It's time to harden off the seedlings. It's time to send the babies into the cruel hard world that is called 'THE GREAT OUTDOORS'. It's time to regain control of the greenhouse for Round Two seed planting.
It was raining at 6.30 this morning so I thought 'Ideal time to get the seedlings outside and toughen 'em up a bit.' I scanned the skies for plant-eating vultures and the ground for plant- eating slugs (although I think our garden is a slug-free zone, thanks to Missus Miggins, Pumphrey, Slocombe and Poo). Having established that all was safe (for the next 10 minutes at least -I don;t want to tempt Fate vis a vis slugs) I put the larger tomato, peppers, aubergines and jalapenos outside for their first taste of rain and fresh air. They immediately went flat under the weight of all that drizzle but now, as I write this, the sun has come out and they are standing tall and straight and looking cockily independent.
It's a bit nerve-wracking, this 'hardening off' process. You've spent weeks carefully nurturing tiny specks of seed to tiny green shoots, then pairs of leaves, then a bit of a sturdy stem and then another pair of leaves so it's natural, I suppose, to feel a bit wary about sending them out to survive the elephants, I mean elements. It's like when your children leave home. When Chris went to live with his girlfriend, (after we'd had a serious discussion about how his lifestyle was clashing with ours and wouldn't it be a GOOD THING to maybe find somewhere to conduct his young adult lifestyle so I wouldn't have to keep nagging him and subjecting him to much tutting and sighing in my middle-aged old fart kind of way) I wouldn't hear from him for days on end. I would think, 'He's lying dead in a ditch somewhere,' or 'He's poisoned himself with his home cooking.' It didn't help that he rarely responded to text messages. But he survived and thrived and, over a year on, all is well. (Aside from the time his house caught fire and another time when he was burgled. But he handled these crises admirably and told me about them in a calm and resigned voice which, ultimately, prevented me panicking on his behalf.)
Same with Heather. She went off to university nearly three years ago. She has coped with and survived a number of aggravations that come with learning to be independent. She has been stopped by a policeman for cycling without lights. There have been only two occasions when I've had to fight my maternal instinct to go and rescue her from domestic altercations. She is now a competent 'can-doer' and heaven help anyone who gets in her way!
And so with the seedlings. They can't grow and develop and produce their goods if they are holed up and cossetted in a warm geenhouse, being fed and watered on a regular basis and protected from the wind and rain and the heat of the sun. Of course, as with my children, I shall be there to help and support them when the going gets really tough. That's what being a caring human being is all about. (Children, if you are reading this, I DO NOT include the Bank of Mum and Andy in this equation. I am talking about the things that money can't buy like wisdom, a listening ear, a shoulder to cry on, a homemade cake, invites to dinner and occasional baby-sitting when the time comes). I shall water the seedlings if we have a drought. I shall keep the weeds at bay. I shall keep the soil in good condition so the plants can grow to their best.
I suppose the main difference between the children and most veg plants is that the plants are annual. They need looking out for for one year only. Unlike the children. I mean, Heather came home yesterday for a 2 week Easter break before her final exams. And immediately started sitting on the sofa, eating chocolate fudge cake and frittering toilet roll! I expect she'll be wanting use of the shower next.
As an additional point of joy in this season of Easter, it has been three days since the chickens took up residence in Cluckinghen Palace and ALREADY the grass is starting to re-grow on the remainder of the lawn! We found a whole tuft yesterday. Not quite enough to sunbathe on but I reckon by this time next month our back lawn might have made a bit of a comeback!
Showing posts with label seedlings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label seedlings. Show all posts
Saturday, 11 April 2009
Saturday, 21 March 2009
Garden organics
This week, Andy bought the latest in the River Cottage publications entitled 'Veg Plot.' I like this book on many levels -1) it has a nice 'new book' smell (reminiscent of fire lighters, which, as my family knows, I've had a penchant for sniffing for many years now) 2) it feels nice to hold 3) it has pretty pictures 4) it is easy to read/ understand and 5) it looks nice sitting next to the previous 3 books we've already got in the series on making bread, jam and preserving and mushroom hunting. It is a book I wish I'd had access to when we first took over our allotment. I suspect it will become my 'veg growing bible.'
