outdoor tomato

Unexpectedly, people from Get Growing course came and helped us today. We showed around our garden and made outside tomato bed together, which I gave up doing before holiday. Great! We planted Welsh Farmers Law and My Girl which I am expected to report to the Seed Saver, also cutting sideshoot of Lilya and St.Pierre. My girl were not sturdy and healthy whereas Farmers Law looked very good. Soil seemed fluffy and rich enough, so I didn't give any food but nettle juice. We supported tomatoes and sweetcorn by cane because the wind last night snapped sweetcorn.

Today was so windy that we have up planting out gobo although Chris made a super fine bed for them. We have two days before going on holiday and asked friends to water plants while we are away. Chris completed the irrigation system and I planted out all plants from modules into pots.

Today was rainy and windy. We worked all day inside. I planted out lettuce(salad bowl) and pumpkin(small suger) between sweetcorn. I found aphid on tomato and rubbed them off. I planted basil, garlic chive and marigold onto the tomato bed. They are all good companion plants for tomato and hopefully help to reppel pests. Nigella and california poppy were also planted on the border. Chris built a watering system using a water but.This will save a lot of time and lavour for watering.

Working party

Chloe and Chambo came to join us for cropping indoor potato. We ate them for lunch and they were delicious!Chris is going to work out the difference of product depending on compost. Sweetcorn(Double standard) was planted out straigt away after potato. Today was windy and some newly planted plants were snapped and blown away. We earthed them up.

Completed Planting out lettuce(salad bowl), komatsuna and rocket. Chris was making the special bed for gobo.

New product

Japanese leaves grown outside are smaller and harder than those inside - tasty but not suitable for salad. It's interesting to see the difference depending on their growing environment.
We cropped early : Japanese leaf mix for stir-fry and a mix named Rainbow Salad, which is lettuce & rocket with various flowers: nasturtium, borage and sage. Very pretty.

Junka planted courgette and french bean inside.
We made a careful check for aphids on the salad and rubbed or sprayed soap water wherever we saw them. Catapillar eggs were on the broccoli only one day after planting. It seems we will have to fight against pest all summer.
Chris rigged up one of the new water butts as a huge nettle collection bin to make 200 litres of liquid compost. This is at the Stinky Station where you can get all your high-nutrient liquid fertilizer!
Chris planted out the rest of the White Cos lettuce from modules.

Broccoli was planted out. I didn't have time to put any organic matter and feed fertilizer and liquid compost from nettle and seaweed. I put cane to support the plants from wind.

more plant out

Modules are becoming overcrowded. I planted komatsuna and rocket into bigger pots for the time being. Gobo, leeks and lettuce need to be planted outdoor as soon as possible. Chris planted out pumpkin(Cindellara) between sweetcorn on the same bed. I planted out courgette(Albavellodi Sarzana) and sowed more(Nero di Milano) in pots.

plant out

Lovely sunny day. Chris planted out sweetcorn(golden bantam). I made beds for courgette and broccoli, putting chopped rocket, comfrey and nettle as well as seaweed & comfrey juice. They all have been ready for weeks but we haven't got around to make beds. Indoor beds are becoming weedy and messy. I wanted weeding but there are more seedlings in pots and module waiting to go to new beds. So many things to do!

Seedling Saturday

We joined Seedling Saturday at Machynlleth and hold a stall in the event. Unfortunately, we haven't got much stuff for selling after supplying to local shops and sold some seedlings of komatsuna, karashina instead. We showed Japanese food recipe and taste for demonstration. It would have been a good chance to sell our salad bags in bulk but it was worthwhile as we could let people know our garden. Some of them are interested in our working party. We also got some interesting seedlings and look forward to planting out them.

Tomatos are growing well and Lilya started fruiting. I tied string with them and cut sideshooting. I also planted marigold next to the tomatoes. The soil inside the marquee looks dried and thin. We put a lots of chopped chard and grass cutting onto the beds. There is need for irregation and ventilation before summer. We cropped more potato. Some were very big!

suffering

We had difficult time with cropping this morning. Rocket became bolting and too hot, santona and lettuce don't look very good because they got burnt with heat and attacked aphid. I was expecting to be able to crop outside but they don't look good either. They are suffering from slugs and wind. I was shocked to see some plants blown off by wind.

Keep on Digging...

Up early for a 7-bag treehouse crop.

