Edible Garden - update 15.04.2015

After dipping into Alys's excellent book, I decided to try and sow directly in some areas of the garden. I have been quite hesitant to plant anything directly which is not in pots, but I figured won't ever be able to improve if I don't try. If it works, great. If it doesn't, make a note of why and change it for next time.

So, I have used one bed in the garden for a small crop, and will try my hand at companion planting while I'm at it. So, here I have lettuce, spring onion and carrot. Not sure if the string is supposed to be there, but for me personally it helps me know where I have sowed should I want to add any flowers. Poppies, for example, could be grown with carrots. I have a fear of attracting carrot fly, so I invested in a big tall pot and thought I try to grow a smaller variety there, and use mint as the companion plant. After giving the seeds a sniff, I can totally understand why the fly wants the carrots; the smell is exquisite!

I also planted 3 peas, I want to try and grow Sugar Ann snap peas. We'll see how they go. If nothing happens, I might try again in the greenhouse and then plant them out. Not sure what that random lonely shoot is...

My mother-in-law likes courgettes, so I am trying to grow some for her. I only sowed 3 seeds at first, to see how it goes. I also sowed some calendula (marigold) around it as those two seem to be good for companion planting. I'm hoping that at least one of the seeds will germinate and make a nice little display on that bed.

Strawberries I'm really excited about. Birds stealing my fruit is something that is worrying me, but I will invest in a net and some hooks in the next couple of weeks. Birds never come to the part of garden nearest to the house as we have a cat that treats our garden and that of our neighbours at each side as her playground - I know she poos in mine, I have seen her digging!! Not impressed. Anyway, what I mean by that is that hopefully the strawberries in the tub will be safe... We'll see. I can always cover them up too.

Do people net spinach, kale and salad leaves too? Something else I need to look into. So far, I have taken the spinach and salad leaved out of the modules they were in because they were annoying me, all floppy. The salad leaves have been in the pot for a couple of days and it might be wishful thinking but I could swear some of the leaves have got bigger!  They are still living in the greenhouse for now, but I think they will go out in May.

Lastly, the potatoes! All of the bags are finally showing signs of growth. I am waiting patiently to cover the leaves up. I had the 3 bags sitting in a huge plastic tray so they wouldn't dry out, but I just found the water would collect from random showers during the day and the sacks would be sitting in an inch or two of water all day. So I have them sitting about in a little trio.