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This week in your Kitchen Garden.

iona said:
I'm on pretty much pure clay. Piling compost up on top is easier than double digging the whole row!
Click to expand...

Always told that growing spuds helps break up "rough" soil - like clay - so the more you grow the better the patch will be over the years.

Quick and easy method I have used is to drop chitted spuds into a dibber dug hole - and then gently earth up as the greenery appears. Held back this year as it still feels a bit cold and colder this week . Yields never great , but tasty.
 
davesgcr said:
Always told that growing spuds helps break up "rough" soil - like clay - so the more you grow the better the patch will be over the years.

Quick and easy method I have used is to drop chitted spuds into a dibber dug hole - and then gently earth up as the greenery appears. Held back this year as it still feels a bit cold and colder this week . Yields never great , but tasty.
Click to expand...
Clay here is really, really thick. Spuds don't grow into it much without digging to break it up first, and those that do are a right cunt to get out again (suspect that's the bit hat actually breaks the soil up more than the spuds themselves!)

Pic I posted was just meant to give an idea of what earthing up is though, mine are nowhere near as neat or much effort than that. Just tip some compost/soil/whatever out between rows and push it up with my hands or feet.
 
I use a bulb planter for my spuds and just dump compost on them. I don't even think of planting them until the 3rd or last week in April though since I never have enough compost to really earth up as frost and light protection. Am always amused at the huge trenches on my allotment site, piled up with mountains of earth before a single shoot has appeared...and which invariably head towards the light at the side of the soil mountains, rather than obediently growing through the heaps.

Have obviously done this myself, before settling into my new slacker method of spudding. One year, having no decent compost, I simply piled the woody brash, straw and grass clipping on the emerging potatoes, raking it off at harvesting time. It was a revelation and I have never really bothered with vast trenches and high earthing up since.
 
gentlegreen said:
I went looking for info about the way Peruvians do it.
They have thousands of constantly evolving varieties.
It must be something of a challenge dodging solanine poisoning with the random genetics and purple ones ... I read somewhere that there is a tradition of clay-eating in some parts to help chelate toxins ...

A known variety ?
Click to expand...
I mentioned it upthread but I got some particularly tasty tomatoes from Waitrose so decided to try to chop one up and grow some of my own. They are called Ist Choice Red. It seems one slice would have been enough.
 
So my urban salad experiment will soon be underway.
I mentioned elsewhere that I'm finally going to have another stab at (passive) hydroponic salad so have watercress rooting from a bag of salad. I've been sitting on some two part hard water nutes for some time and hopefully I will be able to locate my PH meter ...
I found I had 2.5 metres of square section downpipe which I will cut into four sections, heat and seal up the ends and drill 50mmm holes which will let me use pipe lagging to hold the seedlings.
This means I will be able to house two or three at a time across my bathroom window and 2 x 2 staggered above my front porch which should amuse the neighbours - the front of the house faces East so gets morning sun .. as and when I get the back of the house cleared I have a south-west corner suntrap too ...
In addition to the watercress, I just ordered mixed looseleaf lettuce, a mix including various mustards, swiss chard and a tuscany kale which I hope I can make work as baby leaf ...

And purslane and landcress which I'm hoping to establish as weeds ...

In the hope of fitting some into my back garden - and some for the front as quasi-ornamentals on the shady side, I also ordered some tall red kale and some purple sprouting broccoli ..

I seem to have forgotten pak choi, but I never seem to make that work in my cooking and prefer sprouts and broccoli in my dinner and it's salad I want to go with that.

saladgrow.jpg


I also ordered some gardener's delight tomato seeds, but they will go in compost unless the mood takes me to convert a suitable container for hydro - and I would probably have to supplement the potash and magnesium in any case as I think they're veg nutes ...
I had considered a backdrop of climbing beans ...
 
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I can't recommend lentils grown like this - too hairy - somewhat like hemp - and no substitute for pea shoots.
I sprout lentils instead of mung beans because they're far more reliable.
I'm sticking to the jar method and minimal light.

Hopefully these will be OK lightly cooked ...

lentilshoots.jpg
 
Entirely unsurprisingly, after 10 days in my bubbler, the watercress is rooting like mad as well as throwing up side shoots in the nearly dark..
Cue for me to get my finger out and modify my bathroom arrangements to take hydro troughs in place of the underused microgreen gutters - and somehow locate my hot air gun and hole saw to make them ...
I also need to calculate the volume of said troughs and work out how I'm going to manage the nutes having ditched most of my 5 litre water bottles - but making up concentrates in 2 litre bottles should be a decent start ...

