Three potato, four...

Our seed potatoes were delivered during the week and are now ready for chitting on the shed window shelf.

For those interested, the seed potatoes are Thompson & Morgan stock, but supplied by Capital Gardens at 25% discount.

See here for details.

One potato, two potato...

We have ordered our seed potatoes from Capital Gardens and this is our choice for 2010 :

Cara

A high yielding, trouble free, all rounder maincrop.

Golden Wonder

The ones that are made into crisps also make excellent roasters !

Nadine

A second early variety we are trying for the first time.

Maris Piper

A maincrop variety that we will be lifting as small salad potatoes.

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Big Onions

Our first sowing of the year :

I am going to try to produce some big onions that can be exhibited... but can also be used in the kitchen !

The seeds have been supplied by Johnsons and are being kept in the warm until the seedlings are big enough to transplant.

Winter Update

The patch is looking a bit sad following the recent Arctic weather.

Leeks, swede, celeriac and black radish have all survived and we continue to harvest these for the table... the cheese & leek quiche being a notable success !

Our Autumn planted/sown onions, garlic, shallots, peas and beans appear to have been unaffected and should produce some good early growth when the weather warms up.

There has been some damage to our purple-sprouting broccoli. First we had attack by pigeons and we decided to protect them with netting and then the netting became weighed down with snow, causing the plants to bend and some of the tops to break off. We remain hopeful for a good crop come Springtime.

We have been busy studying seed catalogues during the dark nights and have started to order our seed stock for the coming season. Although the idea of growing 'heirloom' vegetables is appealing, there are often good reasons why many of these varieties have become ignored... they have poor yields and can be prone to diseases.

Therefore, we will mainly be growing F1 hybrid varieties to ensure that all of our efforts are rewarded with plentiful crops of good tasting vegetables. We will grow some 'heirloom' varieties that we know from past experience will give good results.

Here's what we will be growing :

• Beans Borlotti
• Beans Cherokee Trail of Tears (Heirloom)
• Beetroot Solo F1 & Moneta F1 ('monogerm' varieties)
• Brussel Sprouts Trafalgar F1
• Cabbage (Red) Rodima F1
• Cabbage (Savoy) Tarvoy F1
• Calabrese Aquilese F1 & Marathon F1
• Carrot Flyaway F1
• Carrot Autumn King (as a 'sacrifice' crop)
• Cauliflower All Year Round
• Cauliflower Candid Charm
• Celeriac Prinz
• Cucumber Wautoma (Heirloom)
• Kale Tosca di Nero
• Leek Oarsman F1
• Leek Blue de Solaise (Heirloom)
• Onion White Sweet Spanish
• Onion Kelsae
• Parsnip Avon Resistor
• Shallot Banana
• Spinach Galaxy F1
• Spinach Fiorana
• Squash Avalon F1
• Squash Marina de Chioggia (Heirloom)
• Squash Ushiki Kuri

In addition, Heather will be growing a variety of salad leaves and lettuces as catch crops.

Easy like Sunday morning...

It was a lovely Autumn morning down at the patch.

Having constructed a compost bin out of three pallets during the week, I transferred a large pile of compostable material into it and generally tidied-up the surrounding area.

We removed all of the weeds from the mounds where the squash and sweetcorn were grown and gave it a good raking over. The weeds were fed to the pigs who enjoyed them immensely. In this area we will be laying down some flattened cardboard cartons covered with soil to keep the weeds down and will plant our potatoes there next Spring.

Inter Alium

We planted three rows of garlic and two rows of onions yesterday.

The pack of 50 Radar onion sets was produced by Taylors and bought at Secretts Garden Centre for £1.49

These sets produce "excellent yields of mild tasting summer onions from late May. Particularly resistant to bolting. Superb when eaten fresh. Stores well into the autumn."

The Solent Wight garlic bulbs were purchased from Edwin Tucker.

This variety is a "superb softneck garlic, producing large, top quality bulbs. If the cloves are planted early, mature bulbs will be ready to lift and use from July. This variety produces cloves that have an exceptional bouquet, full of depth and strength. Kept cool and dry, the bulbs will store for months."

We planted the onions and garlic in beds that we had prepared by digging-in compost and giving a dressing of bone meal. It will be necessary to keep an eye on them and replant any that the birds have pulled out of the ground.

Squash

We harvested our squash this morning, including an excellent crop of large trailing butternut squashes Avalon F1 and small round squashes Festival F1.

There was one small Jumbo Pink Banana squash to add to the very large one we picked in the Summer. Added to these were four large round squashes : The two 'turks turban' type are probably Marina di Chioggia and the other two are likely to be Musquee de Provence.

Most of the squashes are being stored in the shed with the remainder placed on top of the kitchen cupboards at home.