My Tiny Plot

I realise it’s only March (well, April nearly) but my Blackcurrant bushes and Red and White currant bushes are flowering - big time! The flowers are so teeny-tiny that I only noticed them this evening when I was making my 6pm sweep of the garden.

The Blackcurrant flowers (top) are all hairy and cute, packed tightly inside every leaf nook. Whereas the White currants (above) are yellow and dangling down, ready to form the drooping sprigs that will be picked wholesale come summer.

This is so exciting! It means that there ‘will’ be fruit. Oh I am glad.

Just a quickie to share with you my harvest this evening. I’m really loving these light evenings now and spent a good half hour pottering around the garden tonight. In my basket went some Kale and some New Zealand Spinach.

Both crops have been growing over winter and have sprung back into life over the last few weeks to enable me to bring in a super-early harvest. I treated the Spinach with some plant food last week and it’s come up more lush and green than ever. Very worthwhile.

Tonight, these are accompanying my Sausage and Cherry Tomato bake (Jamie again) with an nice glass of white Chenin Blanc - well it is Monday after all!

I love good food!

I picked the first of my tulips this afternoon. I have a bank of them growing along the left hand side of mtp. I love tulips. They’re just so crisp and fresh. I love the way that they’re quite firm to the touch and stand bolt upright. I love the way sometimes their colour doesn’t got all the way to the bottom of the petals but merges into green just before it hits the stalk. I love that squeaky noise that they make when you rub the leaves together.

They’re also the perfect cut flower for the kitchen garden! You plant them in Aug, Sept when most vegetables are coming to an end and you’ve got lots of ground to play with. And they flower so early that they will be over and done with by the time the ground is needed again for vegetables. Brilliant!

Okay so I’m the first to admit it, I’m not the biggest fan of Rhubarb. It’s sort of tangy and makes me make a funny face when I taste it. At least that’s what I used to think before under gardener decided that he would make some of Jamie’s recipes and chose the ‘Speedy Rhubarb Fool’. OMG! Can you say Sweetness itself?

So here I am picking some Rhubarb the minute it’s anywhere near ready (making sure to break it off and not cut it). And running indoors with it, begging UG to make the thing, the thing! you know from Jamie’s book.

An hour or so later (okay so we forgot to take the pastry out of the freezer) and ta-dah! It’s made, and we’re in the garden in the bizarre March sunshine enjoying the only Rhubarb recipe that I actually like.

Okay, here’s the recipe. Just promise me you’ll make it.

Today, I did some pollinating. My Peach tree is in full flower, with not a single bee in sight. So I did the only thing I could do in the circumstances and got out my paint-brush for a spot of hand pollination. It was quite relaxing really, dusting the pollen from the stamen to the stigma (the only Biology lesson where I totally listened). Dibbing here and dabbing there - yes very satisfying. Of course the Victorian country gardeners would traditionally have done this with a rabbit’s tail fastened to a long stick. But, hmm rabbit’s tail? Where do you find one of those? And don’t say on the end of a rabbit - come on, whaddya expect, I’m vegetarian!

Of course, no sooner had I finished hand pollinating my Peach tree and cursing the bees for being so tardy, then along comes one, bold as brass and does the job for me in one quick in and out. That put me in place, didn’t it?

I don’t know what it is with Brassicas but I always sow too many of them. Maybe, I’m just hedging my bets because I tend to lose a lot of plants each year, either to slugs, caterpillars or mealy bugs. Or maybe my hand just slips when I’m sowing, I’m not sure. All I know is that at this time of year I have a lot of transplanting to do.

Today, it was the turn of my Cabbages (Greyhound). I sowed the seed a few months ago in a small propagator and as soon as the seed had germinated I put the whole thing outside. As luck would have it the next day the whole country benefited from a thick layer of snow. But the Cabbages didn’t seem to mind. I must admit, when I saw the lid covered with 5cm of snow, I was…worried.

Now, they’re bursting out of the propagator and need some more space. Hence the move up into larger, individual pots.

I’ll grow them on in pots in the coldframe until they have 5 or 6 leaves and are about 4 inches high. After that I’ll plant them out in their final position. They’d better hurry up and get big because there’s only so much space in the coldframe and it’s running out fast. The joys of Spring!

Whoah! I just realised there’s a lot of ‘S’s in that title - but anyway…

Today, I sowed my Sweet Peas. I planted them at the same time last year and they seemed to do very well. I’m planting three varieties, Blue Ripple, High Scent and Rose Pearl, with a fourth pot of mixed saved seed from last year.

Some people will swear by RootTrainers for Sweet Peas, but, although I think RootTrainers are a good idea, I’ve never used them for Sweet Peas and mine have always germinated and flowered fine. I also don’t soak the seed. Again, I’ve had no problem with germination in the past - of course that’s not to say I won’t be smited by the seed Gods this year.

I thought I would plant my saved seed in a separate pot as a sort of mini germination experiment to see if the saved seed was as viable as the bought seed. I’ll let you know how that goes.

I’m hoping the saved seed does do well because it was so easy to collect that it could save me a small fortune in seed costs during these crunchy times.

Here’s how I did it. Once your Sweet Peas are nearing the end of their flowering life, all you need to do is to let some of them run to seed. Don’t do this at the beginning of the season because, just like edible Peas, once they have set seed the plants will stop flowering.

The seed pods will start to swell. Leave them on the plant for as long as possible, or until the weather turns rainy. Then cut the pod, leaving a bit of stem, and hang them in a cool, dry place. A month or so later, pop the seeds, label and store them in a cool place in an airtight container.

My Sweet Peas normally live life alongside my Runner Beans. I have a teepee that I grow my Beans on and the Sweet Peas make a lovely sight, just twining themselves around the beanpoles, attracting bees, smelling gorgeous and just begging to be picked.

Whoohoo! summer is coming, guys. Get ready!

Oh and by the way, here are some other Jobs for March, that I’ll be getting on with quite soon.

I recently sowed some Broadbeans. While doing some research I found out a few things that I didn’t know before now. I learned last year that you should soak them overnight before sowing. Which I did.

However, once soaked, previously I would have thrown the lot in the ground. But now I know that some Broadbeans are good, and some, well, not so much. It’s all about looking very carefully at your seeds and finding those tell-tale signs that will tell you if should sow the seed or bin it.

Firstly, if your seed has a black line where the little dimple is (it’s called a hilium apparently) then bin it.

If the hilium looks more like this then sow it.

Lastly, if your seed looks like it has had some critter make it its home, then surely bin it. What’s left should be nice, viable seed that will give you a better chance of germination. Happy Broadbean sowing.

Better late than never. I finally managed to get some manure dug into the garden this weekend. Ah - that’s better.

I just love the smell of well-rotted manure. It smells so sweet and earthy. The whole garden has been taken over by manure smells, it’s great!