Thursday, November 14, 2013

Bulb Planting and Buying in the Sales








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.

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