I zipped through the book in a couple of evenings and immediately on its advice, set out to buy some more seeds - borlotti beans, broccoli and chives, and companion plants for each veg group bed, namely tagetes and nasturtiums. And because of the companion planting idea i.e inter-planting flowers and/ or herbs with your crops in order to deter or distract harmful pests and bugs away from the plants you want to remain bug-free, I've started delving deeper into the aspect of organic pest control.
Of course, we have already the ultimate in bug destruction units in the forms of Missus Miggins, Slocombe, Pumphrey and Poo. Unfortunately, they also double up as the ultimate seedling destruction units. So I have started to gather together a more trustworthy armoury against the likes of slugs, snails, caterpillars and aphids. These include a squirty spray bottle for filling with soapy water (aphid annihilation), netting for the exclusion of everything from butterflies to birds and a torch, bucket and rubber gloves for twilight slug picking.
It's the slugs that bother me the most. As I gaze fondly at the seedling activity in the greenhouse, at the tiny new plants reaching up, full of hope and promise, into the warm spring air I feel sick at the thought that within a couple of hours of them being exposed to the elephants, I mean elements, to be hardened off for planting outside, they will be chewed back to pathetic stumps by slimy, characterless, prolific slugs. I made the mistake last year of picking up a slug with my bare hands and it took three hours to wash the slime off. Okay, three hours might be exaggerating the point but take my advice and NEVER, NEVER pick up a slug without protective hand gear. YUK! YUKKITY YUK YUK YUK!! Even the thought of naked slug handling makes me feel nauseous. ('It makes us feel nauseous as well,' say the slugs, 'especially after your post-shower escapade on the landing earlier this week.')
So I did intensive research into other methods of organic slug control. Copper barriers seems too expensive for a large area, beer traps seem too indulgent. Salt seems too cruel, as does chopping them in half with a pair of scissors. I settle eventually on two plans of action. Firstly, I am happy to conduct a twilight slug patrol every other day with a bucket. I will take any slugs I find home and the chickens will have a fine breakfast in the morning. I also like the idea of gritty barriers. Slugs don't like crawling over anything gritty. I expect it's because they don't wear pants. We've already got one side of the allotment protected by the gritty barrier of the gravel drive that runs alongside our plot. So all I need to do is scatter a layer of grit around my tender plants as soon as they go in the ground.
Which explains what I was doing yesterday afternoon.
Go on. Guess. Guess what I was doing. Free jar of homemade marmalade if you get it right.
I was peeling the membranes from the inside of the used eggshells I've been saving for a fortnight, placing the eggs shells on a baking tray in the sun, drying them out and then crushing them to grit-like proportions in order to create my own slug barrier medium. It was time-consuming, it was fiddly, it was quite slimey on occasion and I know EXACTLY what you are thinking. You are thinking, 'What a time-consuming, fiddly and slimey way to spend time. She needs to find a job, that Denise.'
And I would say you are right. BUT this is what I achieved from the exercise. I recycled the shells, I will feed the soil with calcium, I have got a free slug barrier and most of all, it was very pleasant to stand still for an hour or so performing a rhythmic task that didn't require any brain power. It was very therapeutic.
Will it work? I don't know. But I'm going to give it a try.
I zipped through the book in a couple of evenings and immediately on its advice, set out to buy some more seeds - borlotti beans, broccoli and chives, and companion plants for each veg group bed, namely tagetes and nasturtiums. And because of the companion planting idea i.e inter-planting flowers and/ or herbs with your crops in order to deter or distract harmful pests and bugs away from the plants you want to remain bug-free, I've started delving deeper into the aspect of organic pest control.
Of course, we have already the ultimate in bug destruction units in the forms of Missus Miggins, Slocombe, Pumphrey and Poo. Unfortunately, they also double up as the ultimate seedling destruction units. So I have started to gather together a more trustworthy armoury against the likes of slugs, snails, caterpillars and aphids. These include a squirty spray bottle for filling with soapy water (aphid annihilation), netting for the exclusion of everything from butterflies to birds and a torch, bucket and rubber gloves for twilight slug picking.
