Early sowings

As we plant the first plantings of the year: broad beans in succession - carrots, parsnips, little gem lettuces in plug planters - tomatoes - globe artichokes - I'm reminded of all the things that are possible in a small courtyard space.


I haven't cropped this photo (so you can see it really is the view from my kitchen with the reflection of the window). I like to keep things real with kitchen gardening, as you know.

Took the photograph last year in summer I think - the Clematis Montana creeping up the wall there had finished flowering.

You can see my pots of rosemary and bayleaf. Although I planted these out on the allotment as they were getting too big.

There's lavender on the staging too, and lots of little gem lettuces in containers. You can also see my blue builders buckets for larger items.

We even made space for a sand pit table for my daughter (in the middle). When she wasn't playing with it I put the plug planters on top.

This year we've rationalised production quite a bit. We have three greenhouses on the right hand side of the yard now. There's nothing much to see yet - but both the first early potatoes (Lady Christl) and the maincrop potatoes (Golden Wonder) are chitting (sprouting) in these as it's a good frost free place that's not too warm.

I've also started calabrese early in pots.










There's a bit of mould creeping in on the coir pot there. Must nip it off and make sure the greenhouses are well ventilated. My growing system and my work routine seems to be working really well now, touch wood. Seems a lot less work than it was last year.

I raise the plug plants at home, starting them off with a small heated propagator and use a warm windowsill for the plug planters. As soon as the seedlings begin to show I move them out into the mini-greenhouses to carry on growing and start the next batch inside the house.

When the weather warms up I don't need to grow seeds in the house anymore I can just put the plug planters straight into in the greenhouses. It's all done in a pretty small space, but because I keep moving things on in a shift system - it seems to work. Hope you can make use of these ideas.

When the plug plants or seedlings are big enough and the weather is suitable I cycle down to the allotment and plant them out. There are some who say you shouldn't do this with parsnips and carrots, but mine seem to be okay so maybe no-one explained that to them!

I've got a few other nifty ideas that save space. Instead of buying huge bags of compost, I buy dried, compressed, coir bricks with nutrients. You can get these from good garden centres or the Organic Gardening Catalogue. When I need potting compost I just re-hydrate a brick in a bucket of water and off I go.

This year, I've also successfully managed to overwinter some things for an early start. I did wonder whether it was worth the effort but here's a picture of my winter gem and winter density lettuces. I'll be having lettuce with my salad in just a week or two. That's not bad going as it's not even March yet and I don't have a heated greenhouse.

Colony Collapse Disorder

Work, family and weather have kept me away from my veg plots this week. I've used the time to reflect on last week's bee meeting and what's bothering bees across the globe. Amongst other things Colony Collapse Disorder. Read reports on this from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and watch a video about this here. (Apologies to blog readers about the links problem this week, it should be okay now).

Anyone who watches 'The Return of the Honey Bee' (the new documentary we saw at the Co-op meeting last week) will learn that at least one third of our food production depends on bees. Let me say that again. One third of our food production depends on bees. That basically means that if their lives are not protected, we stand a good chance of dying out too.

The day after I watched the documentary I made some big decisions. I realised I just didn't know enough about our furry-legged friends. (If I'm going call myself an organic gardener I need to wise up). So I chased up some of the contacts I'd made at the meeting and fished out my wildlife books.

At the Co-op meeting we had the privilege of hearing a representative of Cheshire Beekeepers speak. They have lots of practical advice for newbies (get it - new bees...) - er, I mean people who would like to start bee-keeping.

We've several budding bee keepers on our allotment site who are getting to grips with a hive launch, possibly this year. At the meeting we found other bee keepers from different sites in our city and so were able to exchange information about issues like insurance and allotment policy.

Unfortunately the co-op don't have any plans to show the documentary again to a wider audience, so it's up to us organic gardeners to keep discussion going at the 'grass roots'.

In the picture you can see a bee log. Makes a good gift. Read more about bee logs, which flowers are good to grow and colony collapse disorder in my Helium articles: Why bees are useful in the garden and The dangers of declining bee populations

Time for Plan Bee

Bees. They help new flowers to grow. Carry pollen from one flower to the next.

They're dying out. Fast. No one knows exactly why, but we organic gardeners know they don't like pesticides much. What are we going to do?

Well, I'm off to a film showing this evening with the treasurer of my Allotment Association. We're invited by the Co-op. They've become the first UK retailer to 'prohibit the use of a group of eight pesticides as part of a radical new ten point plan designed to help reverse the decline in the British honeybee population'.

The ban is a temporary one though. (I'm going to ask them why). Here's their ten point plan: - (all you co-op shoppers - look out for film showings in your area, and contact the co-op for more details):

1. The Co-operative Food will temporarily prohibit the use of neonicotinoid-based pesticides on own-brand fresh produce. These are Acetamiprid, Clothianidin, Dinotefuran, Fipronil, Imidacloprid, Nitenpyram, Thiacloprid and Thiamethoxam.
2. £150,000 will be made available to support research into the demise of the honeybee, with a particular focus on UK farming, pesticides and gene-diversity. The largest ever private contribution to bee research in the UK
3. Over three years, the Co-operative Farms will trial a new wildflower seed mix that will be planted alongside crops on its farms across the UK. The Co-operative Farms is the UK's largest farmer with more than 25,000 hectares of land under management.
4. Co-operative farms will invite beekeepers to establish hives on all Co-operative Farms in the UK
5. The Co-operative will engage its three million members in a campaign to protect and nurture the bee population in the U.K. with advice and tips featured on its website.
6. Members will be invited to forty screenings of a special preview from a forthcoming film that addresses the decline of the bee population and the significance of the bee in food production. In addition, The Co-operative has also commissioned a new bespoke documentary on the decline of the bee population in the UK.
7. The Cooperative will partner with RSPB's Homes for Wildlife Team and empower members to garden in ways that are honeybee-friendly
8. An initial 20,000 packets of wildflower seed mix will be made available to members free of charge.
9. Bee boxes are being sourced and made available to Co-operative members at discounted prices.
10. The Co-operative will support its members and colleagues to find out more about amateur beekeeping and will encourage links between local beekeepers and members.