First harvest

Radishes. They only take a month or so. These ones taste great - but I'd like to taste some stronger ones. 

Radish Christmas

Planted two half rows of radish by the peas. One row of German Giant, the other of French Breakfast. Between the half rows in went tow very short rows of the French Breakfast.

They should all be ready by Christmas.

Radish and Spinach

To the vege patch was added perpetual spinach from Red Barn. Also planted some radish seeds - with the hope of slow growth over winter. In order of left-to-right (from front of patch) the radish types were Cherry Belle, Black Round, and German Giant.

That bed now has cauli and broccoli at the front (interplanted with Garlic) then spinach, then radish.

Onions and Radishes

After getting a fresh bag of Yates Black Magic seed raising mix it was time to see if the cause of the onion germination problems was the potting mix. Other onions this year have been germinated in Yates Thrive. In went one seed tray worth of the borettana onions, 40 seeds in total.

Out of the seed tray of thrive went one borettana and one red onion into the patch. As all the radishes have been eaten, so too did three rows of radishes, two of the watermellon radish and one of the black radish.

On the topic of watermellon, some have germinated as have cucumber. Probably too late for this season but they'll be kept inside in the hope of someting good happening.

Yuck!

Started to dig the final section of the vege patch and its wet, very wet, very wet indeed. Its like a thick muddy goop down there. As a consequence the irrigation system has been turned down from 5 mins a night to 3 mins a night. Everything got a feeding with the organic fertiliser.

Almost everything is growing well. A few things are not: the strawberry spinach is growing very slowly. The parsnips (which are always slow to germinate) are not showing signs of anything and at least one lettuce has died. Parsley hasn't reard its head either.

In the green room a second corn has sprouted as has one pumpkin (seed saved from a supermarket pumpkin) and one zucchini.

The kings radishes have sprouted well and as there were a gap between the rows black-radish from last year was used as a filler.

Sunday's Sprouted Seeds

Five of the ten Borotto bean seeds that were soaked during day had sprouted and started to grow well. Four of those had done well enough to be planted out into the garden. In total 5 plants are now in the garden.

Also spent a few mintues planting short rows of root-parsley and of watermelon-radishes went into the vege patch on the right by the "yellow" plant.

Brassica Harvest

Planted some seeds 100 coloured carrots (kaiotes), also white turnips (kaiotes) and black radish. But first made space and this time remembered to take some photos.

Black Radish (66 days) look black when wet and photographed.

Turnips that were planted last year that sprang up and grew well.

White turnips started to flower so I dug some up, and thined out the others.

Radish Taste Test

Well I should have taken a photograph, but didn't. Pulled two of the black radishes only to discover one was white and the other grey. They were long and slim, about the length of my hand and and about a broad as a finger. After a clean under the tap a taste test of the grey one suggested it was completely tasteless - a good bite revealed this was not the case. This must have been the hottest radish I ever ate, after a few seconds I was gaping for water. The white radish was not as hot but still excellent.

Seeds

Quiet weekend. 100 mixed carrots (Kaiotes), White turnips (Kaiots), black radish, and some turnips from the saved seed. A little thining out of cramped areas, but other than that, not a lot happened.

Also spend some time preparing the right hand patch. The area on the righr was dug over to one spade depth and 1 inch of compost added. Decided in the end to do the whole side which meant removing the artichokes and the spinach.

Clearly things are growing.

Seed Day

Another 100 mixed colour carrots, this time from Niche seeds. Also another row of Tokyo turnips (Kaiotes), black radishes (Kaiotes), and turnips (seeds collected by me).

Although the second patch is not yet ready, in went a row of spinach near where the artichokes are. With some luck the cat won't dig the spinach up this time!

One Week Late

Last weekend was to have been carrots this weekend turnips, except the carrots weren't planted last weekend.

Today's plantings were:

Carrots, 4 mixed coloured varieties from Kaiotes and the Red Barron from Red Barn. 100 seeds mixed then planted in no particular order, but in the right row.

Turnips, seeds harvested last year. Japanese turnips from Yates. All planted as the next row in with the others. Finally, the blach radishes from Kaiotes.

There are signs that carrots, red onions, radish and turnips are all sprouting.

Seedlings for the green-room was planted in little plastic punnets with 6 holes per punnet. As there was time, this included:

3 giant pumpkins
3 squash
6 red onion
3 zucchini
3 pumpkin
6 purple cauliflower
6 green cauliflower
6 onion

That's the lot! The green and purple cauliflower in the sprouting chamber (with the plastic lid) all appear to either have not sprouted, or to have died! No giant pumpkin sproted either! Lets hope it was bad luck and not bad seeds.