Archive for category Novice Veg Growing

Hello Gardening World

May 17

Posted by CYeoh in Novice Veg Growing

I’m back!  *waves*  The completely rubbish gardener – less green-fingered / more butter-fingered gardener has returned. 

I have read my last gardening blog which I wrote on the 20th October, over 6 months ago!  Lazy!  To be fair we have been very busy at Suttons and it has been really flipping cold so I didn’t get into the garden much.  I am very much a fair weather gardener – I did really miss pottering about outside though and have thrown self into this gardening malarkey with gusto over the past couple of weeks.  I will look forward to sharing my gardening adventures and mishaps in 2010 with you this summer. 

On first blog of the year – I will share the following ridiculous story with you to highlight the butter-fingered-ness.

  Do you remember the frog that I had in my garden last year? We had a near fatal incident in Autumn.  I picked up a pot and felt something slimy crawl across my hand and immediately screamed like a little girl.  The Fella came running out of the house thinking that I’d chopped my own hand off or something.  He looked on horrified as I dropped the pot right next to the little froggie that I had just disturbed and had made a run for it.  “You nearly decapitated Fred!” (for that is the frog’s name) he yelled as he tried to manoeuvre Fred into a safe position i.e. away from the panicking female.  Poor Fred – hope he comes back this year… but will completely understand if he doesn’t.

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Garden regrets… (or something less drama queen-like)

Oct 20

Posted by CYeoh in Novice Veg Growing

I’ve been busy.  Family, friends, work, hoovering and dusting (but NOT ironing – I hate ironing), making extravagant meals far beyond my ability and shopping etc. etc.  I only just managed to take care of the small amount of veg growing that I did in the garden this spring.  So I decided to start up again next Spring and leave it to the experts this autumn / winter.

Last weekend, I ventured out into the garden and had a good look at it.  It looked awful – it needed a good clear up so I got stuck in.  I mowed the lawn, I cut back all the “stuff” (don’t ask me to name it – I figured that if it shot up so much this year, it will come back again next spring – fingers crossed eh?).  I tidied up the patio, which involved putting away the (complete waste of money) sun loungers :( and emptying out most of my containers in the flower beds.

Also, picked the last of the peppers and harvested the potatoes.

I really enjoyed doing it.  Garden looks less rubbish now and there is something quite nice about working hard outside.

I know that I won’t go out there in the winter.  It’s dark and cold when I get in from work and I will be mostly snuggling with the fella in front of the wood burner eating stodgy foods watching rubbish on the tv… I mean reading mind-expanding books and definitely NOT internet shopping or going on facebook but completing crosswords.

Am slightly regretful of my decision now as I love being outside in the winter on crisp cold days wearing my favourite woolly hat and getting a cold nose.   But I guess I will have to go for a  yomp on the moors instead :)

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Tomato Plant Destroyers

Sep 1

Posted by CYeoh in Novice Veg Growing

CaterpillarMy tomato plants are no more.  After a long and arduous journey they have gone to tomato plant heaven (i.e. the compost).  They were doing ok up to about a week or so ago.  They had suffered quite a lot with lack of water and then copious amounts – but I had a decent amount of fruit and was just waiting for them to redden.

I was away from home for a few days and was expecting to have to water the hell out of them when I got back but alas that was not it’s only problem when I got back to them.  They had been eaten alive by caterpillars.  I found literally hundreds of the little monsters chomping away.  After consultation with my knowledgeable neighbour, we decided that I had to give up on them.  Am disappointed as they were going pretty well and I had lots of fruit on them but it wasn’t meant to be.

Oh well – spicy tomato chutney will have to wait till next year…

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More Runner Beans than you can shake a stick at

Aug 3

Posted by CYeoh in Bedding plants, Flowers, Novice Veg Growing, Vegetable growing

weird phrase – but there you are.Flowerings

I have lots of runner beans.  This has been by far the easiest and prettiest veg that I have grown so far this year.  I grew it in a large container and surrounded it with my flower plants to make a very pretty corner in my garden.  Plus, I have discovered the yumminess that is eating them straight off the plant.  Wasted a good 20 mins last night picking them, cracking them open and popping them straight in my mouth… also completely ruined my dinner.  And don’t have enough runner beans left to make a decent meal – but I will have lots more soon… Dead chuffed.

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First Homegrown Lunch

Jul 21

Posted by CYeoh in Homegrown Food, Novice Veg Growing

Red Duke of York potatoes are so pretty when cleaned up… bright scarlet red.

