Seeds for a new growing season

Monday 22nd January 2018
This year's seed order
After yesterday's seed audit, I sat down to think about what to grow this year. I have decided to concentrate on what we know we like to eat and what I know grows.
I am going to finally give up on some crops.

OUT 😢

Celeriac - too unpredictable, with decent bulbs only every few years

Aubergine - I've never had anything more than a pathetic crop in the polytunnel. Never ripens well and fruits are small. Also one of the first plants to host red spider mite. Has to go.

Outdoor peas - only grew well one year, when we were virtually waterlogged. OK for a small plot where it can be watered plenty. 

Kohl rabi - grows well but we're not that fussed

Asparagus pea - great for bees and a pretty plant, but the pods taste less like asparagus and more like cardboard

Hamburg Parsley - a nice idea, parsley leaves and parsnip roots, but I find parsnips give better roots and curled parsley gives better leaves

Watermelon - fails every year in the polytunnel, which is a shame as I love it

Cauliflower - when I have managed to get decent curds, the slugs or the weather have invariably got to them first. I have much more success with Romanesco, which is a cross between cauli and broccoli.

Radishes - I grow them because I feel I should, but we never eat them before they bolt

IN 😊
Celtuce - a cross between lettuce and celery. I'm going to give it a try. More in a later post if it's successful, otherwise it can quietly disappear off the list like so many other experimental crops in the past.

Blight Resistant Tomatoes - Legend, Lizzano, Mountain Magic. Growing tomatoes outside is disheartening when they suddenly get hit by blight a few weeks after it has hit the potatoes. Pretty much the whole crop is devastated and the plants have to be pulled up just as they are beginning to crop. So this year I have splashed out. At nearly £3 for six seeds (yes, SIX) they are ridiculously expensive. They are F1 too, which means the big companies have you hooked in. But a full season's harvest from just one plant would easily repay the cost.

Leek Porbella - I've been getting more and more rust on my leeks, so in an effort to break the cycle I am going to switch varieties to a more rust resistant type. Growing disease-resistant strains is one of the mainstays of organic gardening, but one which I often forget to use.

All go

Entertainment for the day involved the setting up of traffic lights outside for BT to do something to the phone lines. Mid morning my internet and phone went off. It amazes me that, with just three houses affected and about a dozen men on the job, that none of them bothered to knock on the door and politely explain what they were doing and that the service would be interrupted for a while. Just common courtesy and good public relations, but there you go.
So instead I decided to go and pick up some bales of straw. I just had to manoeuvre past the van that was parked half across my driveway and pull out in the middle of the traffic lights. Maybe my house is invisible.

I set the alarms off at the farm where I get the straw. They have been having terrible problems with hare coursers. The level of intimidation, even with the police present, is disgusting. These people are vile human beings and need locking up or worse.

Nuking the Polytunnel
With the straw unloaded, main job for the day was to spray the polytunnel with disinfectant. Not particularly nice stuff, but I need to nuke it every winter to try to get rid of the red spider mite which can devastate the plants. I then blasted every inch with a hosepipe. Most of the water seemed to end up soaking up my sleeve, dripping on my head or splashing back onto my glasses.
Tomorrow I will repeat the whole procedure.
If I could rid the tunnel of red spider mite for good I could begin to use it to hold and grow crops through the winter. As it is, we have to go for a full clear-out every year.

There was just time to take the dogs along the river before sunset. The afternoons are getting longer by the day and it won't be long before we have light evenings.