of seed potatoes, it was well after 9.30am by the time I arrived at the allotment site.
First task of the day was to put weedkiller down on the car park space and all the footpaths round the plot - 2 lots of 8L treatments used up the last of my supplies and I could have done with just a little bit more but hopefully enough to knock back the grasses, dock, dandelion, nettles and self seeded comfrey. Weeds have definitely flourished since last week in all the garlic beds - what were just tiny seedlings were now at least 6 inches high in some cases, and I won't mention the rogue potatoes coming up here, there, there, there, there ... but I'll have to tackle them with hand weeding as I don't like to spray the beds with weedkiller if I can help it, and certainly not when crops are already in the beds.
While walking round I was able to assess some of the beds - so far not looking too bad. As for the rhubarb, I have monsters When the Early Timperley were split and planted last year, they were fine but they've obviously got well established now and just taken off and turned into massive plants. And although too late to pick, I'm pleased to see the asparagus have been producing some meaty looking stalks - maybe they heard my threat of being dug up if they didn't start to look more mature. I'm very pleased they are doing much better so fingers crossed for harvesting next year.
By the time I'd finished, I had to shoot off to visit the allotment shop for some fertilizers - I only had just over £10 cash (from selling eggs) so I had to make a decision what I needed to use right away .... having read up about growing potatoes (and with considering the research going on at work), apparently iron is an important supplement. Ideally I would have liked to get some Sulphate of Iron (it is used to acidify soil especially for blueberries) as it would also acidify the soil for growing potatoes (this lowers the soil pH which prevents scab developing) as well as enable uptake of the iron ... but ... of all the things that are sold at the shop, this wasn't one of them. So back to Dried Blood which is also a high nitrogen fertilizer, a 3kg bag cost £4.30p. Next, Sulphate of Potash - it won't be long now when I need to start doing a top dressing round the garlic as the potassium promotes bulb formation while the sulphur gives the garlic its pungent flavours. 3kg bag cost £4.40p. And finally a pint (yes, old measures tut tut) of seaweed solution for £1.80p - seems extraordinarily cheap and I'm not too sure of its dilution factor but it looks the business. Of course I didn't have enough money but luckily the woman on the counter took an IOU for 40p next week.
By now it was after 11.00am and I hadn't even started properly. I got on with one of the beds (third bed up from the old butternut/now garlic bed) I had covered last autumn with black plastic (part of the solar sterilisation). I would have liked to say it was weed free except for the inch long marestail poking up - thankfully not that many but it was something I could have done without as I teased the roots out of the very wet soil. I raked in a small amount of Growmore granules then dug 2 rows - both got the same treatment of some compost and a layer of top soil, but the row furthest from the track was treated with the dried blood and although I also put some chicken manure in both rows, the row nearest the track got a little extra to make up for the nitrogen in the blood. Hopefully the only difference between the 2 rows is the iron. Then after putting 10 seed potatoes of Vivaldi in each row, each got a dusting of diatomaceous earth, a sprinkle of slug pellets, covered with a little compost before raking the soil over and earthing up.
By now it was nearly 1.00pm and my lower back was not in the mood for more bending down and digging so I decided to get on with some other jobs instead and just hoped I get the time to plant the other 2 trays of seed potatoes next weekend. I wanted to dismantle the winter brassica bed cage and clear out the plants now in full blossom ... a treat for the chickens. Having never left a cabbage to go to seed before, I was fascinated to find that stalks grow up from underneath the cabbage head to form the flower heads. The cabbage itself was full of slug holes but I bet the girls would enjoy the leafy flower stalks. After lifting the rest of the Brussel sprouts, the bed was surprisingly weed free except for ... you guessed it, marestail. So after putting the bag of chicken poop and 2 bags of used seed compost on the bed, after a light forking over I used the black plastic from the potato bed to keep the bed weed free. I put the canes and netting in the shed.
Next, on to the broccoli bed - from the track side it looked like a sea of yellow flowers but when I got closer I realised that it was only one of the Romanesco while the early purple sprouting broccoli was full of purple sprouts! And a bumper crop too. I picked a full bag of sprouts and left the plants as they may produce another crop, but I lifted up the now sad looking calabrese and Romanesco and put them on the compost heap. At this point my new plot neighbours turned up and introduced themselves. They were just asking for advice about what to do with the plot as they originally only wanted a small plot to grow some fruit bushes. What they thought they had is actually a lot bigger - not realising the plot was over 50 metres long.
