Harvesting
the veggies will hopefully go on all winter
I’m still enjoying drinking the liquid feeds through the
blender. So much so it’s inspired a whole new planting plan for the polythene
tunnel. I have delved into the seeds that didn’t get planted this summer and
sown very late crops of peas, spinach, cress, mange tout, lettuce and ....
I’ve also been planting up chard, which certainly brightens up the place
when the sun shines through the stems.
The idea is to grow the crops as a pick and come again variety. When the
peas get to about 3 inches I’ll nip them off and use them as the base for the
nutriblends. I’ve had them in for two weeks now and they have shot up to about
two inches so they are nearly ready. If I’m lucky we’ll have fresh veggies to
use for a while yet, even after the frosts if I’m lucky.
I found some carrots planted in pots that I forgot I had
this week. They are small and a bit scabby but once they are put into the
blended you wouldn’t notice. I have found another vegetable to put into the
machine.
Still Sprouting
Just before the end of the summer I cut off a sunflower head
to use as decoration. It’s been sitting on the wall on the patio for ages and I
noticed that even these seeds have started to germinate. They are still in
place and sprouting happily. I’m throwing those into the blender too.
The hanging baskets are looking a bit dishevelled at the
moment so I decided to give those trim and tidy. There are a few perennials that are still
sitting there quite happily but the sweet peas have had their day. I noticed that even these seeds are sprouting
whilst still inside the pods so they have gone into modules in the propagator
for growing on and putting outside in late spring. These are not edible so
won’t be blended in the machine!
Seed Collecting
I have other seeds collected too. We had a good run on
nasturtiums and marigolds this year and I have collected a couple of bags of
seeds from the spent flower heads. I really should have saved some of the peas
and beans but it looks like we have eaten them all, if I can find a few pods
when I clear them up later I shall keep them. I like to leave the pea and bean
plants in until they die down as they fix nitrogen into the soil keeping it
balanced. I do have some tomatoes still hanging on the plants outside but I’m
undecided whether to save the seeds of those as they weren’t the most
“flavoursome” variety. I might save a few.
In The Sales
It’s full steam ahead for winter and spring planting and I
have been busy in the sales. Most
winter/spring plants are half price in the shops and bulbs have been reduced in
price. It’s my favourite time to shop.
For the pot grown plants I chose primroses, biennial
cineraria and dianthus combined, with a few variegated ivy thrown in. I
actually only bought one ivy plant but managed to get four plants out of it. Growers tend to put a few smaller plants into
a pot than one large one.It gives the growers bigger looking plants faster,
which benefits their cash flow and gives us the opportunity to do a bit of
division.
I have cleared out the geraniums from the baskets to make
room for the new stock, potted them up in my terracotta pots and put them into
the tunnel. They will keep flowering all through the winter if I can keep the
frost off them. I might have to bring them indoors for a spell if it gets
really cold. I didn’t change the soil in the baskets, but did add more compost
and put in a bit of slow release feed.
Bulbs
I bought a few bags of miniature daffodils and mixed regular
varieties to plant as well as some other interesting types to interplant in
clumps around the front garden. I have purple Allium, blue Muscari, white
Brodiaea (like Alliums) and some pretty chionodaxa called snowglobe. Planted
together they should give an attractive display in early spring. Bulbs too are
something that wouldn’t be good in the blender as a majority of them are
poisonous, apart from onions of course, I might try one in the machine.
