Saturday 22 May 2010

Spot the difference!

We had lovely weather today, so spent a lot of the day outside. Nat & Jeremy went up to the allotment for a while; Jeremy planted out loads of the beans (more on that later) and Nat mowed everything he could think of, particularly the paths and round the orchard.

Meanwhile, I sowed the next lot of seeds - mostly brassicas (purple sprouting broccoli, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, pak choi and Chinese cabbage (yes, I know the last two should be the same thing, but they look different on the packets, so we'll see what happens...)) and then some "cutting celery" and goji berries (just because I had the packets). See if you can see what's changed in the greenhouse after all that!

So, about those beans... after much to-ing and fro-ing, we finally worked out that what I thought were "Purple Queen" French beans were, in fact, runner beans. I was thrown by the fact that the beans themselves were purple, as I'd remembered the "Purple Queen" ones to be. Well, you live and learn... still, it meant that we had runner beans ready to go!

Monday 10 May 2010

Seedlings

All the trays in the greenhouse are now showing signs of life. With frosts predicted overnight for the next few days, however, it's still not time to plant them all out.

Here, clockwise from the left, we have celeriac, salad leaves, French beans and squash at the back, then sweetcorn, more beans, tomatoes, chives and some other herb, possibly oregano. And more sweetcorn in the middle at the very front. To the right of what you can see here is a propagator with basil and another herb, possibly coriander. Finally, on the other side of the greenhouse are yet more sweetcorn, beans and squashes.