It has been very mild with little rain. This meant that digging chicken waste into the new potato plot was hot work. That bed is now ready and I thought about planting some potatoes in it, but decided against it because they’re predicting frosts next week. Instead I planted 3 ‘Swift’ potatoes into a bucket in the greenhouse so that I can have some early potatoes. I also tidied up the small bed and covered it with netting to keep the cats out. Last year’s spinach is growing nicely and looked better for a bit of a tidy up.

I did plant some spinach (‘American Giant’) in the bed outside. The propagator got more pepper (‘Sweet Romano’), lettuce (‘Blonde Maraicheri’) and dwarf french bean (‘The Prince’). I moved out the carrots (‘Paris Market’) because nothing seemed to be happening with them and I want to get as much of a throughput as I can through the propagator.

I also bought another gooseberry plant to go with the other one behind the greenhouse. I picked a red one (‘Hinnomaki Red’) which had a lot of shoots showing.

Tags: root vegetables, salad, fruit

I decided to use the space behind the greenhouse to grow some fruit plants so I bought a gooseberry plant (‘Invicta’) from the local garden center. I also pruned the one that came with the house (which didn’t fruit last year).

gooseberry ‘Invicta’
Invicta is a very popular green gooseberry. The large green berries are excellent for culinary use but are also sweet enough to eat fresh when fully ripe. The bushes are vigorous, heavy cropping and have good mildew resistance.

Tags: fruit

Gill and I were at the garden center last week and I bought three fruit bushes on impulse. Two raspberry (Malling Jewel) and one blackberry. Given that every one that I bought last year died, this is an act of optimism.

Even more of an act of optimism is that I planted them this afternoon, just before it snowed. Doh!

Tags: fruit