2009 seeds ordered
FRENCH BEAN The Prince
RUNNER BEAN Enorma Elite
CARROT Nantes 2
CRESS American or Land
COURGETTE Rondo di Nizza
PARSNIP F1 Gladiator
HOT PEPPER Ring of Fire
RADISH Rudolph
TOMATO Gardeners Delight
TOMATO Alicante
POTATO Swift 1.5kg
POTATO (non-organic) Anya 2kg
BEETROOT Detroit 2 Bolivar
RADISH French Breakfast
LEEK Almera
LETTUCE Tintin
RUNNER BEAN Butler
ROCKET Rucola
SPINACH Giant American
the thrifty gardener
this year's planting, a summary
|
Plant |
Variety |
Description |
Comments |
r |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Asparagus |
Bachlim |
Mid to late season male variety, with consistent yields of large, smooth spears with well closed tips. It boasts good disease resistance, and is a very reliable performer in the kitchen garden. |
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|
Asparagus |
Crimson Pacific |
This mid season purple variety, is so tender and super-sweet that young spears can be eaten raw in salads, providing unusual colour and flavour. |
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|
Beetroot |
Woden F1 Hybrid |
Woden F1 hybrid was bred by Thompson and Morgan and introduced in their 2004 catalogue. It is a globe beetroot with bright red flesh that can be harvested as baby or mature beets. Mature beets do not go fibrous and store well. Young leaves can be eaten as spinach. |
Too early to tell, planted October |
|
|
Beetroot |
Detroit 2 |
Perfect for pickling! Dark red, delicious-tasting roots, ideal fresh or pickled. |
Grew well and tasted wonderful. |
√ |
|
Broad Beans |
Red Epicure |
f you are after something special, this is the broad bean to choose. The chestnut crimson beans retain their striking colour if lightly steamed rather than boiled, and have a taste we consider to be unequalled. |
Grew and cropped well. Very tasty. |
√ |
|
Cabbage |
Round 'Stonehead' F1 |
Plant April / August. Good quality, uniform with very solid heads. Use for successional plantings. Can be used as baby vegetables. Harvest June to November. |
Very attractive to slugs and catapillers. |
|
|
Cabbage |
Savoy ‘Mila’ F1 |
Plant April / July. Early maturing. Dark green, good standing ability and resistance to bursting. Suitable for successional plantings. Harvest November to February. |
Very attractive to slugs and catapillers. |
|
|
Cauliflower |
Nautilus' F1 improved |
A high quality variety with extra white deep curds. Also a vigorous hybrid even in cooler climates and useful for extended autumn crops. Sow Feb for cutting July to November. |
Very attractive to slugs and catapillers. |
|
|
Carrot |
Nantes 2 |
A tasty early to mid-season bunching variety which stores well. |
Really good carrots, tasty and big. |
√ |
|
chilli pepper |
Anaheim |
Very mild, medium sized chile to 6-10", often used when green. The basic variety ripens to a dark green/reddish color, but other strains ripen to full red. |
These grew well. Not very hot when green. |
√ |
|
Courgette |
Tondo di piacenza |
A round variety from near Parma. It's shape makes it ideal for stuffing. |
Disappointingly low yield but tasty. Needs a better position. |
√ |
|
Cress |
American Land |
Easy alternative to water cress |
Really good, very tasty. Gill loves them. |
√ |
|
Dwarf French Beans |
Rocquencourt |
very productve, primrose-yellow podded dwarf French bean. One of the most cold tolerant of all French beans. |
Hard to get going but cropped well, beans very tasty |
|
|
Dwarf French Beans |
Sonesta |
Early maturing, waxy yellow beans on compact plants. Pods are slender, straight and stringless reaching up to 13cm (5 inches) long. |
Hard to get going, not a great crop |
|
|
Dwarf French Beans |
Slenderette |
Slender, smooth stringless pods are glossy and dark green. Very high yield and quality |
Hard to get going, cropped well and beans tasty. |
√ |
|
Garlic |
Cristo |
Very white skin, pink cloves and round bulbs. |
Too early to tell, planted October |
|
|
Lettuce |
Pinares |
