Wednesday 13 May 2009

Veg tribulations

I was beginning to think it was easy. Plant a few seeds, watch the seedlings grow into plants, cut them down, sell them. And then along came the brassicas. If you look further down this page you'll see photos of nice pointy headed cabbages. I didn't have time to harvest and sell them. The sun came out and they bolted. Which means the nice pointy cabbagy heads opened up and turned into great big leaves. Which is fine, but not so neat and pointy and ace as what we had before.

Post Script I whizzed down to Honeywell today and harvested twelve cabbages in their pre-bolting state. They were planted a couple of weeks after the Belleville ones and as the weather has been cooler recently they hadn't had a chance to bolt. Phew.


Please have a look at the 'Just Giving' box on the left hand side of the page. If you click 'donate' you will see more details about the project. It looks like a worthy cause to me, and Danny Wallce is an ok fella.

Speaking of the Club, there's an after-school workshop this Friday 15th May for joinees. 1530-1700.


Thursday 7 May 2009

The Belleville Cauliflower Experience


The brassicas have been pretty decent so far, especially now four of them have turned into cauliflowers. They look great and need regular watering to keep them in good shape.
These specimens are up for sale on eBay (in aid of the Belleville Primary School PTA) . Just go to eBay and search for the Belleville Cauliflower Experience. You'd be mad not to.

The other thing you can to with caulis apart from keeping them watered is to keep the sun off the heads which stops them yellowing (not that that affects the taste). The one in the photo on the left below has had the leaves bent over to protect it.


The leek seedlings are doing well (I think). I started them in five inch pots and after they grew repotted to ten inch, of which we now have three. One of these I planted out into a bed I'm using as a nursery bed, which at the moment only contains some wild garlic. The idea is to grow them on until they're as thick as a pencil and then they can be planted out in their final positions, alongside the garlic and onions. Unless we sow carrots there first, which we may do as the garlic and onions might repel the dreaded carrot fly.


The Pink Fir Apple spuds have been earthed up nicely by some veg club members. Last year I underwatered the potatoes which produced the unsightly, but harmless, potato scab. Nice name.
However, when it comes to watering (club members take note) , please don't overdo it!