22nd June

A relatively short blog today you'll be pleased to hear

I wanted to report back on my three experiments that I was working on.

1) Hanging baskets

What a beauty eh?!!

Unfortunately that is one of the baskets that I made a couple of years ago

These are some of the baskets that I made this year that are only fit for going on the compost heap

The reason that these haven't worked is simple; I was trying to do too much, and more specifically to try and cram too much into the polytunnel.

To do this, I was initially keeping the seedlings in tiny cell trays. So rather than having 12 plants per seed tray, I was having 50. I should also have then planted them on into bigger cells, but simply did not have the space (or the time)

Verdict: Epic fail !!

2) Strawberries

I had (and still have) a load of plastic hanging baskets which in my opinion do the job, but are not especially attractive. I figured that these would be really good for strawberries as they would keep them away from pests, and I could have them occupying the ceiling space in the polytunnel.

Unfortunately the hot weather a few weeks back cooked a lot of them!

So, project abandoned for this year

However, I do believe that a large number can be recovered, and I will get these in the ground and covered with netting with a view to trying again next year

Verdict: fail but opportunity to recover

3) Tomatoes

Charles Dowding (who knows everything there is to know about organic vegetable growing) recommends sowing tomato seeds in March. I read somewhere that you can actually sow certain varieties earlier and tried my first batch in early January.

The picture below is the second batch sowed when Charles instructed

The picture below is of the first batch

Just waiting for these to ripen and they will be on the website

The plan for next year will have a very large batch being sown in January!

Verdict: At last he's done something right!

Actually, on the subject of not doing something right, I have to remind customers that were with us last year that my carrot growing was abysmal!

This year is looking more promising.

I have one bed ready for harvest now, and two beds which have recently been seeded

It is such a lovely feeling to pull the carrots up and see that they are looking good, mainly because once they are out, they can't go back in again!

Two new crops for this year are climbing beans which appear to be doing OK

And runner beans which are also looking good

Lots to do this week as always, but I don't think that I will be anywhere near as busy as this thing!

I hope that you all enjoy the sunshine!