Kitchen Herb Garden Update

So, as promised, I have an update that I have been planning for quite a long time.

You may remember that I saved a couple of plastic trays that meat comes in from a supermarket, put some soil in them, and planted a couple of different herbs in each compartment.

Also, my girlfriend bought some Greek herbs for a dish one day, which I added to the windowsill collection.

I have had a mixed bag of results, and here is my report:

The Greek herbs, a little brown but still smelling INCREDIBLE

The Rosemary (in the back compartment) never grew at all, but the Thyme is looking good.

The Sage has managed to grow two relatively successful plants.

The Basil was growing ok, but then died (I didn't let it die, this happened despite regular watering and careful care).

As you can see, this has not been a raging success, and I haven't yet actually used any of these herbs (such as I have grown) in any cooking.

I would like, here, to pass on a couple of tips that I have been told by various people in response to some of the questions I have posted on this blog over the last few weeks.

First of all, regarding harvest time for parsnips, apparently they should be pulled after the first frost.

Secondly, regarding onions, apparently if you sow with seeds in autumn, and leave the sets in the ground, next year you get even better onions.

So there you are, a couple of hints for you.

Enjoy, back tomorrow.

Edit thanks to @clareyh for the following:

"Did you know not to water basil until it droops? And it hates having wet feet!"

and

"Best one I had I put in a large pot with 2"gravel at bottom and only watered when it was drooping Lasted 3yrs on windowsill 13" high"

So now we know why my basil is dead dead dead :( oh well, better luck next year :)

Hanging Baskets with Tomatoes in

Today I managed to buy some hanging baskets to put some tomato plants in.  I've been planning to do this, as part of my "how do tomatoes grow best" experiment.

So I got my hammer drill, and other tools, out and put up the brackets.

Ready for the tomato plants to be transplanted into them.

I had one and a half trays of seedlings that I had yet to pot out, and gathered some more pots

The hanging baskets, with tomato plants in them, happy in the sun.

I then potted out the rest of the tomatoes from the tray into larger pots, and I used some little clips that I bought from Wilkinsons, to attach the stems to little sticks.

Of the herbs on the Window Sill Herb Garden, the Basil and the Thyme have both started sprouting already!

Still nothing from the mint.

This is a shorted blog post tonight; I've just got in from having dinner sat in the garden appreciating just how lovely it looks and how nice it is to eat things picked from the garden (we had chives picked 10 mins before we ate them; perfection)

I do have a little more advice I need; the planters that I have started the Lettuce off in have BOTH been colonised by ants; is this going to cause me a problem and if so, how the HELL do I get rid of the little bastards?

I think that the initial premise of this blog has pretty much been proved; I still have a job and a successful business and I'm already eating food grown in my back garden, and am not far off being able to provide almost an entire meal prepared with food grown by myself - a VERY satisfying feeling indeed.

A kitchen windowsill herb garden

I have been planning on using some of those plastic trays that food comes on nowadays as planters for some "picking" herbs to sit on the kitchen windowsill, and today I got the 10 mins I needed to get this done.

I filled each tub half full with compost

And then planted, by dibbing a 5mm hole, a couple of seeds in each hole. I have Rosemarry, Thyme, Sage and Basil (last not pictured)

And finally watered each bed liberally.

All four are now sat on my windowsill; I will report back on progress.

In other news I have planted a couple of planters with Lettuce

I've planted about 10 plants in each planter, and will thin the seedlings to retain 4 or 5 per planter.

I did a bit of weeding around the garden this evening, and removed the plaster tunnel from over the carrots and parsnips as they are looking far more established now.

I also took a couple of quick photographs of things I saw while clearing around the garden.

A flower on our Chives

A cluster of buttercups in rough ground near the potato patch

Finally for today, one of my twitter contacts @pipcymru has asked me to post a question to you all as he is having a bit of an issue with last year's raspberries coming through his grass.

They were planted in a wooden barrel last year, but have now appeared with new sprouts through the grass.

If anyone has any thoughts how to deal with this please leave a comment, or contact him direct on the twitter account above.

Edit: thanks to andy, the advice given is, if you do not want to rip up your grass, just cut back the growth regularly and this will starve the roots.

Cheers for reading.

A basic status update

So today is just a simple current state of affairs of everything that I am growing. I have just taken these following a quick half hour blast of weeding around the garden over my lunch break. Someone today said that gardening takes away my anger; I think that is a very accurate description of the calming effect just grubbing around and taking little weeds out of the soil with your bare hands. Epic relaxation.

