Up the garden path - More Sheep.

Sorry about not posting much today. We have two new lambs, born today, healthy and well. It seems Mr Ram has been naughty. I was suspecting that we would get them this year, because we knew he'd got in without the usual permissions, but... well... two lambs earlier than expected.

Need to put iodine on them, check they are well. From the look of things they are feeding well, and look OK.

The weather today has been fantastic, we are planning to add some more spring bulbs in front of the kitchen window, and the Rhubarb is coming up well. We've noticed Raspberries leaves forming at the bottom of the canes.

It is also getting dark a lot latter than a couple of weeks ago... I think it may even be past the spring equinox. I noticed the neighbor's cats have been reproducing as well... their is another black and white youngster lounging in our garden.

Anyway, I will write again tomorrow... sheep to look after

Search questions

Every now and again someone comes to the blog through a search which I don’t think the site has answered yet, so I thought it might be useful for me to answer a few of the questions they type into Google. Just because I am a nice fellow. Several of the recent ones have been about vegetable gardens.

So here they are

 

garden paths for vegetable gardens

Here is the thing, with a path; you need to consider the size of the wheelbarrow or lawn mower you are going to use. That is the biggest factor. In our garden we use a simple grass path. You can also use a gravel path.

Basically, as a rule of thumb, when you are starting a garden I suggest non permanent. Once you are sure you have the layout right, you can dig the path, put weed proof membrane down, and secure the edge with wooden planks and stakes. 

Once you have the edge, bark mulch is probably the best topping,

Of course, there are a lot of other ways to do things, and I’ll probably write something more detailed eventually.

raw egg to make tomato plants grow

Not a very good idea. Sure, there will be some nutrients in the egg, but by far the cheapest solution is to use normal compost, and feed the tomato plant with a tomato feed. It will work really well. Plus, a local fox won’t dig your tomato plant up to eat the egg.

time of year for weeding

Yes, it is. In fact, you can weed any time of year, but you shouldn’t go on the soil to dig when it is too wet. Basically, if your foot is covered in mud only weed from the path. You can use a plank to distribute your weight evenly while you are weeding. During spring there is the difficulty it can be hard to know what is weed or what really valuable plant is. So be careful of not weeding self seeded plants that could be valuable. Go for the big weeds.

 

when to plant tomato plants

The best time to plant tomato is 90 days before you want to harvest them. The other thing to consider is frosts. If you are still experiencing them, or likely to have frosts, you need to keep the tomato plants warmer using fleece or heating pad.

when to start tomato in window box

That’s a pretty neat idea actually. 90 days before you want to harvest is the latest time you should sow them. If you are doing it as a window box, you can easily store them indoors. If I were you I would consider adding something low growing like, say, alpine strawberries, as well. 

The resulting container is going to get a little awkward so try to get a smaller variety of tomato plant.

Because you are not entirely limited on the frost front, you could even start them now.

Sp I hope those answers to the search queries people have been reaching this blog are useful to anyone who decides to come here in the future. All part of the service J

How to Grow Tomatoes

Growing tomatoes is great fun. I remember when as a kid my father used to start tomatoes off in the spring, and we’d watch them greedily for months. Then he’d start picking them but they’d barely get to the kitchen before we ate the lot. 

They are delicious, whether raw or cooked. I particularly like cherry tomatoes, eating them is like eating sweats.

The first job in spring is deciding which variety is right for you. The choice is confusing. There are two things you need to consider... whether it is an early or late variety of tomato, and what type of tomato it is.

In Britain Blight can be a big problem, and so many gardeners decide to go for an early tomato. Because blight is spread in the air by spores over a wide area it is possible you are in a blight zone. In which case, choosing a variety that ripens as quickly as possible, growing the tomato in compost rather than the soil, and keeping the tomato in a greenhouse or polytunnel all help.

A main crop tomato can take around 90 days from sowing to the first harvest. Early tomatoes are a little faster, and can be planted out a little earlier since they are hardier. So they are more likely to ripen before blight season starts.

