Garden Progress

 Seems a long time since I dug over all these beds and paths to dig out the bindweed. 

But so far the hard work seems to be paying off. Yes, it keeps coming up but I have a walk around once a day and pick it to keep on top of it and it's so much less than it was before. 

It's really making me happy to see the garden being so fruitful and already looking so green and lush. 

Strip The Willow

The other day I realised as I was planting my runner beans that when I had harvested my hazel bean poles I hadn't harvested nearly enough! 

But then again I have increased my growing since I cut them down!

May Garden Tour 2020

The garden is benefiting with the extra time I've spent in it lately.

There's so much going on so I decided to do a quick (ish) walk around the garden to show you what I've got growing this year.

Lots of crops for seed saving hidden everywhere as well. I'm hopeful this should be my best year for saving seeds and crops for drying! 

New Bits Of Growing Space

Every year I struggle to fit certain plants into my garden and struggle for space but this year seems worse already.

I guess I've gone a bit mad with my planting and I have certainly increased the numbers somewhat with each plant to try to sustain us more.

The Garden In April

I've never spent so much time in the garden in April before. 

This was just as a much needed rain storm broke

The lock down coupled with the glorious weather has meant I'm on top of it all for once! Well in the veg garden at least... Everywhere else still looks a mess!

Barley Wood Walled Garden

Last weekend my wife and I managed to have a few days together without the children!

It felt very odd at first but we soon got used to it! The first day was sweltering with high temperatures so we didn't feel like doing much. We were staying near Bath and had planned on visiting a lake but when we got there we couldn't see it for all the safety notices! So with a quick search on google I found a walled garden to go visit that was fairly near. 

New Growing Areas Created

Well not completely new it must be said.

I'm going to show you all a picture of what was my soft fruit garden and you have to promise not to laugh!

ARGH! You promised!

This is my not so little corner of shame in my veg garden. It's a real shame because the veg garden, with it's 32 even beds and cordon apple trees down the side is looking pretty good these days, then as you get to the bottom you see this overgrown mess.

Garden Tool Organisation

The weather has been amazing this week so I've been spending as much time outside as possible. 

I've even managed to dry some washing on the line!

My workshop and carpentry tools are pretty well organised. I know where everything is in my workshop, other than a pencil or tape measure which I can never find when I put them down! Everything has it's place and has somewhere to go where it's protected from damage. In this way I can also see if something is missing.

Cut to the garden and it's a different story. My garden tools haven't exactly been looked after over the years. When the weeds are running wild its hard to even find where I've left them at times! Although it pains me to admit that...

A Day With A Market Gardener

I've tried to do a lot of learning over the summer. The way I figure is that I invested a lot of time to learn to become a carpenter, well if I want to be a market gardener then I need to invest some time into learning how to do that properly.

Last year I was lucky enough to go on a course run by Phill Allen in the garden he runs at Apley. 

I'd left that day feeling totally inspired and armed with his email and some pretty patchy communications between the two of us we'd managed to stay in contact. I was dead keen to go back up there and "help out" if he could put up with me for a day. Luckily we found a day we could both do (last Thursday). 

So I set out early in the morning and drove up to near Ironbridge to pester Phil with questions all day! 

The idea was that I'd shadow him for the day and see how he operates. doing some jobs with him and asking lots of questions as we did them! 

Picking and washing carrots

It was amazing just to be back in that walled garden, and we were joined by four volunteers who come once a week to help out with some of the bigger tasks, they were doing a great job of weeding huge areas! I could have done with them at mine! 

Big stands of herbs growing ready for picking 

 It was great to see the layout of the garden again and to see how things look in a different season, last time I went it was the end of April so completely different to the end of the summer. There were crops everywhere, either in blocks or rows and Phil knew where everything was, although like me I think he keeps a lot in his head rather than on paper!

The gardens were looking good! 

Sweet corn that we'd harvested that morning

Edible flowers for sale

Another doorway into another garden on the estate

Polytunnel full of tomatoes that we pruned. 

I went with a list in my head of what I wanted to find out and I feel that I came away with the answers I needed, mainly about pricing and marketing of some of the more unusual things I grow here. But also other things I hadn't really thought of selling and how I should set up areas of my little homestead. I need to establish more areas of perennial herbs and plants that can be a good fall back if other crops fail. He had huge stands of herbs around the place and I'm thinking I'd much rather have that than the huge stands of nettles I've got at the moment! I'll be sheeting some areas over ready for planting in next spring outside of my normal garden area. 

