Vegetable growing during lockdown
This is the 7th year I've grown vegetables but the first time I've really been able to spend a lot of time doing it, because lockdown has meant I've not had to go to work.
I knew I'd have a little more time this spring to get everything going so expanded my front plot by double, breaking new ground which I just put potatoes in - no compost.
As usual, the year started with lots of seed sowing. With lockdown, we couldn't buy seeds so had to stick with what we already had in our cupboard. I sowed tomatoes (cherry and normal), leeks, onions, carrots, broccoli, peas, choriander, and rocket in march. I'd already sown a pepper plant in february which I'd been given in a green party campaign.
Here are my leeks and brocollis. The first and most healthy seedling started going different to the others and by this point I was sure it was not broccoli. You can see it here - the one with redish leaves.
I also took on the green house, washed and repared the sides, emptied the old stuff and put in new soil. My dad decided to put a load of stuff in there while I wasn't looking - there's spinnach on the left and raddishes on the right. (oh and a potato in the pot)
First I put the peas out, evenly spaced. I thought it would be good to have them central because they put nitrogen into the soil, and since they grow taller than others things, they can become a canopy crop.
Next, I put the onions out. Here you can see them about a week later after having started to sprout.
Then I put the carrots out. I had grown them in a tray because every time I've tried growing them in the ground they've not come up.
I was itching to put some more stuff out by early May, but there was a frost on the way, so I decided to just put out 4 of my broccolis, the mystery vegetable (which turned out to be rocket) and a pak choi. I'd also already put out a courgette which I had to protect with boxes. I also piled up loads of soil on the potatoes which had started coming up.
I'd been wanting to grow sweet peppers and as I couldn't get them from the shop, In early May I decided to gamble it with seeds taken from a grocery pepper. The seeds germinated and I kept 3 on.
The pak choi was a good call, they grew nicely and I could crop them near the end of May, about the point when the other stuff needed more space anyway. I put quite a few pac choys in and they made a good base for a chinesey veg meal.
Here is a good illustration of one mistake I made. I initially put my very tiny peas underneath some sawn down laylandi branches. However, the peas grew straight up and out of those. I added the bay and a few holly leaves to try and deter deer. I didn't get any deer damage, but those bushes shed annoying spiky leaves which stayed in my plot for a long time. I put the bamboo cane in, but my peas continued to grow and grow and grow. You'll see in subsequent pictures what solution I eventually decided to use.
At 17th May my plot still looks pretty sparse. The potatoes are coming up again after the frost, my onions and carrots getting taller...
By the 21st May however things are looking quite a bit more ... planty, for want of a better description. You'll also see the solution I chose to keep the peas supported. I put string up. It did work as intended, however, the strings got really annoying having to duck and dive each time I entered my plot, so not an ideal solution. Next time I'll create something and put it in before everything else is in.
Look at the difference between the following two pictures! The first is 23rd May, and the secons one is 3rd June. Just 11 days.
It wasn't until the end of may when something went majorly wrong. I noticed my onions were not looking happy. They were flopping over and some of the leaves were all twisted. I looked in my veg book but it didn't have a pest it could be. It took an internet search to find out that the problem was alium leaf miner. This miner arrived in the UK in 2002, well after my veg book was published. It burrows into the leaves and down into the onion, where it pupates. I pulled up all the onions that had the problem and ate them as spring onions.
Thankfully the ones in my front plot escapted the allium leaf miner. You can also see here the peas just beginning to use their stringy supports.
This was just before I had the second little disaster. You might be able to see the first pea flowers just beginning to grow. Unfortunately the deer had their eyes on it too, and just as the peas were nicely developing, they snuck in and ate them all, including the growing tip on quite a few of the peas. In response, I battoned down the hatches, where I'd been a bit blase and left a passage for myself.
At the beginning of June I decided to experimient with a no dig bed. I got 3 bags of compost and basically spilled it out over some cardboard boxes. I shaped it using the objects you can see here, and then added some chard that desperately wanted to go somewhere. 5 days later, and the 2nd pic was taken.
Meanwhile, on the 9th June in the greenhouse, things were growing nicely. the two tomatoes nearest the door especially. They grew very large trusses. I wasn't sure whether to cut them to size or not, but thought I'd give them a go at being mega-trussses.
The onlions started to show the first sign of swelling at about mid june
And the peas were doing very nicely, hanging off the string quite attractively, it gave me an effective canopy layer above the carrots and onions. They worked less well with the broccoli, crowding them out somewhat and providing slugs a place to hide.
The kohl Rabi, which you can see at the front in this picture, were not brilliant. The red ones hearted up ok but the white ones did not, and I got barely anthing from them I've tried some more sown in June to see if a late summer crop does any better.
More evidence of the peas liking the string. I'd started to thin the carrots at this point, they were very tasty in soup.
In the greenhouse, things weren't entirely going to plan again. The tomatoes on the left, which were growing nicely, started to get stunted as they went up, dried up really easily, and the fruit wasn't setting. I have several potential reasons for this. The cherry tomatoes did much better, so maybe moneymakers just don't do so good in very hot weather, and wilt more easily. They probably needed more water too.
Remember those peppers? by the end of June they've turned into sturdy looking plants. I've also potted up some tomato cuttings and basil seedlings.
My first significant crop. I made some soup out of these I think.
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30th June in the main bed. It was about this point I noticed some spiders living in my broccoli. I eventually noticed some tiny parasitic wasps too, so it seems that the wasps parasitise the Cabbage white catterpillars, and the spiders eat the wasps...
By july my peas, kale and carrots were all croping nicely, and the courgettes and broccoli were also starting to get going. I also started to harvest the potatoes to make room for the courgette plants to expand.
Yummy yummy food :)
Things I'd do differently:
Peas - make proper structures for them
Cover with environmesh from the start
Not put so much different stuff in one bed - it gets complicated!
Rake soil to be even all round.
Sow carrots direct
Use peas as a canopy crop over onions and carrots only.
Protect onions during April and May from the alium leaf miner.
Make more room for paths and moving around the plot.
Not grow Kohl rabi over the summer, especially not the green ones.
Water my tomatoes more, especially after they've flowered - two watering cans!