Growbags and Greenhouses -The WB Garden Blog

Yes, a first harvest of broad beans – I managed to find just enough on Sunday to mean we were able to have some whole pods steamed with our dinner. There seem to be quited a few pods coming along so the broad bean season is well and truly started.

Broad Bean HarvestThe pen in the picture is for scale only....Broad bean Pods

The picture above shows some of the growing pods

We’ve had sunny weather for a few days which has helped get things moving in the garden, which has meant watering for the laast couple of days. Today we’ve had a helpful shower to save me from having to water – and a thunderstorm is rumbling around at the moment.

Elsewhere, the extra peas are now planted – in between the existing peas and the broad beans, and they seem to be happy enough.

I’ve planted  a short row of red mustard as the existing row is close to flowering, and they are through already.

All the outside tomatoes look pretty good now, some in flower and even the ‘runt’ in front of the kitchen has grown into a real plant.

Everything else is doing well apart from the salad rows in sections B & C which aren’t really all that good. See the broccoli plants below – coming on well.

Row of Broccoli

In the greenhouse, the tomatoes are almost up to the roof, and tiny tomatoes are growing fast (see below).

Baby Tomatoes

The pepper plants in a growbag  have got over the initial shock of replanting and are coming on (see below)

I’ve pricked out some of the celery seedlings into pots and they seem to have survived ok. The basil and coriander now have recognisable leaves. I’ve added some more seed to the top of the pot that had seed in which hasn’t made a show – so maybe that will get some growing.

I’ve even done some weeding – especially round the beans and peas.

Wildlife – well another squirrel has been evicted, I saw a hedgehog ambling down the path in daylight the other day and toads have taken up residence in the greenhouse growbags as usual – just 2 so far (see below).

Toad in growbag

The blackbirds are being very noisy, alarm calls in the morning and evening probably for the cat next door. The male still comes down often to investigate what I am doing in the garden – gets disappointed though as I’m not digging. We still got goldfinches turning up from time to time on the nyjer seed, and the ’sparrow gang’ is pretty active.

Yes we had over a week of sunny weather, including amazingly, one weekend (we actually attended an outdoor meal and event in the sun!). Then, during last week it all fell apart again and topped by a very wet weekend, plus wind of course. Temperatures tumbled from over 20degC to less than 10degC last night – almost put the central heating back on!

However, some progress in the garden. All the french beans are in now, though some of those planted earlier are struggling to get going partly as a result of the weather I think, and partly as a result of pigeon attack.

The only things left to plant outside at the moment are the dozen peas – and I’m struggling to find where to put them, not to mention the weather (though it is fine today it is still windy, mostly cloudy and more rain predicted for late today & tomorrow) plus celery.

The climbing beans are now well up the fence, and the broad beans now have one or two baby pods (the row of dwarf type furthest from the fence) so maybe we’ll be eating a few in a week or so. The peas have started to flower, but as mentioned above, the french beans are disappointing – only one has really got to be full size and isn’t flowering yet.

The rocket and red mustard were being harvested while it was sunny and ’salad weather’, and the new row of rocket is just appearing but I still need to plant more to follow on (the rocket is already trying to flower). The weather will have to buck up before we will feel like eating more salad.

The sweetcorn seems to be coming along ok, but one or two plants are still lagging in size. The salad rows in the same plot are slowly coming through. 

On the plot A the broccoli are now looking pretty strong, apart from one at the end of the row that has been got at by pigeons I think.  The curly kale looks ok as well, the the nearby spinach plantlets are still recovering from their earlier pigeon damage. The courgettes and cucumbers both in the plot and in pots & growbag all look ok, but have been held back by the weather. I’ve been harvesting the lettuce already in plot A, as well as those inside the greenhouse. The short row of carrots is still looking very sparse, but the beetroot, turnip and radish are looking a bit better.

The growbag tomatoes by the greenhouse and outside the kithen are looking a lot more healthy now, even the tiny ‘runt’ one near the kitchen.

Inside the greenhouse the peppers are at last in a growbag – four of them so they will need to get growing fast. The tomatoes are now almost at roof  level with plenty of flowers, some of them set now I think. The basil and coriander planted in pots are now seedlings, but the lettuce planted in a pot haven’t shown at all – looks like I’ll have to plant some more asap as the pot of grown lettuce is now just about harvested out. The celery seedlings are coming on – slowly, it will still be a week or so before they can be planted out.

So that’s about it – the only other plants growing well are the weeds of course and the recent rain will only have made that worse – and I’m not the most enthusiastic weeder so the rows of beans and peas are well infested with weeds underneath.

Apart from the visits of feral pigeons, which continue though the ‘CD scarers’ seem to have put them off the crops mostly, I have managed to evict the latest squirrel intruder.

Now of course the lawn needs mowing (but it is wet) and the hedges…..

I’ll add photos if I get chance.