When I got back I was really fired up about the whole thing, I got straight on the phone and spoke to a local restaurant to arrange a meeting and to drop off a big box of veggies for them to try. Hopefully I'm going to speak to them and see what type of things they'd be interested in if I started to grow a few things for them next year. I didn't feel confidant enough before as I had no idea what some things should be priced at and didn't want to go in without some of the answers to obvious questions. . 

Hopefully Phil and I are going to keep in contact and swap growing tips, marketing advice as well as seeds and plants in the future. 

A great day and I really appreciate his time in trying to make me a better gardener! 

Harvesting Soup Peas & Lots More

The garden is constantly producing lots of produce now, I've just set to harvesting my big batch of soup peas and trying to make sure I keep on top of everything else. 

Here's another video showing what's happening in the garden. 

Mum's Open Garden

This Sunday (the 16th) and next (the 25th) my mother is opening her amazing garden to the public for the first time! 

If you're local to the area (south Shropshire) make sure you pop in and have a look. I'l be there next Sunday to help out so make sure you say hello! 

It's an absolutely breathtaking garden and all the money goes to a great cause. 

You can find the details here or see some pictures I put up of her garden a few years ago here.

Growing Twice As Much From The Same Area

I love getting as much out of my garden as I possibly can and although it is fairly large as vegetable gardens go I still try to increase my production. 

This year many of my beds are already on their second crop, by double cropping like this I can probably get around 50 crops out of the 32 beds in my main garden, some crops on the other hand need to be in a for a long time and I have some I'm growing out for seed and that takes much longer.

Yesterday was a great example of this, I'd finished harvesting my first bed of kohlrabi and straight away I amended the soil and sowed five rows of carrots in it's place. 

Here's a video of me talking about how I'm trying to get more from some of my beds by double or even triple cropping them in a season.

Normal yearly crop rotation rules have to go out of the window when you do this though. 

Do you get more than one crop from your veg beds?

What fast growing crop do you love?

My Week In Pictures

 Sorry I've been rubbish on the blog this week, It's been busy to say the least!

Here's a few pictures of what we've been up to! 

The hot days have meant every meal has been eaten outside on the new patio

Breakfast in pyjamas

Couldn't ask for better company! 

A sneak peak at the new chicken coop I've designed this last week or so! A blog post and video coming up on this next week! I'm really pleased with it!

Child labour podding broad beans for tea

Made up some more veg boxes this week to sell to people I know. I was really pleased with the selection

The sheep have been moved a couple of times this week. The boy loves the stock! 

The two younger ones playing nicely together, here playing mum's and dad's. Considering he's only 18 months old he's really good at playing the games the girls come up with!  

Some baking - Here's some more pesto swirls I made

Some summer crops are ready now - Syrian Cucumber 

Yellow Courgettes ready as well. I don't have a poly tunnel so I was pleased to get these so early.

Some lovely red cabbage ready as well in the garden. 

Trying to stop my biggest garden pest from stealing all my veg! She spends the whole time down there eating! 

Some brought in eggs for hatching - trying to bring in a bit of fresh blood for breeding. Bet the hen won't stay broody now! 

Harvesting potatoes with the girls today! Is there a better job to do with children?

Another compost bin completely filled! Shows the garden is in full swing at the moment! 

Spring Harvests

Lots coming out of the garden already! Good if you like leafy greens at the moment! 

Lettuce Cancan, I've sold most fo these now. The bed will be claered this weekend then sowed with five rows of carrots. 

White seeded Samara, growing for seed and to sella few - these look lovely. 

A whole bed of spicy salad greens, I mmixed this myself but it seems to be a great mix. 

Beetroot bed - I transplanted these but they've taken so well. Three rows, with plants spaced at 4inches

First pull of beets

Di Choggia cut up ready for tea

Beeteroot tart 

A bed of radishes is ready now as well. Love the colours on these!

What are you having out the garden at the moment?

2017 Veg Planting Plan

This is subject to change! 

You can see a previous years planting plan here.

