A little bit of recycling

Getting the children involved in gardening is a great thing to do and in order to keep them busy and learning at the same time, I gave my two the task of creating small pots out of old newspapers. I'm not really a newspaper person but my mother is so on our last visit to her I asked if she could put aside some old newspapers for me to take home.

The issue I have with using plastic pots is that I don't have a lot (well, certainly not the right size for the right purpose) and they aren't widely recycled so when they break they tend to go to landfill owing to the material that they are made of (polypropylene). So to make a better effort this year and to educate my children on good gardening habits, I had them making these little pots from newspaper to use for sowing more seed.

It wasn't a difficult thing to do as I only had to show my two how to make them once, with just two items: a toilet roll and a few strips of newspaper (cut to the right size for what I need them for). It takes four easy steps to make these:

1. Cut your newspaper to the desired height you want your little pots to be. I used a toilet roll to use as a mould for mine (cutting it in half so I could see how tall it should be).
2. Roll the newspaper around your chosen mould (this could also be a small glass, jar or anything else that is round that comes in handy).
3. Fold the bottom over to cover one end, making the bottom of your pot.
4. Remove your mould carefully. This will leave you with a good, round pot to use.

 Using your chosen object as a mould, roll the paper around it carefully to create a smooth, round shape.

 Folding the bottom over creates your pot before removing the mould.

And there you have it: some useful bits of used newspaper!

I'm really hoping that these will come in useful for sensitive plants such as peas, which I'm told by many an experienced gardener, do not like their roots being touched. Due to this, I've always sown peas directly in to the soil but last year either very few peas germinated or I had some pests eating the young plants!

Peas in paper

I've also gone and used the cardboard left over from toilet rolls. These are a good height and I'm going to use them for sweet peas, which I don't often grow. Unfortunately I've not been too successful in the past either from seeds not germinating or just growing on. Late last year I thought I'd try to grow sweet peas from seed very early and my experience was that there was not enough light, which meant poor germination and those that did germinate became leggy and died. Very frustrating!

 I filled these two thirds of the height with soil, added my sweet pea seeds and topped with more soil. I also covered them to protect them from pests.

And finally...

The heated propagators have finally worked their magic and seeds have started to germinate. Not all types have been successful yet (leeks, some aubergine varieties). The artichokes have all come up now and some varieties of cherry tomatoes and one aubergine. It takes a lot of patience sometimes but when these things happen it puts a smile on my face!

 Artichoke seedling

Tomato seedlings

Until next time.

Potting on

Back in November 2016, I decided to sow some varieties of broad bean and pea really early. I wasn't sure if the seeds would come to life but they did and have been growing for the past few weeks.

The varieties of broad bean I chose to grow early are Aqualdulce Claudia and Bunyards Exhibition. Aquadulce is traditionally sown early as it's a hardy broad bean, while Bunyards is a Victorian variety that's stood the test of time and is known to be a heavy cropper. Both of these have so far germinated and are growing well.

 Pictured above is Aquadulce Claudia, bursting from the large cells I'd sown the seeds in.

Now it's time to give the seedlings some more space but it's still too cold to place them outside so I've potted them on in slightly bigger pots. Apart from the fact that they need room and will grow further given more space, the use of fresh compost will also continue to give the beans the nutrients that they need to survive as they would have soaked up most of the nutrients in the compost they germinated in. 

 You can see how cramped the roots are getting in this photo.

Here's a close up of the root system, twisting to fit in the cell that the plant was growing in.

To pot on, I used half litre pots (small pots with a diameter of 9cm) and half filled them with potting compost. Carefully removing the seedlings from their cells I transferred them to the pots and filled in the gaps with more compost. With watering, I had to be careful as it's still very frosty and the plants would die in waterlogged soil. Very little water was used (basically enough to keep the plant alive but not entirely soaking the pot through). 

 This one is Aquadulce Claudia.

The smaller, lighter green bean is Bunyards.

