Fruit, Veg, Flowers and Slugs

Happy New Year! I will start this post with a look back and the feeling of satisfaction I felt when able to serve Christmas Dinner at mine last month with Carrots, Parsnips and Leeks all fresh from the vegetable patch. It is lovely to be able to simply wander down the garden to do the veg 'shop' and children and grown-ups alike all enjoy pulling a few veg out the ground for their lunch. The Eskimo Carrots have lived up to their name and hype and are beautiful despite being under several inches of snow a couple of weeks back and as you would expect the  Parsnip Gladiator  and the Leeks didn't mind the snow and cold at all.  There is little time to rest on the laurels mind you and as the New Year dawns, it is a great time to give the Greenhouse a thorough clean and wash down and on a mild day with a little winter sun shining down it can become quite an enjoyable hour or two spent. A bucket of soapy wat er, sp onge and a soft broom for those harder to reach places is p

I have sown a packet of Mr Fothergills Green Manure Autumn/Winter mix on the part of the main veg bed that is now empty the French Beans having finished and the leeks thrown onto the compost heap having bolted.  I mentioned in a previous post what handy things Green Manures are. They stop weeds spreading as they grow so quickly, the seeds I sowed had germinated in just three of four days, and prevent nutrients leaching from the soil over winter. Clovers fixes nitrogen in the soil whilst Rye Grass and Mustard improve soil structure - these are all in this particular mix. Green Manures are also beneficial to a number of insects when few if any plants and flowers are around in late autumn and early spring.  The plants will be cut down and lightly dug into the soil come spring prior to the sowing of seeds next March/April.  If you have never used a green Manure seed mix I would highly recommend them.  On the rest of the plot it is all about harvesting and storing at the moment. The Runner

 The Leeks have bolted!  A mini disaster has beset the veg patch with the Leeks all bolting/going to seed. I have had to accept the inevitable and dug the lot up! Each and every one had gone, all forming bulbs rather than nice long slender stems.  Some will say I planted out the seedlings too early, I put them out over the Easter Weekend in early April, but I have done this many times before and all has been fine. I think it is a simple case of the weird and wonderful weather we have had this year with it so unsettled - hot when it would normally be chilly, wet when you'd expect it dry and cold when it should be time to slap on the sun cream!  With the French Beans also basically done I have cleared half the big bed in total, dug in some Chicken Manure Pellets and sown a Green Manure mix over the bare soil.  Poultry manure is a useful source of nitrogen and I also scattered a fair helping around the Strawberry plants as I do every autumn. I will naturally add other fertilisers such