The other main decision is on what type of plant you select.

Cherry Tomatoes

Cherry tomatoes are the most delicious tomato variety in my opinion. They are around 1 inch wide, and ripen quickly. You can eat a tomato in one. The taste is really strong, concentrated compared to other tomatoes.

Plum Tomatoes

Plum tomatoes are named after their shape. They do look a little like a plum, have a decent size about them, but are not as large as beefsteak tomatoes. They are great in salads, and are easy to look after.

Beefsteak tomatoes

This variety of tomato is often very large. They are nice to eat, although they often don’t have the same flavour as Cherry Tomatoes.

Steps for Tomato Growing

1.       Select seed

In general I think it is best to buy tomato seed every year. Many varieties of tomatoes available in the shops do not come true. So although you could in theory save the seed, you are not likely to get the same result every year.

2.       Fill pot with compost

I think it is best to choose seedling compost. Some people intentionally put a handful of solid from their garden into the compost a week before. The theory is that the natural bacteria and mitochondria in the garden will develop in the compost, so preventing a shock when you plant it out. I don’t really believe the theory, but it is interesting. I would avoid this technique if you are in a blight area.

3.       Dampen potting compost from below

Use a tray, and warm water. It is best not to get the pot swimming in water. If you use warm water – about the same temperature as a baby’s bottle – you will find that it speeds up germination.

4.       Sow seed – be careful.

It is quite a fine seed. Some people fold a piece of card, and put a few seeds on the card at a time, tapping the card so only one seed drops on the soil at a time. Of course, some people just do it by hand.

5.       Place in dark until see shoot

This is often recommended, although I don’t really find it necessary... I have planted them before and they do pretty well wherever, as long as they are kept at a comfortable temperature.

6.       Put on window, or in cold frame or heated greenhouse

Once they have germinated, they need warmth, water and light to grow. A heated greenhouse, cold frame, or your window is great. In fact, if it doesn’t get below 5 degrees centigrade at night, an unheated greenhouse is fine too.

7.       Make sure to regularly turn the seedling

If you keep the seed indoors, make sure you turn the seedling regularly to prevent it bending towards the light. Make sure there is a reasonable amount of light too. If the plant doesn’t get enough light it will try to grow towards the sun too much, and may become leggy.

8.       Harden off when the seedling gets larger

Once you have a decent sized seedling, start putting it outside for the daylight hours. After a week or so, it should be used to it, so you can then plant it out.

9.       Water a little but often

Make sure you don’t let the plant get thirsty, and don’t swamp it with water either. This is particularly important when the plant has fruit on it, since they can split if not watered regularly.

10.   Plant outside, or in grow bags or containers in greenhouse

The choice of whether to plant outside or in a container is simple in a blight area – you grow it in a container.  Otherwise, growing it outside in the ground tends to make for a really delicious tomato but at the risk that it will suffer from pests. Tomatoes in a greenhouse are less likely to suffer from early frosts.

11.   Feed

Use a tomato feed as recommended on the label. Tomatoe plants are very hungry.

12.   Prune

How to prune a tomato is an entire new article in its own right, so I will discuss it latter!

13.   Harvest

It often takes 90 days from sowing before you get the first harvest. When the tomato is full sized you can either pick individual ripe fruit. Or simply cut an entire vine away and store that. People often worry about ripening the green fruits. It is easy, put them on a sunny windowsill in a open shoe box with an banana and some apples.

The banana lets off a gas that makes the fruit ripen quickly.

When you prune, water or harvest the tomato make sure to wear gloves, as the tomato plant has hairs that can irritate some people’s skin.

14.   Compost the plant

Unless the plant is infected with a disease, composting the plant is the last stage of the growing life cycle.

I hope this article helps you when you decide to grow tomato plants for yourself. It is exciting and fun to watch them ripen... although you often don’t get as far as the kitchen with them!