To further protect my seedlings, I kept them in the poly and then covered them with bubblewrap (of which I have plenty), but you can use fleece or any other product that isn't heavy or dark. I propped up the bubblewrap with a bamboo cane to stop it from weighing down the seedlings. I'm aiming to plant them out in March. 

In the meantime I have sown some more seeds of Aquadulce today. Why I've done this is because I want to grow a succession of beans. It's not too late for anybody to try this as most broad beans can be sown from Feb onwards. Here's how you could grow in succession:

1. Sow one lot of seeds. In the right conditions they should germinate between 1-2 weeks.
2. After four weeks of growth, where you find you need to pot on your seedlings, sow another lot of seeds. 
3. After another period of four weeks you could sow yet again.
4. After planting out your young plants, you will have three sets of differently aged plants. This means that you should be able to harvest your crop for two more months than you normally would. 

I always recommend growing in succession, especially if you have a particular favourite veg that you can grow easily. It'll make the harvesting season longer for you and give you more fresh veg to eat for longer (rather than forcing yourself to eat everything before it goes off or giving/throwing it away, especially if you can't store it easily).

I'll feature the peas I'm growing a little later on as they are still very small but at least they are growing. 

For now, keep gardening!  

Propagation revisited...

The bad weather we've had has hindered me somewhat in all the chores I could do over the last week to get ahead with my fruit and veg growing. We've had frosts, snow and what feels like constant rain, making the very thought of going out into the garden and polytunnel a very hopeless one.

However, my propagation techniques needed some care and attention and I've been very keen to see what's working and what's not working. So here's what's happening with my seeds at the moment:

1. The heated propagators

Having visited the polytunnel everyday and checking that the propagators are working, that no pests have found their way to the seeds and that nothing else has essentially gone wrong, I must say that I've been disappointed so far.

There's absolutely nothing stirring yet in any of the cells of either tray. Now, the temperature is constant and the trays are covered, remaining damp but not over watered. No tomatoes, no aubergines, no leeks, nothing. Maybe I'm being a bit too impatient as it can take longer than simply a week for seeds to germinate. I've kept everything as it is and will let you know what it's like next week.

2. Indoor tray (on windowsill)

I've got a fenugreek forest growing on my bedroom windowsill! The peas in the second tray are also peeping out of the soil, giving me great hope for a good gardening year. Once I lifted the lid off, the smell of the fenugreek hit my nostrils, giving me a double whammy of sensory magic - sight and smell of tasty things to come. In fact, I've had to keep the lid off now as the fenugreek is getting too tall and have also had to keep the husband's hands off as he keeps helping himself to a little fenugreek shoot every now and then! Here's what it looks like:

 If you can imagine, ladies and gentlemen, the glorious flavoursome scent of fenugreek.

A peashoot emerging from it's dark birthplace. A photo taken with my microscope tool.

3. The windowsill greenhouse

Sadly, another poor performer as there's no sign of life just yet. Admittedly, there's only lemongrass seeds in this one and I've struggled growing these before, so it may just be my sowing technique on this one or the fact that lemongrass seeds can take a seriously long time to germinate. They say that patience is a virtue. Something I haven't always got but am going to have to have on this one.

4. Hotbed

Well, not exactly ready for any form of propagation yet but I did return to this area today to check the temperature. I couldn't believe it - one degree cooler than last week! Where am I going wrong??? Probably with the amount of manure I used (as in not enough). To see what I did take a look here.

There are a few options I could do with this technique - either add more manure to it to try and warm it up or leave it as it is and be ready to use it for tomatoes and aubergines when they are big enough to transfer to the raised beds for growing on. Either way, it won't have been a waste of time preparing this.

Well, what have I learned from all this? That maybe growing indoors, as in the house on the windowsill, is perhaps my best option. However, to have tested these methods better, I could have tried the same types of seeds in each tray to see what works, creating a better control over this experiment. 

Keep a look out for more things that I'll be sowing over the next few weeks as spring will be creeping up on us and I will need to prepare more and more for the growing year. 

In the meantime, live and breathe your garden!

Sow little time

The weather's been mild today, so basically a day where I don't mind working outdoors!

