Veggie News Update

10

Saturday 28 March, 2015 by Uncle Spike

I’m very much behind on seasonal chores; what with health and weather both taking their toll this year. Thankfully the orchard work is now done until May, and currently I’m cracking on with some 200 plant and shrub moves in the house gardens, trying to catch up before the weather turns, the sun pops out, and the thermometer bounds upwards rapidly – after which point, anything moved usually dies off during summer.

Managed to grab an hour out in the veggie areas today; the first for ages too. It’s all quite overgrown with the continuing rains, but all was not lost – we even had some mild success this winter. I use that seasonal term loosely, as the temperatures are generally mild, but very very wet; however, this year’s extra cold snaps changed everything, with some things better than usual, whilst other crops failed miserably.

Obviously it wasn’t an ideal year for cauliflower!

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Nor for cabbages… they stayed tiny and then seed sprouted.

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Haha, and this one just went bonkers!!

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Yay, this one worked though, so that’s better than last year!

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This season we tried out some ‘winter’ crops with seeds brought over from England. The marrow was wiped out by the big freeze, but although a funny shape, these turnips, our very first, look okay to me.

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And even the swedes worked too, so there’s two new crops we might be able to rely on in the years to come. With all the rain, the leeks were quite happy by the looks of it.

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In a few weeks it’ll be that time to harvest the carrots and beetroot; which, whilst a bit overgrown, seem to be at the right stage for late March, so plenty for the whole year I think.

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But the best news are the peas. After last years problems, first with green caterpillar, and then decimation by red spider, the greenhouse looks positively healthy so far!

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I planted the broad beans almost two months later than usual last autumn, opting for a May harvest as winter storms knocked over much of the plants in previous years, hence they are much shorter for March, but we’ll see if that plan paid off later on…

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