Sweetcorn, Cabbage and Ripening Tomatoes

Another update update today, this time about the sweetcorn, cabbage and some more tomatoes.

The sweetcorn does look like it is coming on really well, to be fair, but I'm not sure if what I'm seeing is good or bad - I had expected some cobs to have developed by now.

A close up of the tip of one of my sweetcorn plants

The sweetcorn bed

The cabbage has come on very well, and is now ready for harvesting and eating. This weekend I will be planning a meal which will enable me to taste it, finally.

The sweetcorn bed; the wet weather has once again stalled my grass-cutting habit, which is frustrating.

I have also been very excited to notice, following my hopeful blog of the previous days, that the outside tomatoes appear to be starting to turn :)

A little bit of colour starting to show on some of the outside tomatoes.

However, while I was looking over the tomatoes I notices that some bug has managed to get a taste before me! How rude!

A couple of shots of the pre-munched tomato.

So, that is it for now. Be back soon I am sure.

Staking out the sweetcorn

After a couple of weeks of thinking about it, I finally got round to staking out the sweetcorn, some of which was starting to look a little wobbly.

None of the plants have fallen over, but a couple are leaning quite dramatically.

You can see in the background of this picture that some of the weeds had been overgrowing slightly too. I have inserted the stake ready for attaching too.

The sweetcorn plant is now much more stable, and is no longer impacting the smaller plant next to it

I am using little plastic hoops bought from Wilkinsons for a couple of pence each. These are also what I have used when staking my tomato plants.

All the plants are now staked, and I have pulled back the overgrowing seeds. There is still some work to be done clearing the little weeds around the base of the plants, but none of these are too big right now

The sweetcorn forest.

So, a practical post. If any of you are growing sweetcorn I'd be really happy to see pictures, and maybe post them on here, including any other hints you may have.

Cheers

Digging Onions and Eating A Tomato (plus other things)

This blog post could have been split into a couple of different updates, I reckon, but I've had a busy week and haven't been able to find the time to do a post every time I've wanted to.

However, that just means that you get to enjoy this post all the more, as it has been marinating in my mind all week.

So, the first update that I could have written involves further harvesting of onions. I also went to harvest the garlic but it isn't ready yet.

This is the garlic. It is not ready for harvesting, as you can see because there is still green growth above every bulb.

The onions, however, are obviously ready as you can see from the fact the growth above ground is dead.

The onions, and one batch of shallots that I pulled, are now drying on the mat in the Living Room. I have been eating my own onions regularly this week and they taste outstanding.

The parsnips are looking pretty good - I'm not sure when I'll know they are ready though.

Some of the cabbage is looking almost cabbage shaped too - this will be tasty when I get round to it, maybe some time this week will be time for my first home-grown-cabbage-meal.

The sweetcorn is still looking good too - I may have to stake out some of it as it's getting quite tall now.

So, that was the first blog post that I could have done. It was good, wasn't it.

And here comes the second (exceptionally geeky and excited) blog post. This one is called "Eating A Tomato"

So the tomato that was starting to turn red in my last blog post was knocked off accidentally about 20 minutes after I took the photograph but I put it on the windowsill for a day and it finished ripening off nicely after a day or so.

So the next day I took my prize and joy into the office and ate it.

Oh yeah!

Me looking proud with my first tomato.

Me about to bite down into my first tomato.

Can I just say that this tomato was the nicest tomato I've ever eaten. Seriously.

I now have another tomato very close to ripe, and LOADS more across the outside plants.

I spotted this little bee flitting around pollinating my tomato flowers :) so there will be a LOAD more coming soon.

Four more tomatoes growing a-pace on some of the outside plants, taking in a super dooper arty farty way.

Chillis growing very well on the downstairs inside plants, and there are a lot of other flowers on these plants, whereas the plant on the upstairs bedroom windowsill has no more flowers unfortunately.

More flowers on the chilli plants outside, which are just about surviving the onslaught from the massive slug infestation this country is suffering under.