Anyway, I've made an early start with sowing seeds and although the instructions on the packets say sow in Feb or March, I've decided to cheat and here's why:

1. If I sow now then I could get a head start on some crops. For example tomatoes and aubergines should have no problem growing under shelter early.
2. Should the crop fail then it won't be too far into the growing season to sow more seeds, effectively giving me time for any disasters.
3. I can grow my veg in succession, meaning that I could start harvesting early and continue on harvesting later in the season until the last possible time. 
4. Starting early could mean that I could take advantage of a warm spring or early sunshine. There's been times when I've followed the sowing times only to have cool summers and not enough sunshine to ripen fruit. I lost a lot of tomatoes that way one year.
5. I'd potentially save myself some space in the greenhouse and poly, because there's been many years where the shelves have been creaking under the weight of trays and trays of seedlings all sown at the same time. This way I can rotate seedlings and new seed sown. 

Here's what I did:
Today's seeds consisted of tomato, aubergine, artichoke, lemon grass and leeks. I thought it would be interesting to experiment with different propagation methods to see what works better.

Method one - the heated propagator. I only have two of these and luckily they both still work. In each tray I put five varieties of seeds. Mostly tomatoes and aubergines, with some leeks and artichokes. After watering I covered them with clear lids for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the seedlings will need some protection from possible frost. Secondly, as a poultry keeper, I do tend to suffer from pests such as rats. Last night they came into the polytunnel and ate over half of my winter cabbages. as you can imagine, I wasn't very happy. Keeping a cover on my seeds and seedlings does keep them away.

  Remember to always look for pests before you go ahead with planting and sowing. Slugs will rest close to your plants.

These are tomato seeds. The variety here is Moneymaker. They were a great cropper last year and I'm hoping that they'll be amazing this year too.

I placed just the one seed in each cell.

Method two - lemon grass was sown in small (1/2ltr) pots. These are now on a windowsill in the house as lemon grass requires humidity and it would be easier to keep on top of that everyday without going outside to the poly or greenhouse. The pots are in a windowsill propagator, which I bought from Wilkos. It's their own brand and I got just the one to try for £5, which was a reduced price (although I don't know what the normal price would be). Being indoors, enclosed in glass and next to light should help encourage the seeds to germinate. I've struggled with lemon grass in the past but I'll keep trying until I get it right as both my husband and I do cook with this ingredient quite often.

This looks very nice but I hope it does the job. The only amendment I made was to line this propagator with cling film as it's wooden and I didn't want the wood getting wet. Ideally, it could have come with a plastic tray. 

Method three - the last method I used was for some quick growing leaves for flavour and salads. My son helped me in sowing these. I used one tray with two smaller inserts. The seeds here are fenugreek and pea shoots. Once sown, they were watered and then covered and brought indoors to keep warm. Not only do I have to then use any extra electricity for this but as the leaves grow, they can be easily picked in the kitchen and added to cooking straight away. 

My son expertly sowed the peas in rows.

Fenugreek seeds were scattered, then some compost was lightly added just to cover the seeds. These seeds like moist conditions so as with the lemon grass, it's easier to keep on top of checking humidity while these are indoors.

Unfortunately, the idea of the hotbed made from duck manure wasn't ready today. I took two temperature readings of the bed, one in the morning and one in the mid afternoon. There wasn't much change. Morning temp was 8 degrees Celsius and mid afternoon only one degree warmer at 9. I also took a reading of the surrounding ground temperature, which was 10. Why it appeared warmer I don't know but I'm hoping that with a little more time the manure will start to rot down and warm up the soil. If it doesn't work it won't be a waste of time though as I'll just dig the manure in at the right time. Poultry manure does have a high nitrogen content, which will be beneficial to any veg I'll grow there. 

The thermometer I used was a propagation thermometer by Gardener's Mate. It doesn't cost much at £2.99 and I'm sure I'll get more use out of it over the years. 