It's the slugs that bother me the most. As I gaze fondly at the seedling activity in the greenhouse, at the tiny new plants reaching up, full of hope and promise, into the warm spring air I feel sick at the thought that within a couple of hours of them being exposed to the elephants, I mean elements, to be hardened off for planting outside, they will be chewed back to pathetic stumps by slimy, characterless, prolific slugs. I made the mistake last year of picking up a slug with my bare hands and it took three hours to wash the slime off. Okay, three hours might be exaggerating the point but take my advice and NEVER, NEVER pick up a slug without protective hand gear. YUK! YUKKITY YUK YUK YUK!! Even the thought of naked slug handling makes me feel nauseous. ('It makes us feel nauseous as well,' say the slugs, 'especially after your post-shower escapade on the landing earlier this week.')
So I did intensive research into other methods of organic slug control. Copper barriers seems too expensive for a large area, beer traps seem too indulgent. Salt seems too cruel, as does chopping them in half with a pair of scissors. I settle eventually on two plans of action. Firstly, I am happy to conduct a twilight slug patrol every other day with a bucket. I will take any slugs I find home and the chickens will have a fine breakfast in the morning. I also like the idea of gritty barriers. Slugs don't like crawling over anything gritty. I expect it's because they don't wear pants. We've already got one side of the allotment protected by the gritty barrier of the gravel drive that runs alongside our plot. So all I need to do is scatter a layer of grit around my tender plants as soon as they go in the ground.
Which explains what I was doing yesterday afternoon.
Go on. Guess. Guess what I was doing. Free jar of homemade marmalade if you get it right.
I was peeling the membranes from the inside of the used eggshells I've been saving for a fortnight, placing the eggs shells on a baking tray in the sun, drying them out and then crushing them to grit-like proportions in order to create my own slug barrier medium. It was time-consuming, it was fiddly, it was quite slimey on occasion and I know EXACTLY what you are thinking. You are thinking, 'What a time-consuming, fiddly and slimey way to spend time. She needs to find a job, that Denise.'
And I would say you are right. BUT this is what I achieved from the exercise. I recycled the shells, I will feed the soil with calcium, I have got a free slug barrier and most of all, it was very pleasant to stand still for an hour or so performing a rhythmic task that didn't require any brain power. It was very therapeutic.
Will it work? I don't know. But I'm going to give it a try.
Monday, 9 March 2009
Seedlings up and worms out
The same worm is STILL trying to escape the executive wormery. I've decided to send him for counselling as he clearly has attachment issues to his previous home. So the wormery is still being put to bed every night in a complicated configuration of bin bags and will continue to be so until said worm STAYS PUT. (Are you listening, worm? 'No I ain't,' says worm. 'And if I had hands, my fingers would be in my ears but as it is I am tra-la-la-la-la-ing very LOUDLY!')
Since becoming a worm owner, I have found I am more sensitive to the worms I see whilst out and about. Now I find I can't pass by a worm that has become stranded on a path without picking it up and returning it to the nearest grass or hedgerow. This can cause social issues if a worm is found, for example, in the middle of the High Street, outside WHSmiths. What do you do with the worm until you can find a suitable release point. Pop it in your pocket? Carry a designated worm transport facility (e.g a matchbox) around. Pop it on your shoulder, parrot-like and hope no-one notices there's a worm perched on your overcoat? Whatever you do choose to do, DO NOT carry it in your hand. You'll only find yourself handing it over with your money for your newspaper and worms are not acceptable currency for the purchase of any form of goods in this country. Plus it'll probably make the check-out girl scream and then the police will get involved, and then it's only one short step to an article in the local newspaper and a reputation as 'the weirdo worm woman.'
I fear I've also returned one or two dead worms to a greener resting place. I think, if you're going to decompose in public, it's much nicer to do it on a spot of grass then on a slab of boiling concrete...
On a lighter note, I checked the greenhouse and propagator this morning and SEEDLINGS HAVE APPEARED! We have 3 cherry tomatoes, one ordinary tomato, three aubergines, some mixed salad leaves and a lone pea racing ahead on the germination front. This means I have to activate 'Growing Facility Number Three', i.e Heather's bedroom. The propagator seedlings will now go onto her windowsill which is light but not too warm and sunny, and this should prevent the seedlings becoming too spindly as they unfurl a few more sets of leaves. And this also frees up room for me to get cucumber and courgette seedlings going. (Not that courgette seedlings need much help in getting going. I reckon it'd take a nuclear explosion to prevent a courgette from growing -and then I wouldn't be at all surprised, after the mushroom cloud has settled, to find a stoical courgette amongst the rubble, steaming lightly and trying it's darndest to turn into a marrow.)