Otherwise, as previously , they will end up flowering and seeding themselves into my small cactus collection ...

watercressroots.jpg
 
This morning I have finally got around to chopping up a shelving spur I had going spare and re-engineering my sprouting area to make it more flexible.
Unfortunately I don't have any skimpier brackets so it's a bit over-engineered and may actually be blocking even more light from the room than before - but I may get inspired and make some using wood blocks with hooks.
It's also a bit wobbly because of the tolerances, and I will need shims and foam pieces in any case to get things level and secure.
The next stage is locating my heatgun and hole saw to make my hydro troughs.

sproutingcompared.png
 
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I've started making my hydro troughs for the 4 foot wide porch. ...
A 2.5 metre length of 65mm square downpipe chopped into four so I can start them off in my bathroom / kitchen - hopefully keep some salad growing indoors in the winter ...
I will make a tiered wooden frame for them.
I realised I can also spare a cell at either end so I can have nasturtiums cascading down :)
The big gap in the middle bothers me - I will have to come up with something - perhaps purslane in a trough... perhaps I will start the nasturtiums in the middle two positions and wrap the whole porch ...

I need to put on a show to impress my new neighbour who does gardens for a living :)


hydro channel.png
 
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So it turns out American downspout is 3x4 inches - whereas mine is only 2.75 inches square so I'm low on volume ...
My planters will hold only 2.35 litres and the passive method relies on keeping "air roots" exposed - so that's really only 1.75 litres.

The guy I'm following on Youtube uses 30 inch sections of bigger US 3x4 downspout - though he apparently used to make them the same length as mine .. so his pro-rata have not massively more depth, but 4.3 litres = 3.2 litres ...

So I am likely to need to keep a close eye on the level - refill when they get down to half full - and I ideally don't want to keep getting up on the ladder to check...

So I thought - "fishing floats" - but then also "cheap float switches" ... :)

Since I have lots of multicore wire, I'll be able to tell which one needs refilling :)

I strongly suspect I will want to use both technologies ...
If I want them really cheap I'll have to wait for them to arrive from China...

floats.jpg
 
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Bloody hell I only need four right now ! (though in the future I will need lots of them)
I could almost afford to have a second switch for fill level !
Though on account of roots and gunge, I'm going to have to mount these in tubes - and I may well need to extent the threaded plastic rod to get the right depth ...

Annoyingly I have one switch to play with I bought ages ago but it's horizontal ...

"High quality material: Made of PP material, environmentally friendly, has excellent acid, alkali resistance, non-toxic and spicy, food grade. " :)


floatswitches.png
 
The watercress wouldn't wait any longer so I made my first stab at mixing up hydro nutrients blind (I've mislaid my PH and EC meters and am loathe to buy new ones ...)
I crudely based the dosage of 10ml of parts A and part B on a helpful online video and the plants are now sitting in 2 litres of nuted water in a chopped-down 5 litre PET bottle ...
My reckoning is that the plants will act as "litmus paper" for me - and they're pretty well indestructible ...

For convenience I bought the Plant Magic nutes from a local hydro shop so likely paid over the odds - so once these are gone, I will have to find something cheaper - as well as locating my test equipment and learning how to use them.
A key problem at the moment is finding distilled water to use with the calibration chemicals.

Weighing out the liquid nutes on my 1/100 gram scales was a bit hairy as I've mislaid the syringe I bought with the nutes - hopefully none of it got in the works ...

This is my third stab at hydro watercress ...

firsthydro.jpg
 
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Well I was wondering what to do with the big bit of drainpipe I also have going to waste and it struck me - quasi-NFT kale - mount the whole length on trestles or even cantilevers off the new fence ... which helps me out for a time when I have to level grass the whole area - though I was thinking of leaving a bed on the south side ...

Or rather this video did ... though it would be a compromise in an English winter - and the kale would ironically not get the chance to benefit from the frost and would end up bagged and in the freezer ...

Before I commit myself I'd better make sure I have both of my pumps available in case it goes wrong ...

 
Does anyone please have a suggestion for a tasty climbing/trailing courgette or squash that I could efficiently string along a south-facing fence ?

"Little Gem" ?

Actually given my dietary habits (I eat pickled cucumbers on a daily basis), I might do better with a squash - assuming it would hold up added to a stew ...

