UP DATE ON THIS YEARS GROWING 2015

Not been on the blogg for about 4 months so i thought i would give an update on how tings have been progressing.  First of all the toms that i have grown have done really well and are now producing a lot off fruit. The one that i am very pleased with is called NIMBUS F1 which was sent to me by dtbrown as a trial packet. I must say  that i am very impressed with the results and i think it could do well in shows. The only thing that might be against it is that it does have slight ribs on them but it would be worth having a go to see what results would be.  The second one i grew was shirley and that has grown very well and again they have slight ribs in them as well. There is very little difference in size and the circumference are almost the same nice and round but with that little rib. The third one i grew was the old favorite  gardeners delight and that one never seems to fail as it always has an abundant of fruit. The final one was Sungold f1 ,this one i grew last year and i was so impressed with it even my wife asked me to grow it mainly because of its sweetness.

On to the onions, I must first say that that this year i am with out any doubt 2 months behind in growing and again it is all down to my medical condition which up to now i have been put into hospital on 3 occasions this year and i am only glad to think that my wife and son has done well for me to have got to the growing stage ware i am now. Any how the onions this year are the showmaster strain from marshalls and up to this day they are 15 inches in circumference  so i will still feed and let them grow for another 8 weeks and by then they should not be to bad a size .the other onion i grew was Russian onion from seed and i was pleased to get them to germinate so quick they are about 5inches in circumference so i will grow them earlier next year all being well.


RUNNER BEANS
This year i have tried 2 sorts and i must say that up to now i am not to pleased with the  results.
They are firestorm   and moonlight. I do realize that this has not been a good year for beans and quite a few gardeners that i know has said the same. We do have to take into account the weather and as all will know has not been to good but i am afraid there is little we can do about it.
Well this all for now will update later on.

A CHANGE IN THE WEATHER AGAIN SO BACK IN THE GREEN HOUSE

When ever i say the weather is going to get better it always goes the other way so what do you do  say nothing is best. Any way i received the rest of the seeds today that i ordered from DT BROWN and i must say they were very quick with there delivery. Apart from my order they sent me trial seeds of tomatoes called nimbus fi so i will get them sewn tomorrow and see how they progress and give a feed back.

Now that the beans have arrived i will get 46 3inch pots ready to fill with compost so i can plant the seed when ready. As you all will know they dont take very long to show there growth.
My son took me out today for a ride and we went to a place called  WATTS  STORE  and i purchased 3 bags of horse manure/compost for £5-00 which was not to bad. My reason for getting them is that i will mix it with my compost for the onion buckets, mind you there will be other adds to it so i can get good growth.
I think i have said at some stage i dont grow onions in the green house as much as i would like to but i do give what ever i grow out side the best care that i can give. The biggest problem we get is making sure as much as possible to keep them clear from onion fly and  butterflies. There is one thing i do keep my eye on and that is making sure they dont get onion rot which most will know can be caused by to much water.
Will close now and give update later on.  

THE WEATHER SHOULD GET BETTER FROM NOW ON

What a .lovely 3 days of weather we have had here in pontypool. It has been that good myself and my son have done more than we thought we would do, we got the bean sections all done ready to put the canes up which does not take long  and just to let you all know that in the first row i will be planting the bean called FIRESTORM. In the seconed row i will be  growing beans called MOONLIGHT. I have not grown these before so it will be interesting to see the results. By the side of the beans i will be growing  my onions in buckets which will be a total  of 18 and the name of them is a onion that i grew a long time ago called showmaster and i did get good results. The reason why i am growing them is that i was to late in sowing any onion seed  so i ordered the showmaster plants. Perhaps i should not have said it was to late to grow onion seed but if you want to grow big onions for shows you do have to sew the seed early to give them a good 22-24 weeks growth. after saying that my son let us try and see how a few late sown onion seed will turn out so we planted about a dozen i will give an update on them at a later date. I have changed my mind as to which tomatoes i am going to grow and decided to have a go with SHIRLEY-AND SWEET100 FI and a few old the old faithful GARDENERS DELIGHT. As to the carrots i will be growing long red intermediate in pipes which are 5ft long and 6 inches wide these will not be for showing but just to see i can get them longer than the last ones i grew which were 4ft-2inches long. The stump carrots i am going to grow is the sweet candle  and they will be grown by the side of the onions. It is getting late now so i will close and give more info later on.

GETTING POTS AND TRAYS READY FOR SEED.