After a lovely chat, I started to tackle the swede bed but I knew it was getting late so after trimming off some flower heads for the girls, I decided to pack up. One last task and that was to go around with some of the dried blood and put a top dressing on the potato and onion bed planted last week - as the beds run parallel to the footpath, I decided to treat half the beds (furthest from the track) rather than entire rows. I'm curious to see if the dried blood will make any difference to the yields and whether it's worth buying - although the allotment shop sell it cheap, it is still expensive. Besides, my little experiment is also peeking curiosity at the allotment shop as I am the only one who buys it ... so they are eager to see how my crops turn out before considering it themselves LOL.
By the time I'd loaded the car and got home, it was after 4.30pm. Although disappointed I didn't get the rest of the potatoes planted, I did feel like I had a good day at the allotment. Priority next week will be the potatoes, and next on the list will be the bed weeding!
Comparing the trays taken on the 26th April to today, I'm really pleased with how well the chilli plants have grown:
Apart from one seedling out of the 10 Beaver Dam being shorter when they were being repotted, all the others were about the same height. I had inoculated 5 of the plants with Mycorrhizal fungi in the compost and now after 5 weeks, I can start to see a difference between the control and treated plants and not what I expected at all - the control plants are about an inch taller. Every 3 days I turn the trays and move them around so that each gets the same light levels at some point. According to research papers, inoculated plants usually grow better with higher yields. Early days yet I suppose.
But one of the Beaver Dam has an aphid problem - I must deal with it before the rest of the plants on the trays become infested. Interestingly also, the infested plant is one of the treated - according to my capsaicin research, mycorrhizal fungi help to increase levels which should be deterring the pests not encouraging them :
Quite a few other plants are also starting to produce buds, so much earlier than I expected. This one is Cascabel:
At home, day 3 of the sweetcorn chitting and all the seeds are swollen. The anticipated warm spell of weather has not really warmed the back bedroom up as much as I'd like - now that the neighbour's massive ash tree on the boundary is breaking out into leaf, the amount of sunlight hitting the window will be much reduced. Difficult to say at this moment but I am inclined to think the seaweed solution does appear marginally close to germinating soon (the seeds had a lumpier look about them - possibly the root and shoot developing)
Well, the seaweed solution germination experiment was inconclusive - by the time I checked how the chitting was going, both sets had already germinated and growing quickly which is surprising because I didn't think the room was that warm. As the photo shows, both sets had a mix of just starting to germinate or well on the way to sending up a shoot (interestingly, a touch of red on the tip). Although the non-treated do seem to be slightly ahead, I don't think it means much. I'll see which ones actually break soil surface and early progress before deciding whether it's worth doing again:
About 3 seeds in each group had not germinated but I suspect they are just late developers - still, the packet content was 50 seeds and I chitted 63 so not bad going. All sown into general purpose compost with a little sprinkle of fertilizer in the bottom and big pinch of chicken manure pellets, and covered with top soil (I was aiming to use seed compost but I couldn't find the last opened bag until ... this morning) The seaweed treated seeds were inoculated with a little mycorrhizal fungal spores - research indicates that it takes about 5 weeks before the symbiotic relationship starts to take effect so that should take us into mid-June when they'll be ready to plant out.
Priority on Sunday was about planting the potatoes no matter what! I got to the site for 8.30am (actually made it before 9.30am for once LOL) and immediately got on with clearing the beds for the potatoes. Just like the bed last weekend, the soil was weed free bar the marestail and in the last bed, a few weak looking strands of bindweed. The soil was however, also a lot wetter which is surprising because the rest of the plot was very dry and some plants looked in need of water. It meant the soil was also a lot more claggier (if such a word) - sticky, wet and heavy - but I was able to get most of the marestail out with some ease.
As before, each trench had a layer of top soil and compost, slug pellets and then some fertilizers. When I came to sprinkle some Growmore granules, I realised I'd left the pot at home I only had £3 on me (of which 40p was an IOU for last week's shortfall) - luckily the allotment shop charged £2.30p for 3kg so just enough but it did mean I couldn't get what I wanted. Still, saved me going all the way home to get some.
In the bed nearest the big butternut/garlic bed I planted 20 Charlottes, the trench furthest away treated with the dried blood and both trenches had a sprinkle of chicken manure pellets with a little extra in the front trench. In the final bed (between the Charlottes and Vivaldi, I planted 22 Inca Belle with the same treatments. The only thing I regret forgetting to do was sprinkle some diatomaceous earth over the seed potatoes before earthing up. Still, it will be interesting to see whether the DE treatment of the Vivaldi will show a difference in comparison to the others.