The greenhouses are used for starting seeds and transplants earlier in the year then for tomatoes, chillies and cucumbers later in the year. The left hand side of the garden also has 30 something cordon apple trees as a fence between the garden and the field.

All beds are 10ft by 30" or 3m by 750mm

The way I'm setting out the "main garden" means that on many plots I'll be able to get two crops out of some beds. Things like squashes won't go in until late may/early June, so I might get some baby leaf salad in there first and then things like garlic that are harvested quite early will have a crop following them, like beetroot or carrots.

Having 32 beds and many plant families should make rotation easier in future, although some of the main crops you always want to grow more of. Having a few beds of annual herbs and lettuce in here should make rotation more flexible as well. 

I will be growing some of these through plastic, the idea is to not leave the soil bare and try to make it manageable for one man with some small people helpers to keep on top of! 

The second garden has it's beds laid out double, so each one is 20ft x 30" (6m x 750mm) and will contain crops that require less input from me. That means things that can be harvested in one go, like winter squash, quinoa for grain and winter brassicas that don't need much attention during the summer when I'm really busy, like purple sprouting, cabbages and sprouts, hopefully no watering will be needed up there either! 

There are other areas that I will be planting up around the place. The area below my young fruit trees will end up with something in there (currently a small patch of Chinese artichokes that I forgot to harvest and try!) and I have some raised beds at the end of the main garden covered in weeds, so I might clear them out at some point to plant something. There is also two beds at the top, one is full of day lilies and the other is going to be planted with globe artichokes. 

My key aims are to record what I do this year so I have a record of area planted and yield gained as well as the days it took from planting to harvest (days to maturity). But to eat as much as we want and to try and sell the surplus. I'm also making a real effort with seed saving as I have been given some seeds to try to preserve so areas or beds will be set aside for that later in the year. 

I'm hoping a more systematic approach will bring food self sufficiency that little bit closer but I'm sure it will all go to pot in a few months and I'll have weeds round my eyeballs and a glut of things I can't preserve!

What do you think?

Do you like my veg plan or is it too formulaic for you?

Show me your planting plan!

An Organised Garden

Well almost!

The garden is probably at the only stage in the year where it looks remotely organised. 

Beds are laid out, some of last years crops are still in the ground to be harvested and new ones are nearly ready to be planted. 

As I've got quite a large number of beds laid out this year, I've decided to make sure they're numbered. That way I can easily keep records in my diary of what is planted where and I can also say to my wife that she can pick veg from ## bed if I'm not cooking that night. 

I made the number tags from some off cuts of 6mm (1/4") ply, I painted the numbers on with some black oil based paint and then coated both sides of the tags with boiled linseed oil to give them a bit of protection from the weather. 

I then went and tied these round the garden and realised that the planting plan I'd already drawn up (on the computer luckily) was the wrong way round so needed changing, that's why I've not shared it with you all yet!

The girls and I managed to plant some potatoes today as well, it's a nice first early variety called rocket which will be good with a salad, I know it's still early but I plan to use one of my hooped  frames covered with plastic to make a mini polytunnel. Only one bed planted with them so far - bed 13 - unlucky for some!

Who else numbers their veg beds like this?

Anyone else got their spuds in yet?

Garden Talk By Phil Allen

Last night I went to my mothers gardening club to sit in on a talk they were having. 

She quite often tells me when there's a talk I might be interested in and I have been before although only once. When I do go I think I must half the average age in there, there's lots of hushed "is that her son" going on as well! 

I'm doing a talk at her club later in the year on unusual vegetables so I'm look forward to that, hopefully i'll make it funny and informative. 

Head Gardener - Phil Allen at the entrance to the garden area

I was really keen to go this time because the talk was by Phil Allen, the head gardener at Apley Walled garden. I went last year and spent the day with him (you can read the post here) and it was one of the most interesting and inspiring days I'd had in a long time. 

He's a really passionate guy with a great sense of humour and this really came through in the talk he gave about the history of the walled garden. I had loads of questions for him afterwards and he also gave me some great ideas and revenue streams that i could follow up on. 

I also said I'd love to volunteer up there for a few days to see him in action and learn even more, he seemed keen on this so we've swapped details and I'm already looking forward to learning more from him, there is no better way to learn in my mind that to go and do something and to be shown by someone who can do it well.

Has anyone else been to a good talk/lecture about something they're interested in and given them loads of ideas?