Finally, I checked on the veggies I started in December, which are in an old fish tank in my poly! There's only broad beans and peas and I'm happy to say that they are growing well so far. Why would I grow these so early? There are advantages with broad beans - for some reason they don't suffer with black fly when they are sown so early. I'll be looking closely at my plants when they go outside on the allotment. With the peas, sowing early just means getting an earlier crop and I'll be growing these in succession as I'm always fighting the kids for fresh peas so the more the merrier!

I love peas and so does the rest of the family so I need to make sure I grow plenty.

 Broad beans are not everyone's cup of tea but I really do enjoy eating them. In the background here you can just about see some rosemary cuttings (on the left).

So before I finish up here I wanted to give you a list of things you should consider before you pick seeds and sow them:

1. Think about what you enjoy eating and start with growing that. 
2. You also need to think about spacing and how much you're going to grow. Then with an estimate of how many plants you want to grow, sow just a few more, say 10%, to count for any potential loss of seedlings/plants.
3. Look at where you'll be planting your home grown crop. What soil do they like? Is it a sunny spot?
4. Is what you're aiming to grow easy or hard to look after? If you're starting up it's always a good idea to grow veg that's easy to maintain.

Happy gardening!

An alternative to heated propagators

Having read some history books on gardening over the last few months, I thought I'd make an attempt at gardening in a way that was common to the Victorians. Unfortunately, I don't have a large Victorian glass house, nor do I have a walled garden (although it would be a dream come true if I did). However, I do keep livestock in the form of poultry and at the moment my ducks are not laying so I need to find them another job to earn their keep with me. 

A few years ago I trialed using soiled duck house straw bedding as an underground layer of manure for my Mediterranean fruit and veg in the polytunnel. Whether it was the heat that was beneficial or simply the added extra nutrients in the soil that helped, I got an amazing yield and some very happy looking plants (yes, plants can look very happy in my opinion). Going back to the Victorians. They used hotbeds, consisting of horse manure mostly to help germinate seeds earlier than their normal season so that the Victorians would have food to grace their tables all year round. I do have have two heated propagators here at home, but the disadvantages are thus: 

1. I only have two and to buy more means spending more money than I want to.
2. They will only fit one standard seed tray in each, limiting me to what I can sow early.
3. They need to be plugged in and while they don't take up too much electricity, I would like to see a method that doesn't use extra energy.

So, I don't have horses and I wanted to try a small area in the polytunnel first this year and decided that the ducks could contribute. So when I cleaned out their house today I kept the mix of straw and droppings and subsequently buried that in a small patch on a raised bed.

Little did these two know that when they grew up their droppings would become useful.

Here's what I did step by step:

1.  First I took spade to soil and started removing the topsoil, putting it to one side to use later on.

 2. This is what I was left with - about 5 inches of soil removed from the top.

 3. I then added the straw with duck manure.

4. This manure was then spread to fit in the dug out soil. Once that was done I trod it in a bit to flatten it. This method was also recommended as it would help rot down the straw and manure to kick start the warmth.

 5. I then went back to the soil I removed and started to carefully add a thin layer (about 2 inches at the most) to the manure.

6. The soil was spread evenly over the manure.

7. Probably not the neatest attempt, but I then covered the patch with some bubble wrap to stop anything from trying to dig it all up for me and to help it warm up (possibly).

The hotbed will be tested for soil warmth next week and if it's working then I will place some trays down on top of this to keep them warm. The area worked will fit about four seed trays and when the time comes, I will make a protective cover (or use clear seed tray covers), for the seeds. The outside temperature won't matter too much to seedlings as it will be the soil temperature that is the growth stimulator (although do please remember that frosts are still around for a few more months, hence creating covers).

The benefits to doing this (if it works) are:

1. It didn't cost anything except for 15mins of my time.
2. I could reuse the duck straw bedding for this instead of simply adding it to the compost heap.
3. More seed trays could be used rather than using just my two small heated propagators.
4. Once the weather warms up I can use the raised bed for my veg again by just digging the soil and manure in- double whammy! Two uses for one space over the growing year.

I now have my fingers crossed that this will work!

Thanks for reading and I wish everyone a very happy new year.