Improved Parris Island Cos selection. Uniform crops averaging heights of 30cm. Very adaptable and has some resistance to tip burn. Lovely sweet flavour and crisp texture. |
Really nice, wish I’d planted more. |
√ |
|
Parsnip |
Avonresistor |
Quick maturing established favourite. Flat purple top turnips. Sow Mar - Jul, harvest Jun - Oct. |
Good, tended to fork. Good taste and roasted well. |
√ |
|
Pea |
Feltham First |
This first early, round seeded variety gives early crops of large well-filled pods of sweet tasting, fine flavoured peas. It can be autumn or spring sown as the plants are winter hardy. |
Grew well and tasty. Not a great crop, but perhaps I didn't water them enough. |
|
|
Potatoes |
Arran Victory |
Victory was bred in the Isle of Arran by Donald Mackelvie. Victory, the oldest of the "Arrans" still grown, was named in 1918 in celebration of the ending of the war. |
Grew well and tasty. Not a great crop, but perhaps I didn't water them enough. |
|
|
Potatoes |
Edzell Blue |
Edzell Blue was first recorded in 1915 but it is said to have been bred in the Victorian era. Edzell Blue has an attractive bluish/ purple skin with deepish eyes, contrasting with the snowy white flesh. |
This might be a rare potato but it didn't crop well and didn't taste that good. |
|
|
Potatoes |
Rocket |
First early maturity producing an attractive uniform sample, very early bulking, and high yielding. |
Didn't crop that well this year. |
|
|
Raddish |
Neckarruhm (White Dream) |
For greenhouse, cloche and outdoor production. Fast growing,nicely shaped,pure white roots with white flesh. More uniform and longer than Icicle and well suited for slicing. |
Quite hot and grew very large when left to their own devices. |
|
|
Raddish |
Saxa 2 |
Alan Titchmarsh organic |
Lovely |
√ |
|
Rocket |
Wild rocket |
A tasty 'cut and come again' variety producing masses of attractive strong-flavoured leaves. Ideal for salads or cooking, it can be harvested all summer. |
Good, but decimated by white fly. |
√ |
|
Salad |
Oriental mixed leaves |
Cut and come again crop. Mixture of pak choi, mibuna, green mustard, cima di rapa nand red mustard. |
Not bad, attractive to white fly. |
|
|
Shallots |
Red Sun |
Gaining in popularity due to its attractive red tinged skin. Arguably the best of the red shallots. Good yields of crisp, white fleshed bulbs of excellent flavour for cooking, in salads or for pickling. Bulbs have long storage potential. |
Grew really well, nice flavour |
√ |
|
Shallots |
Golden Gourmet |
Dutch. This is a major advance on the traditional Giant yellow and produces larger and better quality bulbs with reduced bolting incidence. |
Grew really well, nice flavour |
√ |
|
Spinach |
These struggled a bit, I think because I didn't water them well enough |
√ |
||
|
Sweet Pepper |
Pepper Quadrato d’Asti Rosso. |
The lovely golden brown skinned bulbs store well throughout the winter. |
Failed |
|
|
Sweet Pepper |
Golden Bell F1 Hybrid |
This pepper matures to a large, 4-lobed, blocky fruit. These shiny, medium-green peppers are very thick walled and turn a golden yellow when fully ripe. |
Greenhouse. Grew well, reasonable crop and tasted good. |
√ |
|
Tomatoes |
Red Pear |
Like 'Yellow Pear', this small, red pear shaped tomato makes a very nice salad garnish. The fruit typically weigh one-half ounce. The plants will tend to sprawl all over the place and will be loaded with large clusters of fruit. Likely predates 1800. |
Didn't crop that well, but tasted good. Succumbed to tomato rot |
|
|
Tomatoes |
Gardener’s Delight |
Cordon (Indeterminate). The true tangy flavour of tomatoes of a century or more ago. |
Once again, really good crop with excellent flavour. |
√ |
|
Turnip |
Purple top milan |
Quick maturing established favourite. Flat purple top turnips. Sow Mar - Jul, harvest Jun - Oct. |
Grew well. Taste a little strong. |
beetroot
Probably a bit late for these, but they were on sale in the garden center so in they go. This also gave me a chance to play with my latest toy - a tablet and pen.
