First planting!

Getting some warm weather at last! The home thermometer says 15°C and it certainly feels like it.
Some of the carrots in the deep box, sown on April 14th for Carrot Week, look as though they may be germinating finally so I left that square alone for now. The carrots in the cold frame are not showing at all, possibly they got too dry?

Here is the plan for this deep bed:


















The broad bean plants were all raised inside. I sowed them in cardboard tubes, filled with compost, and seated on a layer of vermiculite. They made great root systems, out into the vermiculite. I hope that they will transplant OK. The Masterpiece beans are very tall, they certainly grow quickly - and claim to be the fastest growing broad bean. Both types should grow to 90cm. I've staked them now, and will have to stake them better later.





The sweet pea plants were also started off indoors in an eggbox - did not work so well as the roots must have been disturbed when planted out. May need to replace them with something else later.

I sowed one square of the Javelin parsnip which I tried last year. Also three squares of The Student. I grew that some years ago and thought it did very well so it will be interesting to compare a heritage type with an F1. Not sure if 16 seeds per square is too many, so did one square of 9 seeds.

The box had one square of Early Nantes 5, sown in Carrot Week. I put another squeare next to it, this is three weeks later and if the first lot do anything at all then I want to know if there is any overall advantage of early sowing. The final two squares are Amsterdam 3 Sprint. Grew these last year and they did seem to be a tad faster than the Nantes.



I watered everything and covered the whole box with fleece.
The shallow box still has the coldframes over it. The strawberry plants look good and the garlic is mostly doing fine. Some cloves had rotted so I pulled those out. there were three squares unplanted in there, so I planted those up with onions: Centurian, a white onion, 16 to each square.

Next thing to do is get another box (or two) made, and buy potatoes to chit.

It is 4°C (39°F) at the moment. The forecast is for around 2°C (36°F) through til Tuesday next week so not much point waiting for it to improve! And on the plus side it isn't actually raining/snowing right now, though it is pretty windy.

Last year I sowed my carrots on April 29th, and even that was early, so I reckon that if this lot don't show I can resow in the first half of May and still get a crop.

I sowed Early Nantes 5 in two squares. One square is in a 12" deep box, under agricultural fleece, and the other square is in a 6" box which at the moment has a cold frame over it so it should be a bit warmer in there. I can lift the frame off later when it gets warmer.

I'm aiming for 25 carrots per square because I use string for the grid and 16 carrots looked too few last year. I thought I should put three seeds at each station since germination may be poorer than normal - in practice my fingers were so cold and the wind so strong (the tears in my eyes did not help either) that the spacing was very erratic!

The squares I used are the back-right square of the strawberry box, and the front-left square of the deep box which I just moved.

Stupid weather!

I made the most of a mild spell, and moved the deep box further back in the garden (behind where it was). Before I moved it, I put a layer of weed barrier down in the new patch, covered that with a thick layer of newspapers, and covered that with more weed barrier. I hope that will keep the fruit tree roots out for longer.

I plan two make two new boxes, a shallow one to put where the deep box was, and another deep box to put at the back. That will give me two shallow and two deep 4x4 boxes, and a small box in the centre with rhubarb in it (the rhubarb is coming up nicely, clearly much happier than where it used to be).

Meanwhile, I weighted down the exposed weed barrier with paving stones, and covered the box with garden fleece so that the grow mix will warm up faster. It was all looking good...

...then on Sunday we had the worst storm of the winter! I went out twice to add more rocks to various things (just saved the newspapers from blowing away) and still the gas grill blew over! I don't think that I actually lost anything but it was a close thing with the cold frame and the wheel barrow.

Today I decided it was time to sow some seeds indoors.

12 calendula
12 gazania Gazelle
1 tray of antirrhinum
4 pepper sweet minimix
4 pepper California Wonder
16 kalibroc
12 broad bean Masterpiece
10 broad bean Medes
10 sweet pea
15 strawberry Sarian F1 Hybrid

Most of these are seeds from last year or the year before. The broad beans I bought in the UK. Masterpiece is supposed to be very fast, and Medes is a heavy cropper so it will be interesting to see which does best. I sowed them in cut down cardboard tubes as peat pots are so expensive.

I still need to sow a tomato plant or two. And it is only three days to CARROT DAY! The SFG website is having an organised carrot sowing on or around April 15th so I need to sow some Nates carrots then. Given the weather they will have to go in the cold frame I think. I'll try a square in the deep box too but I suspect the germination rate will be very poor.

I'll post again when I have done some more :-)

Spring is not quite here!