Oh and an interesting summer broccoli since I apparently may now have hydroponic capacity ...

ooh I see there's a summer purple sprouting ... :hmm:

Broccoli Sprouting Summer Purple - Premier Seeds Direct

Summer Sprouting is specifically bred for summer cropping tolerating summer heat with no need for winter chill to produce excellent crops of tender purple spears from Jul to Nov. Height: 3 ft Spread: 2 ft.
www.premierseedsdirect.com www.premierseedsdirect.com

At this rate I'm going to relent and grow climbing beans too ... :hmm:
 
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Uchiki Kuri is a nicely elongated squash I sometimes grow over a frame...although you will still need to support the squash as they swell (I use ancient tights). There are no end of courgettes which grow more like a vine than a bush - seem to remember the last vertical courgette was a very dark green one called Midnight Beauty...but the old variety usually just called zucchini is a reliable, non-bush type. Haven't even dug my (tender) seeds out of storage yet as it has been a bloody cold spring. Spuds still not in the ground either. Doing nowt until the soil warms and we get reliable 12-15C daylight temps.
 
I was up my short ladder earlier measuring-up prior to visiting the cheap shop for a suitable dedicated hydro tank for the porch nasturtiums.
My vertigo is so bad these days - assembling the kit is not going to be fun.
I will definitely be setting up a stout frame to clamp the ladder on for maintenance and harvesting - especially with having to make room for the descending nasturtiums ...

On the other hand I absolutely need to regain my ladder confidence - perhaps it will help me with the claustrophobia I've developed in recent years that is threatening my ever taking up proper swimming - let alone diving ...

I'm glad I've decided to go ahead with my back garden NFT for larger greens - though I can see me wanting to grow a Cavalo Nero or two up there just for ornamental reasons and I definitely hope I will be able to get some up to height in the ground for the same reason ...

hydro planningsmaller.jpg
 
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I'm finding myself watching Charles Dowding for inspiration - he actually produces enough for sale on 1/4 acre / 1000 sq M - which is the lower limit for the size of garden I'm looking for in a retirement home but 20 times bigger than my current back garden -

 
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I've gained a little confidence that I will get the garden level over the next week or two so I'm going full allotment.
Hot fence with hydro greens, toms and squashes. and giant sunflowers for fun :)
Big bed in the middle and into the shadier end stuffed with winter brassicas - I reckon purple sprouting as sprouts get really cheap and PS is a treat ...
I suppose I ought to do a "three sisters thing nearer the house ...

I suppose I'd better get some fertiliser ...

:hmm:

paltalkbackgarden.jpg
 
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I have to admit there's more than a little bit of impressing the neighbours - especially now I have a pro gardener on the right with all sorts of fancy shade plants and impressive tree pruning ...
And I need to find a reason to like living here for a bit while I get myself organised.
I simply can't stare at 50 square metres of unused soil for another year ...
 
So ...
Am I barking up the wrong tree by looking at what the sun does in a small garden ?
Logically I suppose I should do the whole succession / intercropping thing starting with peas maybe ?
I ought to be looking at summer veggies I can store, so drying peas and beans.
And how to avoid being overloaded with purple sprouting broccoli next year - though I can always give some away ...
 
Saunders said:
Thanks so much The39thStep and iona i shall look into it more and read your instructions before planting the other half of them. I just did two rows of 7, one row where there was a good 5 inch soil on top, the other where each potato went into a 5 inch hole.
Click to expand...
So my first row of potatoes now all have leaves above the soil, they’re between 1 and 3 inches high
I’m thinking I should cover them all over with some Earth and compost
 
What do people put in their bean trenches and is it too late ?
I don't have much - coffee grounds and peelings - and a lot of those have been sat in a kitchen waste bin for months so are mouldy ...
But I have a lot of rough plant material from my recent pampas removal ...
 
gentlegreen said:
What do people put in their bean trenches and is it too late ?
I don't have much - coffee grounds and peelings - and a lot of those have been sat in a kitchen waste bin for months so are mouldy ...
But I have a lot of rough plant material from my recent pampas removal ...
Click to expand...
I think beans are pretty hungry. A couple of years ago I had no manure available and fed them weekly with tomato feed when watering and they did fine. Normally I'd put some manure with a load of stingers or comfrey on top, cover with soil and plant into that.
 
contadino said:
I think beans are pretty hungry. A couple of years ago I had no manure available and fed them weekly with tomato feed when watering and they did fine. Normally I'd put some manure with a load of stingers or comfrey on top, cover with soil and plant into that.
Click to expand...
Oh yes I wonder if I could plunder some stingers ..

I have no shame with newly-disturbed soil. I may use some chicken shit pellets, but also Growmore.

Which reminds me I need to sort out a reliable run of hose to reach the end of the garden...
 
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