Beetroot Woden F1 Hybrid
Woden F1 hybrid was bred by Thompson and Morgan and introduced in their 2004 catalogue. It is a globe beetroot with bright red flesh that can be harvested as baby or mature beets. Mature beets do not go fibrous and store well. Young leaves can be eaten as spinach.
last of the tomatoes
I picked the last of tomatoes, they’re never going to ripen now and they’re prone to blight. I made some green tomato chutney with them.
of cabbages and caterpillars
onions and garlic
* I don’t think that I’ll be growing these again - low yield and not a lot of taste.
thermo-king
We need more compost room (we run out of space when we mow the grass) and I need to replace the two wooden heaps that we inherited with the house (which are rotting). I emptied out one of the wooden ones into one of the raised beds. It’s enormous and I’m going to buy another one.
Once we’ve eaten the last of the beetroot and parsnips, I intend to leave this one empty over winter. The soil was pretty low, so it needed the compost.
I let the chickens (under gardeners) out and Amber came to help.
more tomatoes
holiday
The cabbages and cauliflower are being somewhat eaten by whitefly, but I've been spraying and watering them (and picking off caterpillars). I'm wondering what to plant as we slide into autumn.
Sunday sufficient
We were discussing how easy it would be to be self-sufficent and what being self-sufficient actually means. We're self sufficient in eggs. Given more land, time and ability I could imaging being self sufficient in vegetables. Today, I decided that we're "Sunday sufficient" - we have enough vegetables such that every vegetable in the Sunday meal comes from our garden. Here's a picture of beetroot. The crop is big now and I've been cooking and pickling it.
eating the blues
We ate the first of the Edzell Blues. They look very attractive, but if you boil them in their skins, all the colour goes (it turns the water an odd blue). Mashed they are somewhat floury. Taste wise, they're (I'm sad to report) nothing special. We also had a big portion of the green beans (Rocquencourt, I think). Actually, they're a lovely pale yellow. I steamed them for about 10 minutes and then added a bit of butter.
that's not a plum
failures
Dwarf Green Beans
I struggled with my dwarf green beans, getting 2 or 3 plants out of 8 planted. I persevered and I now have three rows of beans producing crops. However I cheated and bought some to fill out what I'd grown.
Potatoes
My potatoes have been pretty poor. The plants were massively leggy and have not yielded well. I've left the Arran Victory and Edzell Blue to grow for longer in the hope that I get a better yield.
Spinach
I've also had poor results for my spinach. Partially, I think that I under watered them so they've struggled. They're under special needs and I'm watering them carefully. I also planted a row of seeds that came up and were immediately eaten. By slugs, snails or birds.
Swede
I planted these last autumn and kept them over winter. I think that they went to see. Whilst they looked pretty good, they were so hard that I couldn't get a knife into them. I ended up pulling them up to make room for something more productive.
spinach in special needs
ooh, that's a big one
green beans
First peas
garlic supplies are assured
of cabbages and cauliflower
CABBAGE ROUND -‘STONEHEAD’ F1 Plant April / August. Good quality, uniform with very solid heads. Use for successional plantings. Can be used as baby vegetables. Harvest June to November.
CABBAGE SAVOY -‘MILA’ F1
Plant April / July. Early maturing. Dark green, good standing ability and resistance to bursting. Suitable for successional plantings. Harvest November to February.
