Wet summer!

Really! Was it summer at all?
A quick run through what happened... a new cat on the block decided that the veg boxes made perfect cat toilets :-( so the few carrots which struggled to germinate were decimated by digging. No carrots at all from the usual sowing period. The "carrot week" ones did rather better and I have a few nice carrots from them. They are Rainbow carrots so not quite as vigorous as normal orange ones, still, better than nothing.
The parsnips which I started indoors look fantastic! At any rate the leaves do, I have not pulled any up yet. The parsnips which I sowed as normal have hardly grown at all so I think this indoor method is the way to go in the future - assuming that it is not all top-growth.
I dug all the French La Ratte potatoes today, we had a couple of meals previously. the tops were being eaten to death by slugs so it seemed wise to get them up and out. Got about 2 kg all told which is pretty good from two squares. The adjacent Premiers are looking good but I left them in for now.
Beans... hmm, well it really was not warm enough when I put them out and the French ones died back. The summer was cold and wet and not a good one for beans. It looks as though there are a few broadbeans and two Borlotti!
The leeks are doing OK, all things considered. I did not thin them properly so perhaps they would be bigger if I had. Worth trying again next year. Same with the onions from seeds, they grew at least large enough to eat.
The shallots did OK, not huge but use-able. They had onion thrips when I took them up.
The Italian kale grew but I never actually used it! Kept waiting for it to get bigger. The broccoli had heads but did not do very well. 
The garlic was pretty successful. Both the cloves saved from last year and the 2nd year bulbs grew nicely. The purple ones from Frú Lauga did not do much - I may have pulled them up too early though, they may be a later variety. The soft neck from Italy did not make very big bulbs, they look as though they have divided but not grown much. May stick some of those back in later.
The rhubarb did very well, I took three small crops off it and it grew all summer. The strawberries suffered from lack of sun. I just picked the redcurrants and got about 600 g of those plus a handful of white currants.
There is a plague of slugs now, munching the potato grass and the last few strawberries.

17th June!

Yesterday I finally had time spare for the garden so even though there was a light drizzle I did a bit of work.
I planted-up the patio planters - with an odd mixture of flowers and salad leaves. Sweet peas at the back so they can go up the trellis, busy lizzies in front in one planter, and the other one got a few clumps of mixed Italian salad leaves which I had started indoors, and a couple of geranium.
I pulled some more rhubarb, almost a kilo this time. Still problem with slugs eating the talks.
The potatoes are doing well now. For some reason the carrots are barely germinated in the right hand box, not sure if I should cut my losses and sow some more or what.
I transplanted one of the aqualegia plants and put it in a flower bed. If it survives I might move one of the others too because they are too big for the box now. They are flowering and should not be in there.
The broad beans are rather sad looking and the french beans look half dead! One or two have flowers but must of them are dead back to the first pair of leaves. It looks as though they might be regrowing from that point though so I trimmed the stems and I will see how they do this week.
Looks like I may have plenty of empty squares soon :-(
The one nice surprise is the parsnips. The ones which I started indoors are flourishing. I pulled up two plants since they need thinning anyway, and they have lovely little roots! Perhaps I should try doing carrots this way too next year? The "carrot week" ones have germinated quite well this time but starting them off indoors would mean that they would be well away by now.

Bought some timber yesterday so that I can edge round the veg boxes and put down woodchips to make it look neater. Once that is done I will post an update picture to show how things are growing. We really need some sunshine.
Oh, forgot to say that I planted out the runner beans too. They have been outside in a tray for over a week so the garden should not come as a shock but they were started too early indoors, as were all the beans.

Beans out!

Still not much sign of summer here. The weather is mostly grey and either cold and windy or slightly less cold and windy.
The indoor beans were beginning to look pale and straggly so I planted them out today, except for the runner beans which really would not be happy in such cool temperatures.
I planted them pretty much as planned although I had some unnamed broadbeans which I think now were probably the Italian ones, anyhow I pushed them in where there seemed a little space.
The strawberry plants have plenty of flowers - and also plenty of green insects all up their stems. Sprayed them as best I could with green soap solution.
Sowed another square of spinach. The other square is doing OK, not all stations have germinated yet but most have. Some of the parsnip seed was on the surface which can't bode well. Some of the potatoes are showing and a few of the shallots look good.

