Infectious veggie growing

My grandma grows a few veggies in her garden and has just got a new greenhouse to grow her tomatoes in. My brother who lives near them has been roped in recently to help grandad with the hefty work to move the shed and put up the greenhouse and even he is catching the growing your own bug!

Talking to him today he was asking me what he could grow on his little south facing balcony. He lived in Thailand for a couple of years and grew used to eating spicy food so often cooks this way now. I mentioned that I'm going to try growing my own chilli plant from seed and put the pot on a windowsill at the front of the house (which faces south) and he is very keen to grow his own too. So, I'm going to post him half my packet of seeds and some instructions and we're both going to have a go! I have a packet of Pepper 'Chilli Shake' which came free with Grow Your Own magazine last year. I'd better get on with sowing my own seeds then!

Bye bye Berryfields

I've just read on Jane Perrone's 'Horticultural' blog that Gardeners' World will be heading to a new patch of land instead of Berryfields when the new series starts next month. At first glance I was really quite sad to read this headline as I'm pretty attached to Berryfields having avidly watched the programme for about 5 years now. I can understand that new presenter Toby Buckland, who incidently I think is fantastic with incredible knowledge, wants to do something new and the idea it seems is that the programme is to focus more on 'real' gardens rather than the country estate we have come to know and love.

Reading the BBC press release there are some great sounding features and I'm pleased to see that the regular faces of Joe, Carol and Alys will still be presenting features. I think the new look GW will be even more relevant the modern day suburban gardener which can only be a good thing.

So, I'll do my very best to embrace the new look Gardeners' World with an open mind and not pine too much for Berryfields. Maybe they could pop back there once every season, you know, just for old times sake?

First tasks of spring

Ok, it might not look like much but trust me, A LOT of work was done on this little patch of soil today. Over winter it had a thick mulch of bark on top which was collected up and the whole thing (its 3m x 1m) was forked over then raked to a finer tilth.

56 'Anya' seed potatoes were sown in four carefully made trenches and take up pretty much the whole bed except for a bit of space around and in front of the willow obelisks. 18 shallot sets also went in the ground (a bit later than planned, never mind) and a few seeds pushed in the ground around the obselisk in the corner (purple mange tout, ambassador peas and climbing nasturtiums.)

I'm waiting a couple of weeks before sowing seeds around the other obelisk and I'm planning to grow some flowers for cutting in the little space in front of it.

We have a few herbs in pots now (rosemary, sage, parsley and coriander) and at the weekend I'm planning to sow some rocket and beetroot. The little Blackcurrant bush (Ben sarek) has had a farm manure mulch too. Its looking pretty good with lots of buds and sprouts of new foliage.

So finally there is some veggie growing action in the garden again!