A week of planting

It's been a busy week, reading books on multiculturalism and writing a couple of thousand words for an essay, but also doing some planting. Burying seemingly dead capsules in the ground with a hope for new life in the weeks and months to come is a good task for Holy Week. A week where the...

Potatoes, potatoes, potatoes

So I've begun harvesting potatoes. These are the Sunrise potatoes which I planted back at the beginning of this blog. I tried a few weeks ago, after they had started to flower, but the plant I pulled up was extremely disappointing. I've been testing their progress by pulling up a couple of plants every now and again,...

Replanting

Sometimes, with the best will in the world, first attempts don't work, particularly when it's something you haven't grown before. Probably because they were planted too early or too deep, only two of the Sunflower seeds have germinated and they have taken a long time doing it. So I've planted more. 'Re-work' is always rather...

Spuds in, courgettes germinating

I planted the potatoes on Thursday (24 March). They had been chitting for a few weeks and had some stocky shoots, I should have got some photos. We had a successful crop last year but I was aware I hadn't made the most of them, because I hadn't taken the opportunity to build up the soil...

Making Eco pots for seedlings

Last year I had real trouble with transplanting seedlings. I found it difficult to transplant without damaging roots, particularly because removing the earth and seedling from the little plastic seedling pot was very difficult. So when I saw the Burgon and Ball Eco Potmaker in the Better Food Company in St. Werburghs in Bristol, despite...

The first seedlings of 2011

On Wednesday evening I saw the first Tomato seedlings pushing through the soil. I find the period between planting and getting this little sign of life one of anxious anticipation. I check and water as necessary on an almost daily basis, but there's no way of knowing if it's going ok until the day you...

Why am I doing this?

I feel that I need to explain my reason for growing Veg. Perhaps it's the nature of 'blog writing, or the nature of studying 'pastoral theology' where you are constantly being encouraged to analyse what messages your sending out by your actions and what your justification or motif is. Unfortunately doing this I am aware...

Longpods in

So today, with a bit of sun in the morning, I decided to build a structure for by broad beans to grow on and plant them. This year I'm using a variety of broad bean supplied by DT Browns by the name of Imperial Green Longpod, make of that what you will. I had a...

First planting of 2011

I've started this 'blog to track progress with my veg growing. I've been thinking of starting a 'blog for a while, but wanted it to have some focus other than my own rambling thoughts, which aren't likely to be very interesting. Having said that, it is likely that I may interject with my own thoughts...