White Cauliflower 'Nautilus' F1 improved
A high quality variety with extra white deep curds. Also a vigorous hybrid even in cooler climates and useful for extended autumn crops. Sow Feb for cutting July to November. Remember the trick with cauliflowers is a really rich heavily manured vegetable plot as they will not do well on poor soil.
broad beans in flower
too much happening
salad days
busy weekend
sowing more seeds (successional planting)
Having lost a lot of green beans, I first put the soil in, damped it off, planted the seeds and then sprinkled a thin layer of soil over the top. The tray is under a lid in the greenhouse, but not in the propagator. I'll see how it goes.
impulse buy
Red Sun
Gaining in popularity due to its attractive red tinged skin. Arguably the best of the red shallots. Good yields of crisp, white fleshed bulbs of excellent flavour for cooking, in salads or for pickling. Bulbs have long storage potential.
Golden Gourmet
Dutch. This is a major advance on the traditional Giant yellow and produces larger and better quality bulbs with reduced bolting incidence.
The lovely golden brown skinned bulbs store well throughout the winter.
greenhouse raised seeds doing well (mostly)
These are my dwarf green beans. They're coming along but I have a high failure rate. The problem seems to be that I'm waterlogging them and they end up rotting. Still these are being hardened off ready to go out next weekend.
The tomatoes are looking good too. Again, I'm hardening these off. The tallest one is Red Pear, the rest are Gardener's Delight.
These poor souls are also Red Pear. I nearly killed them by leaving them in the propagator one hot, sunny afternoon. Most of their leaves turned brown and died. I've nursed these back to health, but they're way behind the others.
beetroot planted out
tomatoes looking good
courgette sprouted
The courgette that I sowed (Tondo di piacenza) on 30th March has all sprouted. Lovely.
Tondo di piacenza
A round variety from near Parma. It's shape makes it ideal for stuffing. Bake them whole and they stay firm on the outside and go soft and creamy inside. How can you resist? Bush type plants, sow March to August.
captain's log, supplemental
Outside
Planted spinach seeds in the small bed.Built cane supports for the peas (which are now starting to come through)
Planted first early potatoes ("Rocket")
greenhouse
Planted "slenderette" dwarf green beans
potted up Gardener's Delight tomatoes (next stop outside in the garden at the end of April)
propagator
Planted more Rocquencourt (here's hoping)
Added more basil, only one plant came up.
Planted chilli pepper ("Anaheim"), these came free with Gardener's World
spring?
I've finished the bark chipping path, so now I can walk around the raised beds without getting all muddy (and it looks neater). Outside, after the easter snow, the asparagus is peeping through and the peas have started to sprout. Meanwhile, in the greenhouse, it's all systems go. I'm glad that I bought a propagator.
rocket still climbing
Paths
peppers starting to show
herbs starting to sprout
propagator
still waiting for spring
I've used about 2/3 of the soil that I had delivered on Thursday, I think that I over estimated how much I'd need. I've been filling up the raised beds (I didn't quite buy enough soil last year and my compost heaps are not producing enough (yet)). Maybe I'll get some of the paths done this weekend; I bought some weed membrane yesterday.
spring onions
sowing more tomato seeds
more herbs
Asparagus
I bought and planted out asparagus (Bachlim and Crimson Pacific, both F1 Hybrids). Whilst they might produce spears this year and next, they cannot be harvested for 2 years. So, that's 2010 then.
Backlim
Mid to late season male variety, with consistent yields of large, smooth spears with well closed tips. It boasts good disease resistance, and is a very reliable performer in the kitchen garden.
Crimson Pacific
This mid season purple variety, is so tender and super-sweet that young spears can be eaten raw in salads, providing unusual colour and flavour.
spring coming and I'm ready for it
heated propagator working
dead, jim, dead
I think that my other beans are dead. Maybe I'm just being pessimistic. Meanwhile, I've sown some more Rocquencourt and some Sonesta. Mostly these have gone into the propagator, but I've put a few Sonesta into a normal pot just in the greenhouse.