Re-potting and potting-on

We ate the first cucumber last week!  There is another just about ready on the second plant, but the poor plants have been eaten half to death by some tiny brown insects which hang around on the underside of  the leaves. I tried spraying with dilute soap solution and that reduced the numbers I think but they bounced back very quickly. Then I tried submerging the whole plant. I tied a plastic bag around the pot, to keep the soil from washing out, then I dumped the whole lot horizontally in a bath of tepid water. That seems to have helped a lot. I did one plant and then repeated it, and did the second pot yesterday. If this doesn't fix it I may just toss the whole lot out and replant.

One of the key lime plants is rather sad-looking so I have cut away the dry bits and re potted it. The other one looks much healthier.

I was given some more chitted potatoes and as there was no space in the garden I made a ply-wood box, and filled it with some of the molta I bought. Not susre if it is suitable for potatoes but nothing much to lose.

I had two plants of big Italian flat-leaf parsley and I put that outside, in the same square as the Jerusalem artichokes. As far as I recall they do not put out much leaf low-down.

I had some busy lizzie cuttings in a vase, they rooted very quickly and I have potted them up. And there were a few small plants in the aerogarden which i also potted-up so now that is turned-off.

It is still way too cold to put out any summer plants. The broadbeans are looking very tall and thin, and some have sick-looking leaves. Hope it warms up outside soon!

More seeds in

I decided to get the carrot seed in while it is possible. The ground is wet now and the air temperature about 7°C over the day.
Sowed:
6 squares of Nantes2
1 square of Rainbow carrots to compare with the carrot week ones
2 squares of parsnip Albion F1, in case the indoor ones fail
3 squares of shallots - 1 bag of Picasso and 1 of Yellow Moon
1 square of spinach Fiorano F1, plan on second square in two weeks time
1 square of mixed salad leaves

That just about fills everything once the beans go in and the second square of spinach.
I never sowed anything else to have indoors. Or the sweetpeas. Plan to do that tomorrow.

Ascension Day planting

We have had lovely weather for the last couple of days and even though it is set to rain now, the temperature has at least gone up a bit and it does not look as though it will freeze... maybe.
Since I had so many indoor things ready to go out I decided just to plant them and hope for the best.
The parsnips which I started indoors were ready to go way too soon I think. They had roots curled up at the bottom of the paper pots so I can't see that they will develop long roots but I put them out anyway. They will need thinning and if I pull up a few and the roots look hopeless I will just pull them all up and plant something else.
I put the potatoes out now too, a bit later than last year. Two sorts, French salad ones which I saved from last year, and some which must be Premier or similar, from a supermarket.
I put out the Italian Kale, four plants to a square, and the calebrese/broccoli, two per square. I also planted out the leeks and the onions grown from seed, and some Alpine strawberry plants. And one parsley plant, I have more of those and some more strawberry plants indoors.
The bean plants are all up now. They can't go out just yet so maybe I should have planted them a little later, will have to see about that.
I watered everything and then covered with fleece.
I will post diagrams of the planting scheme later, once the boxes are full.
The strawberry box is doing well, some plants have flowers already. I noticed that at least one cutting of honeysuckle from my sister's/father's has survived. Also what must be a Bramley apple grown from seed. I put them in the coldframe, each in their own pot, because it seemed they were more likely to survive there than indoors.

Beans, beans, beans!

The weather is still not very spring-like. Finally got around to sowing beans indoors today. I have always had 4 broad beans per square and that seems about right to me. In Mel's book it says 9 per square for bush beans, and 8 per square for pole beans. So with this in mind I sowed enough for 9 per square - except the Masterpiece broad bean which will be 5 per square (mostly because I had run out of tray space!). That is the plan at least, assuming they all come up.
The Masterpiece and Moonlight beans are old ones from last year or the year before. Moonlight did not do well last year but I am giving it a second shot.
The Borlotti beans and some broad beans called Aguadulce Supersimonia are ones which I bought from a farm shop near Derby. They are Italian so may not be suited to this climate.
The French beans are from a Nordic company It will be interesting to see how they perform.
Below is the plan as I see it. The empty spaces will be for carrots.

Jerusalem artichokes	Moonlight runner beans x9	Broad bean Masterpiece x5	Broad bean Masterpiece x5
French bean Lord Nelson x9	Borlotti bean x9	Broad bean Italian x9	Broad bean Italian x9
French bean Lord Nelson x9
Rainbow carrot  x16	Rainbow carrot  x16