Up the Garden Path - The winter returneth

Today I have not had a chance to do much in the garden. The winter returned with a little bit of a vengeance. The rain has been constant, and it is cold. So, obviously the right time to curl up with a cup of tea and a good book. In this case, the Allotment Handbook by Fowley... which is a great read full of ideas.

So, less grafting than expected, and more reading about grafting. And with a nice cup of tea, and bar of chocolate, there can barely be anything better.

We have finally almost run out of wood... this winter was colder than normal, so we have used all the wood we cut last year on the wood burner. And a load we bought. That’s not great!

On the other hand it is quite nice to look at the spring border, which is probably at its best right now. Even if the weather isn’t. Full of winter pansies, hellebores, and the silver leaves of pinks... which isn’t bad!

I cleared out the weeds from the rockery, and we have invested in bulbs for the lawn outside of the kitchen window... when we get a chance to plant them, they will add a splendid dash of colour in the autumn.

But there is a lot of pleasure to come before then!

Lifting Raspberry Suckers

We inherited our Raspberry plants from the people who owned our house. Since then we have done very little to them. Now, after a few years, there are a lot of suckers and the raspberry patch is very overcrowded. As a hardy perennial shrub, they produce fruit every year without too many problems.

Despite being relatively neglected, this patch produces more Raspberries we can eat for around a month, and we freeze and make jam, so we enjoy the produce almost all year round.

But it is probably wise to clear out the raspberry patch to make it easier to net. Luckily for us this time of year is the perfect time for lifting raspberry suckers. 

Raspberries can be propagated in a number of ways, but probably the easiest is they produce suckers near the base of each plant. By carefully lifting them up with a fork or hand fork, making sure you don’t damage the roots, you can get an entire plant for free.

What I do then is put it in a large container of compost, making sure to water it. You can transplant them to empty ground as well. I just prefer the luxury of giving it a bit of care in the polytunnel.

It is generally best to transplant them now, just before the sap starts to rise in spring. The odds are that if you leave it a couple more weeks the raspberry leaves will start to open. And that is a big problem; you don’t want to move them once they have woken up for spring.

So... what if you don’t have any suckers but want even more raspberry plants? Well, you can stimulate the plant to make them. The technique you use to do this is called...

Layering a Raspberry bush.

If you don’t have any suckers you can make them yourself. Like a lot of stemmy shrubs, raspberries will start to root if their stem touches the soil.  In order to hasten this process, I roughly dig over the soil where I want the sucker to start, add a little grit if it is very clay, and then the hard work begins.

You’ve got to slightly wound the stem. Don’t go too mad about it. Just a scrape or two.

Then you bury the stem maybe 6 inches deep. And that is it, for a while. You can use a forked stick to make sure it doesn’t come too loose. Or a heavy stone, although you should be careful not to break the stem.

 You’d do that at this time of year for best effect – early spring. 

By autumn, the new plant should be ready. If not you just leave it for another year. You can tell when it is ready because the plant will seem to be growing... with quite a strong upsurge of growth.

You just cut the stem to the parent plant, and you now have a sucker which you can carefully lift. Basically, at this point you have created your sucker.

Some people like to do the same process but with a pot full of compost... that is possible, but is not the best thing you can do. The reason for this is that the pot can dry out. And it does take some time for the raspberry to take.

One thing to consider when using both these techniques is you should move the raspberries to virgin ground... the land you plant the new suckers in shouldn’t have had raspberries on for some time. Otherwise you might find that they get disease build up in the soil.

Raspberries like sandy soil, and do well in bright conditions. 

Of course, there are several types of raspberries which require slightly different pruning regimes, so I will probably talk about their care in another post.

Uses for the fruit.

A lot of people use Raspberry fruit fresh, in fruit salads, summer puddings or as a topping for cakes and puddings of all sorts. It works really well with simple vanilla ice cream. We also use a meringue nest, raspberries, and whipped cream for a delicious but naughty treat.