Are you crazy, it's frrreeeeeezing!?

The sweet peas have been sent out into the chilly, distinctly un-sweaty cubicle to fend for themselves. Again, germination has been patchy this year. So much for all that tediarse scarification and soaking . The first seedling had reached about 4 or 5 inches tall and was looking very skinny and drawn so I couldn't leave them indoors in the propagator any longer. The thermometer in the cubicle read 1°C this morning. This wasn't too bad seeing as it got down as low as -3°C driving into work.

We drove over to Charlton Park Garden Centre in Wantage on Saturday (24th) to buy the seed potatoes. They did indeed have loads of different varieties as promised! We bought Arran Pilot, Charlotte, Marfona, Picasso and Pink Fir Apple for ourselves. Alas, the BF15s weren't there. There was a label saying that they were still in testing with DEFRA and would be in stock at the end of January. We picked up Cara, International Kidney and Blue Belle for Laura and Jon and Arran Pilot and Picasso for Matthew and Bob respectively. We also picked up 2 bags of onions sets, Sturon and Stuttgart Giant and a bag of Golden Gourmet shallots. The sets look quite big so I hope they don't bolt. Much to Lee's disgust I bought a pair of 'cloggies'. They've already proved useful for quick trips out to the cabin and the bins - no more soggy, muddy slippers! Here's the spud plan for this year:

Chitting in progress

On the way back from Charlton Park we stopped off at a Farm Shop and bought some bits and pieces. A dozen lovely free-range eggs, some mushrooms, a big packet of bacon and a jar of fig jam. We visited the geese and chickens at the back of the shop but the geese went a bit mental, thinking we were going to feed them, so we made a hasty retreat! Lee needed to return a shirt to TK Maxx in Cowley so I took the opportunity to purchase a couple of warm sweatshirts for running and a wonderful wicker basket for a tenner for crop harvesting.

Watched 'My Neighbour Totoro' last night. Loved it! The cat bus lived up to my expectations. We decided that Toroto has carrot breathe though. I wish I could cling to his furry body and float among the trees and that he'd do his growing spells at our plot.

First seedling of 2009!

When I returned home from work tonight Lee pointed out that some of the sweetpeas had germinated. Here's one of the little fellas!

Fat Baby Ackanakanakas

St. Symphorian's Church at Forrabury, Boscastle – eagerly awating an adornment of Achochas
Catbus from 'My Neighbour Totoro'

OK, so they're really called 'Fat Baby' Achochas. Ergates has swopped me 4 seeds of these freaky little fellas for some Tomato 'Latah' seeds. According to the Real Seeds catalogue (from whence they came) the fruit look like little green hedgehogs and are an unusual relative of the cucumber. I'm not sure where we'll grow them as they reach at least 10 feet tall! Ergates recommends that they be grown up at Saint Symphoniumnyangnyangs – don't ask! She has also leant me two Studio Ghibli DVDs to watch, 'The Cat Returns' and 'My Neighbour Totoro'. She received her seeds from Marshalls at last today! Sarah also received her seeds from T&M – a really good selection. She is trying a supposedly very early tomato too. I can't remember what it's called.

The Cookery Year Reader's Digest book I ordered from Amazon Marketplace arrived this morning. The dust cover is pretty tattered but I'm pleased with it for what I paid. It's a 1975 edition and has the game preparation instructions that are apparently deleted in later editions. Plus I bought yet another book today. WHSmiths were doing an incredibly good deal on the 'RHS New Encyclopedia of Gardening Techniques'. I'd read a review of it in 'Gardens Illustrated' magazine this month. It was reduced from £30 to £6.49.

June 2008 – Old diary entries

1st June

Planted out 6 x Sungold tomatoes in the 'tomato greenhouses' in large bottomless pots in 2 x growbags against the plot shed. Planted 4 x Sungold tomatoes and 2 x Tumbling Tom tomatoes in the bean bed. Planted tagetes amongst them. Planted out 4 x courgette 'black forrest' on cane teepee. Planted out 4 x cucumber 'tasty burpless green' on cane teepee. Covered with cut-off squash bottle cloches. Planted another full row of sugarsnap peas. Covered with fine wire mesh this time. Lee sowed 2 x rows of carrot 'chanteray'. Thinned 'nantes' carrots. Planted 13 dahlias in the plot flower bed. Used plenty of horse manure in the dahlia, tomato, cucumber and courgette planting holes. Bought 2 gardman tunnels from Askett Nurseries. A polythene one and a fleece one - £12.99 each. Placed over the existing and newly sown carrots.