I was feeling a little lazy so just boiled them up, fried some onion and garlic, sliced up the potatoes (with skins on – couldn’t bear to peel it) and threw it in with some chilli powder, salt, pepper and, randomly, half an oxo cube.  Was really yummy – meant to save some to go with dinner – I ate it all…

I didn’t realise before I started all this that different varieties of potato have such different tastes.  Red Duke of York  are quite floury so figured they would fry well.  Am really looking forward to my Charlottes and Vivaldis.

Red Duke of York Potatoes First Homegrown Lunch

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First Homegrown Potatoes

Jul 16

Posted by CYeoh in Novice Veg Growing, Vegetable growing

Hooray!  Please see pic for this evenings’ tea.  Am v. excited.  Enjoyed myself throughly scrambling for potatoes in the soil.

I have some practical tips!

  1. Chop the top growth off before tipping out the bucket and stick it in the composter
  2. Drag the bucket near to where you want to relocate the compost.
  3. Get a sheet of plastic (or in my case a black plastic bag) and tip the bucket onto it.
  4. Scramble in the soil for your potatoes!

An extremely satisfying exercise.

I spoke to our garden advisor about the little white dots on some of the potatoes and he said if it comes off when you clean them, don’t worry, it’s just surface fungal growth and it just means they’ve been sat wet for too long.  He also said “You’ve done well haven’t you?” in, quite frankly, a surprised tone.

Am all pleased with myself….

Red Duke of York Potatoes

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Tomato Boils and Bubbles

Jul 10

Posted by CYeoh in Novice Veg Growing, Vegetable growing

Was happily fiddling with my tomatoes the other day when I pulled back in horror.  On the bottom side of the lowest branch (or stem or whatever it’s called), were little white bubbles.  I delved a bit deeper and saw that the bottom of the main stem were covered with these white bubbles too, but were larger.  To be completely honest, they looked less like bubbles and more like boils.  It looked so horrible, I immediately went into denial and pretended that I hadn’t seen them and continued on my gardening way.  But, that evening and throughout the next day I kept getting flashbacks, so I pulled myself together and went to ask the gardening adviser…. he wasn’t in yesterday.

Now, one of the things I do here at Suttons is buy advertising so I get sent lots of gardening magazines.  I happened to be flicking through one of these mags when I came across an explanation in the “Agony Aunt equivalent” section of gardening mags.  Apparently they are “Embryonic Roots” and I should add more compost to encourage a bigger rootball…. so if I get a chance this weekend I am going to do that.

But I will be harvesting my potatoes if I get any time this weekend and quite frankly that takes priority :o )

( I will try and get pic of it this weekend)

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Tomatoes and Platoon moments…

Jul 6

Posted by CYeoh in Novice Veg Growing, Vegetable growing

It’s all coming together… my tomato plants are covered in yellow flowers and yesterday I spotted my first tomatoes! First Tomato

I have become slightly obsessed with this growing your own business. I walk in the door after work, straight into the kitchen, dumping bag, flicking kettle on (of course) and straight out the back door to make sure everything is ok.

The other day, I had what my boyfriend termed as a “Platoon” moment when I walked out the back door and spotted that my tomato plant had drooped over.  I ran over to it in what felt like slow motion yelling “NOOOOOOOOO!”  as I tried to gather it up in my arms to support it. My veg growing neighbour thought I had had some kind of horrible accident and stuck his head over the fence to make sure I was ok.  He calmly advised me to tie it to my garden light to help it stand up.  He was very kind and didn’t laugh at my complete over-reaction.

So another lesson learnt – don’t just shove the cane in and hope for the best.  Support it properly!   There is also the added benefit of not making a complete idiot out of yourself.

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My first strawberry

Jul 2

Posted by CYeoh in Novice Veg Growing

I am fully aware that MANY people will have had lots of strawberries already.  A friend of mine has already had over 8lbs!  But I planted mine late and probably not in the best place.  I don’t care, because this is my first-ever, self grown strawberry.  The variety is Tarpan which has, unusually, red flowers and not the standard white.  I am promised tasty oval fruit from the pretty red flowers that it is currently covered in.  I can also vouch for the fact that it is very easy to grow.

I am incredibly excited – but I must be patient.   Will let you know how it tastes.  DSC05257

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The Chard looks great! – Help, what do I do with it?

Jul 1

Posted by JJohnson in In the Veg Patch, Novice Veg Growing, Vegetable growing

Chard - dramatic and easy to grow

Chard - dramatic and easy to grow

I decided to grow this vegetable because, 1) it looks great, and 2) it’s supposed to be easy.

It’s confirmed on both counts, chard looks spectacular and grows really easily, and unbelievably quickly.  So, what now?  I’m trawling recipe books and the net for easy recipes (don’t do complex things), to dispose of the chard mountain that’s rapidly getting out of control, any suggestions would be appreciated.

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