For the last day or two i have been sorting out which trays i will be using for different types of seed. My reason for this is because over the past years i have learned that some types of  plants when germinated do need to have plenty of room to grow especially if the are inclined to get on the bushy side. What i have just stated might not make sense to some people but it is what i have noticed over the years and i have always had good results. Not only do they grow better but it makes it much easier when transplanting. As most of gardeners will know that pricking out for transplanting can be a bit of a pain and also it can take time so the more you can do to eliminate problems the better it will be.
Re to the trays and pots it will depend on what seed i am going to sow for instance if i am going to grow  flowers i use trays with individual cells which could hold up to 30 plants and that they are very easy to transplant  into bigger pots when required.  With other trays they will have be bigger in-depth  as those will be the ones i will use for my onion seed as i have learnt that they do not to like to be disturbed to much and by being sown in bigger pots you will nearly always get good results..
In my last blogg i said that i will be growing tomatoes and the ones for this year will be
shirley  sweet million and gardeners delight. I will be sowing them this week as there is plenty time for them to grow. I do think that you can some times grow things far to early and by doing that you can come across. problems  ie they can get leggy plus other problems.
In my next blogg i will tell you how i plant my tomato plants. cheers for now.   .

THE START OF 2015 0N THE GARDEN.AND RESULTS FROM 2014

First off all it has been about 10 months since i last gave an update on the blogg and it has mainly beeen down to illness but i  am hoping 2015 will be better. Regards to last years results i have very little to say except that with the help of my sons i did manage to get a decent show of benchmaster runner beans and a reasonable show of kelsae onions which quite a few grew to 4lb in weight so that was not to bad. As to the carrots it was not so good as they only grew to about 18- 24 inches long. In my 10ft green house i did have a very good show of tomatoes which consist of sungold fi, gardeners delight,and sweet million . This year i am afraid i will be a bit late in growing but i will give an update on how things are are progressing.
This year i intend to grow
onions
carrots
runner beans
tomatoes    
beetroot.
This is all for now happy gardeing.

T THE GOOD WEATHER DID NOT LAST LONG

Yes it is true the good weather we had did not last very long and i think most gardeners will be a bit fed up with it. In the week or so that we had that good weather i managed to get the front garden sorted out  and then went to the back garden and cut the lawn which was getting very long and as you will all know it does not look very very nice when it is cut because of the thickness of the grass stems which  looks terrible. For many years i have always cut the lawns to about 2 inches long and twice a month, by doing this i have found that the grass will thicken and keep much greener. Another reason for doing it that way is because if we should have a very hot spell the grass will not scorch  and will stay green.  All the grass cuttings are then given to the chickens which is good for them.

Going onto the the other side of gardening  i must say that the tomato  plants are really going ahead now  and are now in there final growing place. The one side of the green house i have planted 5 strilo  toms and on the other side i have  planted 3 sungold  3 gardeners delight. Apart from those that i have mentioned i have 8 young plants coming on the my little nursery these are seeds from last years growth and were left in the ground ware they germinated this year and turned into very nice young plants.

Iam pleased to say that the kelsae onions that i ordered arrived on the 16th april and they are now potted ready to go into there final places. I must say that they were in good condition when they arrived  and were still wet on arrival which i was pleased with. There was very little yellowing of the leaves so they were not in transit very long which in sum cases it can cause stress.
Going onto runner beans  i planted 40 beans (benchmaster) which most have germinated and are about 3inches tall so it looks like all is going well at the moment

As to the flower section again all is looking good. The dahlias are growing well and also the asters. I still have about 40 pellis plants that are growing but they are a bit behind but they will be ok by june comes around which is when i put all my flower plants in the garden and not before mainly because of fear of the frost.
This is all for now will give update later on.
  

sTTHE LAST 2 DAYS I HAVE HAD AN UNWANTED GUEST IN THE GREENHOUSE

 First all the good news is that all the seeds i have planted are now starting to grow so it wont belong before i will be doing some more transplanting into pots. As to the tomatoes they are really starting to grow now so i will be giving them a little feed to help them on .Re to the long carrot seed that i have sewn in the pipes i have covered them with the bottoms of the pop bottles which will help protect them when they germinate and also help them to grow until they are big enough to stand up to the weather. The beetroot is also growing well  and so are the lettuce  also doing very nicely are all the flower seeds that were sewn.  I have already potted  40 aster plants and i should have another 40 to do later on.  The next ones to be potted will be the dahlias so in about another week that will be another potting job.

                                             THE UNWANTED GUEST
Well what can i say except that on wednesday morning when i went to the green house i found that a lot of items had been tipped over and that one of my begonia bulbs was missing out of the place ware  i planted  it. Eventually i found it on the floor and something had been nibbling at , i first thought it was a mouse so i set 2 mouse traps in the night to see if i could catch it. On thursday  morning to my suprise i was drinking my cup of tea in the kitchen when i saw a bl---dy grey squirl  come out of the green house., i went straight up there  and found that at the back end of the green house it had made a hole for itself to get in and out. I have now solved the problem and i hope that by filling in the hole with stones and wire mesh it wont happen again. I have never had this happen before so i hope it is the first and the last time.  I suppose i was lucky really as it could have been worse. One final word for now  i have not forgot about posting photos. More later on.