And whilst I was in Wilkos this morning getting some washing up liquid, I found a grapevine! It was only £3 and of indeterminate variety(other than 'Red Grape') but it had two little green leaves sprouting from the top of its twig and I thought I really ought to rescue it and give it a fighting chance, so I did. I'd quite like to plant it in the back garden, although it'd be safer from chicken molestation at the allotment.
Yesterday at the allotment, we relocated compost bin number two and are only a little gap short of completing a thoroughly satisfactory barrier between ourselves and the 'string girl' allotment. I dug over another hefty patch of ground, planted more onions and some shallots and Andy dug up some strawberry runners to bring home and pot up for the greenhouse and (hopefully) some early strawberries. We harvested the last of our tennis ball swedes, the pathetic efforts of the broccoli (although it tasted lovely), and some leeks. And then Andy begged to come home.
And so 'Growing Season '09' is well underway. A 'big circle of life' moment. Only without the lions. And Elton John.
Since becoming a worm owner, I have found I am more sensitive to the worms I see whilst out and about. Now I find I can't pass by a worm that has become stranded on a path without picking it up and returning it to the nearest grass or hedgerow. This can cause social issues if a worm is found, for example, in the middle of the High Street, outside WHSmiths. What do you do with the worm until you can find a suitable release point. Pop it in your pocket? Carry a designated worm transport facility (e.g a matchbox) around. Pop it on your shoulder, parrot-like and hope no-one notices there's a worm perched on your overcoat? Whatever you do choose to do, DO NOT carry it in your hand. You'll only find yourself handing it over with your money for your newspaper and worms are not acceptable currency for the purchase of any form of goods in this country. Plus it'll probably make the check-out girl scream and then the police will get involved, and then it's only one short step to an article in the local newspaper and a reputation as 'the weirdo worm woman.'
I fear I've also returned one or two dead worms to a greener resting place. I think, if you're going to decompose in public, it's much nicer to do it on a spot of grass then on a slab of boiling concrete...
On a lighter note, I checked the greenhouse and propagator this morning and SEEDLINGS HAVE APPEARED! We have 3 cherry tomatoes, one ordinary tomato, three aubergines, some mixed salad leaves and a lone pea racing ahead on the germination front. This means I have to activate 'Growing Facility Number Three', i.e Heather's bedroom. The propagator seedlings will now go onto her windowsill which is light but not too warm and sunny, and this should prevent the seedlings becoming too spindly as they unfurl a few more sets of leaves. And this also frees up room for me to get cucumber and courgette seedlings going. (Not that courgette seedlings need much help in getting going. I reckon it'd take a nuclear explosion to prevent a courgette from growing -and then I wouldn't be at all surprised, after the mushroom cloud has settled, to find a stoical courgette amongst the rubble, steaming lightly and trying it's darndest to turn into a marrow.)
And whilst I was in Wilkos this morning getting some washing up liquid, I found a grapevine! It was only £3 and of indeterminate variety(other than 'Red Grape') but it had two little green leaves sprouting from the top of its twig and I thought I really ought to rescue it and give it a fighting chance, so I did. I'd quite like to plant it in the back garden, although it'd be safer from chicken molestation at the allotment.
Yesterday at the allotment, we relocated compost bin number two and are only a little gap short of completing a thoroughly satisfactory barrier between ourselves and the 'string girl' allotment. I dug over another hefty patch of ground, planted more onions and some shallots and Andy dug up some strawberry runners to bring home and pot up for the greenhouse and (hopefully) some early strawberries. We harvested the last of our tennis ball swedes, the pathetic efforts of the broccoli (although it tasted lovely), and some leeks. And then Andy begged to come home.
And so 'Growing Season '09' is well underway. A 'big circle of life' moment. Only without the lions. And Elton John.
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