3rd June

Planted out 5 x Salvia Patens in the garden

4th June

Planted the following tomatoes in containers in the front garden: 4 x balconi yellow, 5 x balconi red, 3 x tumbling tom.

5th June

Removed runners from the strawberries and took the cloches off the sweetcorn plantlets.

6th June

Planted out Gaillardia Arizona Sun (perennials)  in the back garden and also in the flower bed at the plot. 

7th June

Really warm but randomly cloudy. We were 7hrs up the plot today and got burnt! Lee's Mum and Dad came over. Bought lawnmower! Planted coriander and basil seeds, half a row each where the failed chives had been. Planted half row salad mixed niche (T&M) and half row of oriental salad (T&M). Sowed a pot each of oregano and marjoram (Simpsons Seeds). A few of the peas have germinated. White clematis now smothered in flowers. Clematis 'Pink Fantasy' has 2 or 3 flowers. Sweetpeas have a few flowers each.

8th June

Really hot today!! Planted half row of the following: oriental mustard (T&M), Sky rocket (T&M), Purple Pak Choi (T&M), White Pak Choi (T&M), Radish. Went to Pyrton Nurseries, didn't buy anything. Could possibly have put the pumpkin and squash out today but decided to leave it till next weekend.

9th June

Really hot again today. Watered.

11th June

Watered. Sowed one row of Beetroot 'Red Ace' in the salad bed. It rained tonight.

12th June

Flowers appearing on Cerinthe, Dusty Miller and the red geum. Clematis 'Pink Fantasy' has a few flowers but hasn't climbed very high or done very well this year.

14th June

Planted Tithonia out in the garden.

15th June

Planted out 7 x butternut squash 'Metro' and 4 x Crown Prince - plenty of manure in the planting holes. No cloches used. Bought some plants for hanging baskets, a packet of Tender and True parsnip seeds and 12 off calabrese plants (cv not known). The plants for hanging baskets weren't very good, we'd really left it too late this year. Planted up the baskets and Lee planted 8 x calabrese plants in the brassica cage. Dug up 2 Arran Pilot haulms! 880g of potatoes. Had for tea - delicious! Put sulphate of ammonia around runner beans, courgettes, cucumbers and squash. Sowed some Nantes and Autumn King carrots in Big Whiteys tyres in a mix of compost and sand.

16th June

Visited Mr and Mrs O's plot to give them the remaining 4 x calabrese. It's looking miles more bountiful and ahead of ours. Felt sad. I think it's because our plot is just so darned exposed.

18th June

It was incredibly windy tonight. We worried about the tomato houses up the plot, but they were OK.

19th June

Everything seems to have put on a spurt of growth! Took the chicken wire off from around the runner beans and tied them into the canes. Saw Rowley and he said the beans are probably yellow because of the high winds. Picked 10 lovely strawberries, very yummy!

21st June

Lee finished off the first raspberry cage. We were meant to be going to see Tuung tonight in London but so engrossed in the plot that we didn't go!

23nd June

Lee made the second raspberry cage.

24th June

Dug up more Arran Pilot potatoes and harvested quite a few strawberries.

25th June

Sowed one row of parsnip 'Tender and True' in the squash bed. This is really late to be sowing them, so this is an experiment (turned out to be the best parsnips of the lot!). Sowed another row of beetroot 'Red Ace' in the salad bed. There hasn't been any rain for days, we've been watering most nights.

28th June

Went to 'The Plant Specialist' nursery in Great Missenden. Bought the following perennials: Mathiasella bupleuroides; Potentilla 'Ron McBeath'; Potentilla 'Helen Jane'; Astrantia Major 'Roma'; Hardy geranium 'Rozanne'.

29th June

Planted all the perennials we bought yesterday in the garden.