The task took so long that I didn't have time to do anything else. I tried to do a spot of hand weeding but I could have done with some hand tools not to mention that with spending much of the morning bending down to clear the potato beds and plant up, I wasn't up to more bending down. I really wanted to get the peas sown but in the end decided I'd had enough. I emptied the 2 bags of chicken poop and bedding on the empty bed behind the compost bin before going home for 2.00pm.
The results for using the seaweed solution when chitting the sweetcorn seeds are much more noticeable now - many of the shoots are breaking through the soil so it's obvious there is a difference between the 2 treatments. 2 trays of 15 modules each, the plain water ones are coming up in droves (13 and 10 seedlings compared to the 3 and 5 of the other) However, I did seed the seaweed treated seeds with the mycorrhizal fungal spores which could also be the reason why there is a delay in germinating (hopefully a delay and not worse!) I had wondered if I should have waited until the plants were well established before seeding them and now wish I'd waited. Oh well, all good experience (I learn from failures much more than from successes)
Just a few piccies .... doing well on the windowsill at work:
And flowers on the Beaver Dam plants! Only one on the mycorrhizal treated:
and 2 on the non-treated plants:
A quick update on the sweetcorn and all is well After worrying that the seaweed/mycorrhizal treated seeds were not germinating, they are coming up fast and furious now. Still too cold to put into the greenhouse (I'll swear blind winter has returned ), the trays have been temporarily moved to the bathroom and stairs landing windowsills now that the chitted potatoes have gone. Not an ideal place but at least it's warmer and lighter. I did a bit of research about seeding the sweetcorn with mycorrhizae and apparently it was fine - in some trials, the seed were coated in the form of a pellet before sowing and did well. And as for chitting in a weak solution of seaweed, just as I read up, these were supposed to improve germination so I'm not sure why my little experiment did not turn out quite as planned. For now I'll keep an eye on them to see how they do.
A new tomato on the market called Crimson Crush which according to The RHS new plants blog is 100% blight free. As Suttons/Dobies have exclusive rights, they are only available as plants for the moment. A couple of weeks ago I applied for a couple of free plants on the Dobies site - as I missed out on the Gardeners World freebies, I wasn't too hopeful about the plants this time but surprise surprise, I got a little parcel through the letter box! Sturdy looking plants, they have probably been in the post a little longer than they should have and seem a little pale but I think they'll recover. I potted them on and put them in the mini greenhouse shelves for today - sheltered outside (the shelves only have a cover on the top to stop the rain) but "hardening" off while getting some light at the same time (today is forecast cloudy but very mild (18oC) so that should help them to recover without too much stress
Well my Bank holiday weekend did not go according to plan ... I wanted to lay down weed suppressant material down the length of the garden by the polytunnels and put bark chippings down, make a start on moving the chillies into the polytunnel and greenhouse then spend some time on the allotment. Suffice to say, I hurt my back on Saturday/Sunday - moving heavy bags of compost.
However, that did not stop me altogether as I was determined to get something done especially with not doing that much over the Easter holidays due to illness, and with June just around the corner and still loads to do, I wasn't going to waste the time! First, I wanted to start setting up the polytunnels but it took me a while to suss out how to raise the trays. In 2013 I made do with a pasting table, a work table and a home made staging made from pallets but as the weeks went by, I realised most were too tall as the plants began to get 3-4 feet high as this post link reminds me. So I needed something low but not on the floor (as it would be too cold especially at night with the superhot chillies) My original plan was to get a load of breeze blocks but I would probably have needed about 50 - apart from the cost, there is a transport issue too. Meanwhile, the glass greenhouse had a load of Keter shelving (plastic shelving which fit together easily) which I had to reduce in height for the chillies in 2013 leaving me with several shelves and upright tubing .... so, I decided to give these a try. On the whole seems sturdy but even though I have put several plants on them over the weekend, the pots are not that heavy unlike the big tomato pots they'll eventually end up with. Still, I think it's a good start.
With moving the spare shelving out of the glass greenhouse as well as getting rid of some rubbish, I'll soon be able to start moving some stuff in there but the weather forecast once again looks a little dire - cloudy with day temperatures of only 13oC and nights at 5-7oC, not ideal for superhot chillies (especially as I've reserved the glass greenhouse for the rarer chillies and ones which I've only got one plant out of the batches) However, the annuum (culinary type) chillies are much hardier and even in the brief bit of sunshine yesterday, the temperature in the polytunnel got warm very quickly. These will eventually be moved into the polycarbonate greenhouse - hopefully by next month it will be much warmer so they will be fine positioned on the floor by then. Most of these (especially the Ancho Poblano, Nepalese Bell, Big Jim and Espelette) grew nearly 4 feet tall.
