You may have read the first diary post last week, which basically showed the pre and post preparation of the main veg patch area and my challenges to get it protected from the local garden wildlife… including birds, squirrels, pheasants and cats!
My vegetables of choice to learn with and try growing from seed, started out as lettuce, carrots, beetroot, courgettes and dwarf beans. Plus, I had purchased two raspberry plants and two blueberry plants last year. One of the blueberry plants unfortunately died, but the other is doing well. We were also lucky enough to be given several more raspberry plants that were surplus from our neighbour.
I took the time to mark out the main veg patch into labelled rows. The first two for carrots, the next two, for carrots again… to sow in a months time. The next row for beetroot and again another for beetroot in a months time and the rest well spaced out for the dwarf beans. That was the whole main bed accounted for. As you can see from the following two images, the first lots of carrots and beetroot have been planted (yay).
The lettuce have their very own mini greenhouse, as you will have seen in the opening diary blog. The first two rows of salad leaves have also been planted and again, have marked out subsequent rows for ‘spaced out’ planting.
The courgette plants (assuming the seeds come up ok), will be planted in fairly large individual pots. I’ve started the courgettes and dwarf beans in smaller pots and these will be stored for a week or two indoors. I photographed this tray outside simply to get an even light on it… and you can see the courgette seeds have already started to show (result!).
At the moment, I’m making use of everything I already have to hand… i.e. old pots, old cloche, handy tray, label stakes, wire.
The above area is a particularly sunny spot in the garden to organise and store the fruit containers. I have three blueberry plants and what appears to be numerous raspberry plants spread across six containers. To date… all the plants are alive and sprouting. How the heck I’m going to get these protected when they fruit is a challenge yet to be covered… watch this space.
Join me for progress in diary update 3 next week 🙂