30th June

Helenium 'Moorheim Beauty' is coming out nicely this week! Buds are appearing on geranium 'Summer Skies' at last! Flower appeared on hostas.

May 2008 - Old diary entries

L–R: Heucheras Creme Brulée and Chocolate Ruffles and ferns; Seedlings in the sweaty cubicle; First cut of mesclun mix lettuce; The garden; Countess of Lovelace clematis; 1st early spuds; Summer Purple Sprouting Broccoli; Strawberry flowers; The plot  

1st May

Noticed that 1st early spuds (planted 12th April) are showing foliage! No sign of parsnips or chives. Nantes carrots have germinated. During the night, some snails got into the sweaty cubicle and nibbled the rudbeckia cappuccino seeds.

2nd May

Sowed chitted sweetcorn nuggets in root trainers and started off on a windowsill. No sign of the dahlias in the pots. 13 days since planting. Sweetcorn sowing - harvest should take 18 weeks, this takes us up to 5th September.

3rd May

Sowed hardy annual flowers up plot. Cornflower polka dot mixed, cornflower black ball, nigella midnight blue, nigella african queen, black peony poppy, escholzia, calendular, larkspur gentian blue (never germinated). Sowed half row of beetroot boltardy, sowed 1 row of rainbow carrots. Made a seedbed area next to the summer broccoli and sowed 12 'stations' of early purple sprouting brocolli (3/4 seeds in each). Marked out with string. Finished off pea climbing frame.

4th May

Sowed half row of sugar-snap peas. Fed strawberries with Tomorite. Made brassica cage with blue piping and netting.

5th May

Sowed 4 pots of cucumber 'burpless tasty green' (3 seeds to a pot – keep strongest seedling, dump rest). Sowed 4 pots of courgette 'black forrest' ( 1 seed to a pot - need 3 plants, so allowing for 75% germination). Sowed another line of rocket mixed and lettuce mesclun mixed in the wooden troughs.

6th May

Sowed 3 x Romanesco cauliflower, 4 x crown prince pumpkin, 8 x metro butternut squash, 10 x 'white lady' runner beans.

7th May

Sowed 10 x 'wisley magic' runner beans, 15 x 'safari' dwarf french beans, 15 x 'purple queen' dwarf french beans.

8th May

Transferred the corn seedlings in the rootrainers into the sweaty cubicle.

9th May

Noticed the first dahlia sprouting this evening - 'pretty lady'.

10th May

Weather very hot now! More of the dahlia are sprouting. The first earlies are growing away nicely now. 2 peas have germinated! There are some flowers on the strawberries. Finished off the broccoli cage – one of the 'summer purple' sprouting broccoli has little 'edible' bits growing on it. 

11th May

Extremely hot day again. Did the Marlow 5 run!

12th May

All the peas got eaten this week. This is because we hadn't netted them against birds. Planted out 5 x rudbeckia cappuccino, 4 x achillea cassis, 5 x cerinthe in the garden. Remaining rudbeckia and achillea went to Mum and Sally.

17th - 24th May

Holiday in Les Houches, France. While we were away there were frosts on 18th and 19th.

24th May

Return from holiday in evening. All the dahlias have sprouted now except the 3 x 'Karma Naomi' (these never grew - chucked away in the end, they must have been duff tubers). Pumpkin and Butternut Squash have germinated. Most of the beans have germinated although still a few 'no shows'. Courgettes have developed first 'true' leaves. Cukes are starting to develop their 'true' leaves - still very tiny though. Sweetcorn about 5–6 inches high. Toms are all starting to develop tiny flower buds. Some Nantes Carrots are well up, very patchy though. Very few parsnips have germinated, a few beetroot have but they're very tiny.

25th May

Up plot to weed and strim. Weather is rotten, high winds and heavy rain. Summer Purple broccoli doing well – earthed up a bit to stabalise. 1st earlies been hit by frost, some leaves are a bit brown, they should be OK (they were). Early Purple Sprouting seedlings emerged in seedbed - they are looking a bit lame though - sow in pots next year. Picked 3 radish! 'Countess of Lovelace' clematis in the garden is in full flower now and looking stunning. 