Sunday and Bank Holiday Monday morning was spent repotting the annuums and moving them into the polytunnel - I selected 2 plants out of each batch, trying to match them for size so that I could inoculate the compost in one pot with mycorrhizal fungal spores and then compare how they do when grown against one in standard compost. The surplus plants were then repotted into polybags ready for sale. Sometimes when there were only 2 of the same variety, I have to confess that I selected the bigger healthier one for the treatment - all my research suggests that the mycorrhizae treated plants do better in terms of yield and despite it being an experiment, these are destined for the kitchen at the end of the day! Sadly there were a few casualties along the way and sometimes only one plant survived. In total, I repotted 63 plants for the greenhouse, and 47 for selling.
Some piccies - the double polytunnel with the polycarbonate greenhouse down at the bottom (please ignore the weedy garden ... that should have been quietly hidden under bark chippings if my weekend plans had gone the way it should have):
Inside the tunnels (again, ignore the rubbish in the nearest tunnel which too, was supposed to have got cleared away this weekend ....):
I moved the repotted chillies into the end tunnel which is the new frame I bought this year with the old cover on top, the whole thing sited over where the polycarbonate greenhouse used to be. Here the new staging for the trays. In between the black shelving, I need to support the trays - maybe fashion some legs to take the weight but generally I'm quite happy with how it has turned out:
You can see the chillies in polybags in the foreground which I will offer for sale once they have settled down in the new compost - the bags were so much cheaper than using pots so I'll be able to offer them for sale much cheaper. However, even after costing in the compost (and the bags, plus seeds if these hadn't been surplus to requirement - not to mention my time), it made me realise that I'm unlikely to make that much of a profit and I'll be lucky if I break even.
Meanwhile with the new set up, I need to just make sure that as the trays get heavier with the bigger pots that the legs don't buckle or splay apart (as I found when my home-made wooden staging that decided to fall apart - it had worked fine in the greenhouse as the ends were braced against the frame but not so well in the polytunnel) What I do like about using the shelving idea is that I could slip tall canes in the hollow plastic legs and fasten some twine/canes across the length to prevent the plants from falling over, especially if (when!) they get top heavy with fruits - again, a problem I remember in 2013 (nothing worse than finding one of the precious plants on the floor all broken and damaged)
Brilliant imformative and interesting posts as always, as I have said I can grow nothing but find your posts fascinating
The Pink Ladies..Audrey,Ingrid-Bergman,Madeleline,Norma-Jean,Dora,Janice,Jo,Robyn,Chrissy and Joyce The Peds…Mork,Mindy,Bell,Saphire &
Vorky ,Blueped,Ginger,Ninger &Linky Sunny Clucker was ere July 12-21 2012
Sunny Clucker was ere July 6 2016 to Sept 9th 2017
Sunny Clucker is here , rehomed Aug 18th 2018/
but miraculously, from the mouldy looking shrunken heads there was new growth. I know they would go straight on to flowering but it's the first time I'd seen that before. They had to come out anyway, so a nice spring greens feast for my chickens at home. The soil was ... just dreadful 
I can't believe how heavy the clay is despite all the digging in I did last year. And worse, loaded with marestail. I really did not feel up to spending the morning picking out roots so just got on forking over the entire bed to break up the surface. I hate to say it, but we need rain as no doubt the clods will bake into hard clinkers. Looking at the forecast, it looks like my wish will come true for this coming weekend.
The bad news is that the earlier repottings are now ready to be moved into their final pots ... and that means they will have to go into the greenhouse or polytunnel. Weather-wise I'm feeling a lot more confident that they will be fine now - even the odd overnight frost shouldn't do too much damage, but the risk of winter returning should be hopefully fading away now. So my next task is to get the trays ready ... easier said than done. The pots need to be off the ground where cold air sinks, but with 2 polytunnels I just do not have enough racking. I had the idea of using breeze blocks on which to put lengths of wood on which the trays would sit but - with pay day still another 3 weeks away, I've already spent up and can't afford to get any. So I'll have to give this more thought.
Weeds on the other hand have sprung up in hordes with dandelions especially in full flower and shedding seed 
I must get my act together and try and get to the allotment more often before the weeds take over.
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When the Early Timperley were split and planted last year, they were fine but they've obviously got well established now and just taken off and turned into massive plants. And although too late to pick, I'm pleased to see the asparagus have been producing some meaty looking stalks - maybe they heard my threat of being dug up if they didn't start to look more mature. I'm very pleased they are doing much better so fingers crossed for harvesting next year.
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