A fresh batch of stinky nettle juice and another 10 metres of beds dug over on the hottest day yet - 37 degrees in the Marquee and about 24 outside.
Continued digging out new beds outside. Very hot, big tan, burnt my back. Ouch.
Began testing soapy-water spray on indoor salad to combat greenfly and aphids. Mixture possibly too weak and/or Ecover washing liquid is not strong enough. Will try stronger batch tomorrow.
I recruited some Ladybirds from the infested flower outside and brought them into the Marquee in a glass cup. They immediately stared bonking whilst in the cup! The more the merrier...

More planting

A perfectly warm, still day for planting out.
We completed beds outside [Eb+d] and planted out seedlings of Kabu (japanese raddish) and Lettuce (White Cos). No time to put compost into soil as the seedlings have been ready to go to new beds for a while. I put organic fertilizer and special stinky juice of nettle and seaweed.
Hardly finished planting when we had a thunder storm & showers. So we did digging, weeding & hoeing inside instead.
Chris chopped chard, nettles and rotted grass clippings onto new bed [C2] ready for Tomatoes in a couple of weeks.
We moved the cold frame outside and Chris began digging it out and laying in compost.
Junka planted sweet pea and poppy on the border.
Junka took out the radish at the far end [D3] and Chris put chopped up chard, nettles, grass and stinky juices in.

The outside is beginning to look like a real garden now! We were very pleased with our progress today.

slug party

Sunny, still day. Lovely day to work outside. I continued making a new bed (Ebc) after Chris dug out, sowed more carrot and raddish too. Inside was too hot but I tidy up the border, cut back flowers because I found tons of woodlice in there and nibbled crops. Peppers, hot and sweet were planted out. Also planted tomatoes into bigger pots. We cropped potatos, quite big as early potato, and enjoyed them for supper.Delicous! Crhis did proper slug search at night after a couple months and discovered hundreds of slugs and snails having party.

Big croppings

We stayed over at the gardens, rose with the sun and cropped nice & early for Nisa:
Ten bags of No7 (the final crop of Syungiku)
Eleven bags of Tricolor Chard
Thirteen whole Little Gem lettuce
Four bags of new No9 (Kom, Let, Roc & Nasturtium

Junka re-sowed outside beetroot
Chris transplanted perp. spinach & chard to [DEd]
Chris started new outside brassica beds [Ebc]

Hot & Windy

Junka planted more karashina, chinese cabbage, sowed radish inside. Also planted out Japanese snap pea outside. (PHEW!) Courgette, broccoli, peppers, tomato (sun gold), and coriander are big enough to plant out and crowded. I planted them into big pots for now because ned beds are not ready.

It has been superhot summer-style but also very windy.

New Salad

Made new beds for salad (brassica) [DEc]. Planted out komatsuna, karashina and santona. They will be in the next Japanese leaf mix.

Junka re-sowed carrots outside and pricked out borage and nasturtium into pots.

Final Shirona

Cropped five No7 Salad Mix (Kom, Syu, Let, Roc) and secretly added the last usuable Shirona leaves before taking them out. They have served us well for over two months!

At the moment we have very little sellable salad, so we cropped some Chard from outside and gave this to Family.

Evelyn planted out tomatoes in the Marquee.
Junka planted out Edamame in Marquee.

Mix mix

Snail bloom

Today we went to the garden briefly first thing and found that the snails and slugs have come out full force - a combination of rain and warmth has flushed them from their hibernation. The chickens must learn to eat more snails!

We bought some new old tools from the Tre'r DDol car boot sale.
We also bought a Venus Fly Trap plant. What we really need is a Mars Slug Trap plant.

Did a quick crop in the evening and delivered to Nisa for the first time in ages.

New outside bed

Tomato have started flowering.
Planted lettuce and rocket into a new bed outside. Gave special comfrey liquid to tomatoes and stinky nettle liquid to the newly planted salad leaves.

Mum Wooff

We put Chris' Mum Evelyn straight to work digging new beds outside for salad. We have no time for holiday nonsense around here.

New croppings

Cropped the first new potatoes (indoor) just to see how they were: not big but good enough for early potato.
Komatsuna grows quickly, even over night.
Peas have started having pods.
Outdoor: Carrots haven't come out so Junka re-sowed.

Evelyn is here

Chris' Mum arrived. We had a meal with Janet and Fred, eating new potatoes, radish and salad from the gardens.