Failure and success, May 2024

So it's still not all planted.  Yet.  I've got a lot of trays on my patio in various stages of emergence, though I think I'm going to have to give up on the last 35ish pots of peas, as they are dated from April and still haven't sprouted.  I've had this problem with everything so far this year:  seeds go into little pots and a large proportion of them just don't sprout.  This is for indoor sowing and outdoor sowing, so I'm really not sure what's going on.  I don't have a single butternut squash or romanesco zucchini (indoors), and I'm still waiting on my corn too (outdoors).  Maybe it's my potting compost.

In slightly better news, I do have about half a dozen self-sprouted squash seeds growing in the chicken yard at the allotment--we moved the chickens back home earlier this month.  I generally give my chickens most of my kitchen scraps, which obviously included some squash seed (we still have two left on the living room windowsill, looking good!--and just finished the third to last one).  Hopefully they grow well, as my tray-sown seeds are also very patchy:  only about six I think, from around 24.  These are the big round Kuri squashes from last year:  tasty and good keepers.

Also at the allotment, I've got in the first small leeks, sown back in March.  I have a second sowing just coming up now.  I also got in the next batch of beets, and resowed the tray after I'd emptied it.  The first beets I planted out have really grown, but the peas look kind of puny and sad still.  I wonder if the soil is too rich for them--it's mainly well-composted horse manure that all the other plants seem to like.  My tomatoes look really sturdy, and the broad beans--though a bit short--are covered in flowers.

The husband spent about an hour at this weekend and the previous one making us a new little tool shed at the allotment, using a large wooden shipping container given to us by a fellow allotmenter.  The son and I wrestled it into position onto some old sleepers first (and I dropped one on my foot in the process--limped around for two weeks).  The next weekend the husband bought some wood preservative and painted it inside and out;  and this weekend he fashioned a door for it using a panel (from a deconstructed shed) we'd scavenged from an abandoned allotment a while ago.  It's not quite as tall as me, but is a good size for our shovel and fork, and holds the watering can and still has quite a lot of room.  However it's not quite tall enough/wide enough for our rusty old wheelbarrow.  But that's ok, I can't imagine anyone wanting to steal it--or our tools either:  they're all a bit rubbish.

And now on to planting

Only one Kumoi pear on the whole tree, May 2024

As far as seeds go, I'm on the final stretch.  Everything that needs to be sown before summer has at least one tray sown so far, even bottom-of-the-queue corn.  Why was corn last to be prioritized?  Everything else either takes up less room and/or gives a bigger harvest:  corn takes up a lot of space for very little edible return--we love it as a luxury, not a necessity.

And so now I'm on to a transplanting frenzy.  Every day for more than a week I've been taking up trays and pots to the allotment to get things in there: mainly peas (nearly done now) but also beets and I've moved on to the tomatoes too.  There is still a lot of space to plant at the allotment but because of intense slug pressure, I really can't take up a lot of things.  For instance, I tried four extra lettuce seedlings when planting them out at home;  they went into a newly filled container, with a thick layer of eggshells surrounding them and a bit of chicken wire over the top--these lasted one day.  

Because of the ongoing pot shortage, most of my warm weather crops--squash, zuc, climbing beans, corn, pickling cucumbers--got sown later than I would have liked.  Some of these aren't even sprouting yet--to think I actually transplanted most of them out in May last year.  However, they should still succeed with a later June transplant, which I sometimes have to do anyway if mid/late May is still chilly or very rainy (though it's not this year(.

The view from the back door, May 2024

At home I'm about halfway through planting my kitchen garden beds.  I do have a fairly big garden and could convert quite a bit more of it to beds--and perhaps I will do so in the future--but we like having a mixed garden with trees, ornamentals and a bit of lawn.  I have mostly brassicas here at the moment but also this weekend I transplanted some parsley and marigold seedlings, pricked out from a large pot I'd broadcast them into.  I'm also preparing a newly sheet mulched bed (mainly covered with last winter's contents of the chicken house) for salad cucumbers.