Stuttgarter Giant Onions

Karmen Red Onions

Red Sun Shallots

Casablanca Garlic

Parsnips (oh yeah!!)

Parnsips close up :) definitely coming through well now they are under plastic

Carrots (another ooohhhh yeahhh!!)

Carrots close up :)

Cabbage seedlings through the netting

Main bed potatoes

Old tyre potatoes (due for another tyre now I think)

(left to right) parsley, chives, corriander.

Chillis

Sweetcorn

Tomatoes

Peppers

The only two plants not showing any green yet is the mint (which is a major surprise) and the spring onions.

This weekend I am going to be splitting the tomato plants out into separate pots ready for offering around to people.  A hint provided me by @Fat_Jacques "put marigolds among tomatoes, [it] helps tomatoes with aphids and other pests."

As always, I am really keen for any advice like this, as a first time gardener, so please do not hesitate to provide advice on the comments here, or through my twitter account (@rhmgroo)

I have some plant pots (and a progress update)

I have been freecycling (as I think I've mentioned before) and today I made my second collection of plant pots from the nice lady in central Blackpool.

I now have a nice collection of plant pots ready for filling up and putting my Tomato Plants in.

Well when I say a "nice" collection:

I had to wash each one of those; I got SOAKED to the skin; good thing the sun has come back :)

So I'm going to be filling each of these up with soil and planting tomato plants in them; I will be taking requests from people for tomato plants via this site so please keep an eye on it. When I know how many I have to give away I'll put a blog post for y'all to say how many you want.

Anyway, the rest of the garden is going pretty well; the ONLY things not growing are the parnsips, carrots and mint (though I'm hopeful they will start in the next couple of weeks - I really did expect the parsnips and carrots to have started to show green by now) but everything else looking great so, without any further ado, status photographs below:

Chillis: not as good as Jon's at work are (apparently, though he's refused to take any pictures to prove how impressive his are) but they're still alive and growing, though slowly.

Blossom has all gone from the Apple tree, but it is looking very healthy and happy :)

The Stuttgarter Giant Onions; nicely weeded today

The Karmen Red Onions, again nicely weeded

The Red Sun Shallots. These are looking so bountiful :)

The Casablanca Garlic. I'm starting to consider how I'll know when to harvest these things :)

Just showing; the cabbage :) this is very exciting for me indeed!

The potatoes in the main bed; I've lots count now of the number of plants that are growing.

Potatoes in the old tyres. These are growing great guns, since I put the second tyre on they have accelerated dramatically.

The herb garden; in all seriousness if anyone wants some Parsley (who lives near Blackpool) just ask and you can come get some :)

The Sweetcorn is coming on really well; only 2 days after the first green started showing they are already a good inch and a half long.

The tomatoes. I have SO many of these coming on!!! I've been taking daily photographs of their progress and will post a seven day progress blog tomorrow.

So, there you have it. Things is growing and growing well.

The ducks are back (and my herbs are rampant)

Two blogs in two days!!

Am I going MAD, I hear your cry...

Well no. I had no plans to write another blog post but last night, as I was heading to bed, I glanced up and saw the two ducks, which I thought had disappeared for the duration, were happily swimming around our pond.

Out the camera came and I managed to capture the following photographs.

This was the sight I saw out the window; the pond needs clearing (a task for a non-windy day) but the ducks were happily swimming around.

They then hopped out and started eating weeds and paddling in the little pools around the wild area (where my blackberries will be growing later in the year)

I then went upstairs to get a better picture but they had left however, as you can see from this photograph of the pond, they had happily swum around the whole thing a couple of times. I'm now tempted to leave the weed and check every day to see if they come back (the landlord may not like that as he's asked if I'll scrape it off for him).

In a hopeful mood I went round to the back, thinking they may have gone to grub there (I have been seeing duck shit in the garden a couple of times) but while they weren't there, the sun was glinting on the lovely pink blossom on my tree. It is a good thing I took the picture because today the storm has come in again and a lot of that blossom is currently spread over the grass.

Finally for the pictures, I have been SO impressed by how the herbs are coming on, particularly the Parsley. It is like a mini tree right now:

Onto other, more technical, matters. I have brought the chillis inside again as the weather really isn't right for them and they were looking a little sad when I got back from work; these are now in the window next to my multiple tomato seedlings :)

I am also going to do a couple of more technical blogs in the next couple of days, describing how I have gone about this so far, and highlighting any mistakes I have made (and there are a few).

Thanks for reading, and please do get involved with any questions, or advice. All gratefully received.