26th May

Bank Holiday. Weather crap again with high winds and heavy rain. Planted out 7 x ipomea 'Grandpa Otts' in the garden. Pricked out the Tithonia into individual pots - they were a bit too big at this stage really, should have done it earlier. Had some cuts of the lettuce mesclun mix (6 weeks old). It was very good! Had some rocket too but it was still quite small and weedy.

27th May

Planted runner beans, 9 of each variety onto a traditional criss-crossed row of bamboo canes. Netted with wire to keep off pigeons at this early stage. Planted dwarf french beans, 12 of each variety. Netted with fruit cage netting to keep off pigeons. Put manure in the trenches/holes before planting.

29th May

Planted out the sweetcorn in a 5 x 5 block (25 plants) and covered with squash bottle cloches.

30th May

Lunch at Barnsley House! Fantastic gardens and potager. The tithonia are fine after being potted on, snail attacked though. Ipomea are looking a bit sad in the garden, 1 has disappeared completely. Countess of Lovelace clematis is still looking great. The white clematis (name?) is coming out too now with lots of buds. Started getting little insects in the sweaty cubicle (whitefly?). Sprayed with bug killer a couple of times – this seemed to work.

Scarecrow in the potager at Barnsley House

The potager at Barnsley House

Lee in the potager at Barnsley House

Lovers in the garden at Barnsley House

First sowing of the year!

Have sown some seeds today. I've filled a tray of rootrainers with sweet peas. There are two seeds in each module and this time I scarified them (with a nail file) and soaked them overnight. Most of the seeds looked to have plumped up nicely this morning. The varieties are Blue Ripple, Painted Lady, Matucana and Fragrantissimo – 1 row (8 modules) of each. So, if they all germinate I shall have 64 little plants! They are all from T&M, the Fragrantissimo being freebies from the Rootrainer packs. They are now in the heated propagator standing on the kitchen windowsill. The propagator lid doesn't quite fit snugly over the rootrainers but is standing a bit proud. Hopefully the sweet peas won't mind. They've been extremely cossetted in every other respect so far!

The sweetpeas in residence, chicken is keeping a beady eye on them for germination!

On Friday I visited the Notcutts in Booker and bought a new fork to replace the one that was snapped by the 'parsnip of doom'. I also bought a new bag of seed compost, two deep rootrainer packs and a pair of gardening gloves. They had bags of seed potatoes in and lots of summer bulbs. We're planning on going to Charlton Park garden centre in Wantage next weekend to buy our seed potatoes as they have a huge range of single tubers available during their 'potato week' according to the website. We will pick up some bf 15 (as recommended by Raymond Blanc!) for Mr and Mrs O to try.

Lee has had yet another tidy up in the cabin, sawing up the old bed for firewood but reserving the slats and base for allotment projects. He's also fashioned the top cabinet part of the giant unit that used to be in the lounge into a useful set of shelves. Yesterday we went to Blanchfords to find out the price of scaffold boards. £10.40 + VAT for 13ft boards. Mum has found one in her garage that we can have so we only need to buy one. They'll get some in stock by next weekend.

This afternoon we are making some more Beetroot Chutney. We made the last lot on 24th August last year. It was at its peak of yumminess over Christmas. We've scoffed our way through all of the last batch - 2 x 500ml 'le parfait' jars! The recipe is one contributed by 'Rosemary Plantpot' from www.allotment.org. I'm surprised at how well the beetroot has kept. We'd just bunged it in carrier bags and left it down the cabin, next to the spud bags. The tops had got a bit fluffy with mould and there were some dodgy bits in the beets, but not a lot considering! The kitchen and dining room are smelling exceedingly vinegary and we're trying to prevent the pong invading the whole house. You are meant to simmer chutney slowly over an hour or so for the best results. This time, instead of microwaving the beets, I roasted them in foil in the oven. It took 2.5 hours at 190°C fan for them to cook. There were some monsters the size of very large Bramleys! The chutney ended up being simmered for 2 hours. It made slightly more than the last batch. Lee ate the leftovers that wouldn't fit in the jars 'fresh' and vinegary!

The chutney at the beginning of the process

They're here!

Yes! The Marshalls Seeds have arrived at last. Ergates mailed me this morning to say that hers were still AWOL.