The lettuces, cauliflowers and direct sown cabbages seemed to have been badly damaged by those pesky wood pigeons so I erected a piece of insect mesh over them; while it won't completely exclude cabbage butterflies, it should keep out pigeons, ducks and chickens.  It looks like those rotten pigeons completely nipped off all the little cabbage seedlings so I transplanted out some purple sprouting broccoli instead and will later transplant some more cabbage further along that bed.  Luckily I had already broadcast another pinch of cabbage seed into a large pot (now sprouting up) just in case the direct sown ones didn't succeed.

Down to the wire (still more seeds)

Seed trays at the back, seedlings under mesh, and a little cardboard for sheet mulch, May 2024

Holding my row cover/insect mesh is an old head board and foot board from a child-sized bed the neighbor was throwing out.  The mesh itself is less to protect my kohlrabi against cabbage butterflies and more to protect it from my own birds and the local wood pigeons.  That bed is primarily kohlrabi, but I've just transplanted a couple of red kale into gaps in the rows, and am hoping for a few parsnips to emerge still.  But I have a few more kale at the ready in case they don't.

Can you see the little kohlrabi?  I took this photo at the start of the month, and they've tripled in size, May 2024

Some of the kohlrabi was direct-sown, and some I transplanted;  both look similar in size and growth, but the transplants are better spaced out, with fewer gaps.  

I have a couple of Savoy cabbages also emerging from another bed, under some wire (not fully peck-proof, but at least it's scratch-resistant), but I have since broadcast another pinch of seed onto a large pot for later transplant;  it looks like germination has been patchy.  Or maybe it's the wood pigeons--they've nipped the ends from my lettuces under there.

I'm still suffering from a lack of pots, but have been emptying about a dozen a day this past week by transplanting the snap peas at the allotment--I've also obtained about eight or ten white plastic pots previously holding cream (the husband goes through a lot of coffee).  As soon as they're empty, I fill them with fluffed-up wool, seeds, and a bit of soil.

The tomatoes and first sowing of cucumbers have graduated to the patio after a week and a half of acclimatizing during the day (and back indoors at night);  I hope to get these planted at the allotment by the end of the week.  So now I have squash (two kinds), zuc and pickling cucumbers in in my kitchen window:  a few cucs are even poking up.  And on the patio I have started some trays of green beans.  I still have not got any corn started or the purple beans--I need to sow these imminently!  But due to the acute pot shortage I've had to prioritize and those two ended up at the bottom of the list;  I probably won't even get to them until I've done all the green beans.

Not done yet (with seeds)

 So happy we've had a full week of 14C and above temps;  my seedlings have finally been able to grow a bit.  I've planted out the first tray of snap peas at the allotment, and the first tray of beet seedlings too.  I have many more peas coming up (though still a little small to transplant), and the next tray of beets just emerging (and to keep up the succession, another tray has been sown).  I will try to keep the beets going this way:  as soon as I plant out a tray, immediately resow with more seed.

Snap peas sprouting, May 2024

A few older packets of seed I just broadcast into larger pots, hoping a few would sprout;  it seems that the purple sprouting broccoli wasn't as old as I thought, as pretty much all of it looks to be growing.  Not so much for a packet of cabbage, however, though I a do have kale, parsley (I think) and French marigolds too.

An old packet of seed: "maybe a couple will sprout!" May 2024

Under my insect mesh at home, the kohlrabi is getting on, and I interplanted the cauliflower with lettuce.  The cauliflower seems to have stalled in the cold spring, but the lettuces look better, though I've seen the wood pigeons skulking around them (they are under wire, but not completely peck-proof).  

I've also got a few directly-sown Savoy cabbages coming up nearby, but I plan on growing a couple transplants of these too as the other (older) packet of cabbages didn't sprout.  One of my garden goals is to grow my own kimchi this year, which means I need some cabbage (yes, technically not Savoy, but I couldn't find any Napa cabbage seed).

And in my situation with the pots (i.e. 100+ pots is not enough), I've been getting creative.  I got another 18 out of a pot exchange bin at a garden center--we only stopped on the way past as the daughter was desperate for the toilet:  a lucky find.  And I've told the family not to throw out any small plastic pots from the refrigerator when they're empty (the husband goes through a lot of cream with his coffee);  at least five have been repurposed so far.  I went on a seed spree over the weekend, and any I had emptied got filled again.  And I'm not done yet.