Sonesta
Early maturing, waxy yellow beans on compact plants. Pods are slender, straight and stringless reaching up to 13cm (5 inches) long. Early to mature with a long cropping period. Plants are resistant to Common Bean Mosaic Virus and Anthracnose.
beetroot
Beetroot Detroit 2
Perfect for pickling!Dark red, delicious-tasting roots, ideal fresh or pickled. "Growing vegetables can be fun and very rewarding. Not only do you get that 'fresh from the garden taste', but also genuine health benefits, since freshly picked vegetables are the highest for vitamin content. Try my organically produced seed and get a taste for gardening." - Alan Titchmarshsweet peppers
Pepper Quadrato d’Asti Rosso.
The most highly prized sweet pepper in Italy which ripens to red. Comes from Piemonte.Golden Bell F1 Hybrid
This pepper matures to a large, 4-lobed, blocky fruit. These shiny, medium-green peppers are very thick walled and turn a golden yellow when fully ripe.asparagus bed built
carrots
Nantes 2
Quick maturing and ideal for sowings from Feb under cloches or fleece cropping from June. Can also be sown as late as August. Blunt ended 16cm cylindrical roots with almost no core and a lovely sweet flavour.rocket sprouting
heated propagator
cold, very cold
I went to Southill Sawmills on Friday and ordered some wood for the path edging and a couple more raised beds, each a metre square. One for asparagus and the other for herbs. I'll need to order soil and wood chippings from Maddingly Mulch.
lift off: rocket starting to sprout
more potatoes
Arran Victory
Victory was bred in the Isle of Arran by Donald Mackelvie. Victory, the oldest of the "Arrans" still grown, was named in 1918 in celebration of the ending of the war. It is rare and is one of only two blue skinned varieties still available for general cultivation. It is high yielding given a long season. The tubers are round to short oval with blue skin, snowy white flesh and deep eyes. In Scotland they are still regarded with some awe as the premium late season variety.Arran Victory has a very high dry matter which makes normal boiling difficult but they have exceptional flavour for mash, so do not be put off when they fall apart a bit. Arran Victory potatoes need to be simmered very gently and NOT boiled vigorously. They have a fine texture which makes for the most wonderful white mash which will crisp beautifully if used as a shepherd pie or roast. They do make particularly good roast potatoes, and they will also fry, bake, steam and microwave.
Edzell Blue
Edzell Blue was first recorded in 1915 but it is said to have been bred in the Victorian era. Edzell Blue has an attractive bluish/ purple skin with deepish eyes, contrasting with the snowy white flesh. The skin colour turns to a creamy colour when cooked, and it is best cooked with skin on and boiled or steamed.dwarf green beans and rocket
swede
I can't find when I actually sowed these. Some time in October or November, I think. Anyhow, they've come through the autumn and are growing ok. Some of the leaves have been eaten. It's very mild, so the pests are surviving. Last week I took off the worse leaves in the hope of taking out the pests. This week I covered them with a plastic cloche to keep them warm as it has been forcasting frosts and snow.
sowing my tomato seeds
In an act of optimism, I've planted out some tomato seeds
(Gardener's Delight and Red Pear ("the gourmet salad workhorse of
the tomato world")). Hopefully the heated greenhouse will keep them
free from frost and I'll be able to plant them early in spring.
Apparently they should take 8 weeks from sowing to being able to be
planted out. I just checked and it showed twice last year, 24th
January and 9th Februray. Today, by contrast it's 11º C! I also dug
some compost into the bed where I'll be putting them. The same as
last year - a south facing plot behind the garage. I think that the
wall helps shelter them and keep them nice and warm.
chitting my potatoes
Now that I have my electric heater sorted out, I bought these potatoes (Rocket Scottish Basic - good for boiling and steaming) and put them in the light ready to chit. I also cleared out the ground where I'm going to put them - at the side of the garage. The soil is surprisingly good, maybe this used to be a bed once before.