Can't wait for the new growing season, I have so many plans!
I read somewhere about winter sowing in plastic containers. The idea is that you sow seeds in the late autumn and just leave them in the containers, outside. Come spring, the seeds start to grow and you get an early set of seedlings.
I wa sa bit later but decided to try with some seeds. I sowed: the broccoli which I got free with some other seed purchase last year, purple extra early sprouting Rudolph; last year's spinach Picasso F1; Calendula, fiesta shades; and a few of a packet of blue columbine which Omar brought me back from New Mexico where it is the state flower.
I cut down 2 litre bottles and sowed the seeds in the bottom (made drainage holes), and taped the top half back on top. There are some pictures below.
The wind blew two bottles over and I had to re-sow seeds in them. So the sowing date was around the 14th February.


While I was out resowing the bottles which fell over, I decided to look at the squares where I planted the garlic last year.
I was amazed to see green shoots in there! Some of them have multiple shoots so I hope that indicates that there will be a proper bulb growing later.


I also sowed some caster oil seeds inside. Plan on having them on the balcony if they grow.

Catch-up time!

OK, fully admit that I have been lazy recently.

Here is a picture which I took on September 13th. Three weeks later the garden looks pretty much the same! The weather has stayed warm, above 10°C most of the time, and I think there has been a very slight frost just twice.













You can see that I made a small box for the rhubarb, and moved it from where it was. One plant came from Hvolsvöllur and the other one I bought a couple of years ago but it never did very much - probably because it was between the blackcurrant and gooseberry bushes! They are now planted in garden soil, with some mushroom compost mixed in. I'll give them more pompost in the spring.

Today I cut a bowl of broccoli - actually I have thrown quite a bit away as it had begun to flower. It just keeps coming and coming, as little florets which should be good to stirfry.

I planted some garlic cloves in the shallow box. Nine cloves from a supermarket, and eight from Maður Lifandi (so they are organic). The supermarket ones are in the square where I had the spring onions I think.

I have transplanted some young strawberry plants too. When it gets cold I am going to put the coldframes over the shallow box. I hope that will result in a btter strawberry crop and even some fresh garlic.

Finally, a picture of the parsnips and carrots which I pulled on September 22nd. I wanted them for a family meal when we were all together after the summer - the parsnips were not huge but very tasty! I have left the rest of the carrots and parsnips in, not sure how much bigger they will get but the grass is still strong and green so they may be growing a little. Depending on the weather I may leave them even longer.

More carrots!

I thought that I would see how the Nantes carrots are doing... wow!
In contrast to the Amsterdam (see previous post) they seem to have gone for width more than length. Although actually they are not short either!

The biggest one is 17cm long and over 4cm diameter.

It is still amazingly warm every day with temperatures over 15°C, dropping to 10°C at night. There have been heavy rain showers some days, but not much wind so the carrot grass is still standing and I have high hopes for the parsips :-)

The currants did not do very well. In particular the black currants were pathetic... 40g off one bush! And even the red currants are well under a kilo. They must need feeding and watering better.

The gooseberry bush has produced quite well but apart from a few picked yesterday to eat with some mackerel, I have not picked them yet.

Verslunarmannahelgi!

This weekend is what used to be called August Bank Holiday Weekend in England. The first Monday in august is a holiday for most people. Here in Reykjavik it often means the end of the summer season; the nights are getting darker and the garden slows right down.

A couple of days ago I pulled an onion so that I could use it for dinner. Today I decided to pull them all as I doubt if they will grow much more now. Some of the leaves had died back and all of them had fallen over so it is unlikley that the bulbs would get much bigger.

In all I got about 1kg of onions from a total of 64 onions - not a great yield but probably the biggest onions I have managed here. To be honest, I think I planted the sets too deeply. I followed the instructions on the packet and it said to put a full bulb deep i.e. top of onion buried about a cm. Previously I have put them with the tip of the bulb just covered and I think that is a better method. I think these ones were too deep and stayed too damp around the bulb. None of the bulb was exposed when I harvested them.

About half a dozen went straight in the compost bin as they had neck end rot. The rest are in a seed tray and I'll let they dry out a bit before bringing them in to store. The largest onions were about 5cm in diameter.

Here is a photo of the total crop, and one of an onion with neck end rot. You can just make out some little white insects which are in there too :-(















On a brighter note : the broccoli is still shooting away and the strawberry plants are putting out runners which I plan on rooting to make more plants for next year.

The runner beans have been flowering like crazy now for a month, but not a single bean to show for it. I read on the internet that at best only about 50% of flowers set, and that bees do the pollinating. There are plenty of bees in the snapdragons which I have in the front garden, but nota single one in the beans. Then I heard on Gardeners' Question Time that it is possible to spray with sugar solution - this attracts wasps and flies which pollinated the beans while they get the sugar. So, I mixed up some honey and water, and spalshed it around on the beans. It certainly attracts the wasps and flies, have to wait and see if any beans set now. I doubt if they will mature so late but if they set then at least I may decide to try runner beans again next year - if not, then I think I'll just have broad beans as they do set OK.