So there you are, two blog posts in one, aren't you lucky, and lots and LOTS of pictures.

Cheers

A general status update

Once again I have been out in the garden today, it being the first day there's been any sun at all.

I cut the grass, took the little greenhouse things down for the year (they will probably next be used when I leave the country!) and cleared around generally.

So, without any further ado, here is my update.

The main potato bed. I have not harvested any yet. This looks like a massive failure to be fair. I will try and dig these out tomorrow and photograph it if possible.

The potatoes in the tyres are possibly slightly better, I'll be getting them out tomorrow too if possible.

Some rotten Shallots. These pulled out by accident and they look like they're rotting in the ground slightly; probably not that surprising considering how much rain we've had.

The Stuttgarter Giant Onions are still looking healthy though.

Sweetcorn growing well! I've been meaning to take photographs of this for a while. This is looking pretty good I'd have said.

Cabbage patch :) Some of these are improving quite well, some have been eaten completely by slugs

The apples on the little apple tree are amazing now. A couple have been lost to dropping off, but I am going to be picking and eating these over the next week or so.

The second batch of lettuce, coming through very well indeed. I can't wait to eat these.

I MAY have another blog later as I had plans to have Fajitas tonight with my beautiful lady, using onions, chillis and lettuce grown by myself, but the electrics in my kitchen have blown so we may have to put that off for another time.  I really hope the sparky can come and fix it today so we can do this though!

Anyway, enjoy, I'll be back soon (I have SO many chillis on their way, but no more tomatoes, in case you were wondering.)

Meandering around the garden

I do have some things that I need to do, which I will photograph and blog about, but for today, while the sun is shining (which does make such a change) I have just got a few random photographs of things I'm growing, both by choice, and in wilderness sections of the garden.

So, without further ado, here they are.

The forest of tomato plants inside; there are some peppers at the front, and three chilli plants in there too.

Shiny red apple on my lovely young Coxes Apple Tree

It's the Cabbage Patch, kids ;) little bit eaten, but still going strong

Slightly battered main bed potatoes, may need to harvest these soon..

Sweetcorn still growing well; though not as established as I hoped; may need to trim the overhanging trees back a bit.

On a walk around the garden, some beautiful flowers on a bush in the back garden. (Honesuckle - thanks @Clareyh) these are smelling absolutely incredible :)

Another beautiful flower. (A Briar Rose - again thanks @Clairyh)

The wilderness to the side of the main drive.

More beautiful flowers, this time on the other side of the drive.

Lilly plants on the pond

The wilderness by the pond; that big bush at the back is a massive blackberry bush and soon I will be able to start collecting fruit again.

The early blackberries... CANNOT wait!

Finally some strange looking flowers very low to the ground just in the wild area by the pond.

So there you have it, a few more photographs from around the garden.

I'm trying to buy myself a new camera (as these have all so far been taken on my camera phone) so hopefully the quality will improve once I manage to buy one at the price I want.

Coming up soon, I will be artificially inseminating my tomato plants. Oooh Errrr Missus!

Peace

Potting out the sweetcorn

The sweetcorn that I planted as seeds a few weeks ago has grown SO fast!

Below are a few "daily photographs" to demonstrate just how fast, once it showed, it has shot up...

 Day 1

 Day 2

 Day 3

 Day 4

 Day 5

 Day 6

 Day 7

I haven't taken any daily pics for the last few days, but they had grown so much they were above the white bar visible above them in the last picture.

So I decided that today (well yesterday, as I'm typing this) was the right time to plant these seedlings out into the prepared bed that I dug out and cleared and dug in some good compost over the previous few weeks.

The tray of sweetcorn seedlings next to the bed, before I raked and cleared it finally

Post raking - I've broken up the big lumps of soil and taken out some MORE glass

Digging a hole for the first seedlings

Splitting the root ball up; this was a bad idea in the end, and later I'll show a better method of doing this.

The two seedlings nicely bedded in and ready for watering.

A better method of splitting the root ball; spraying it with the hose to clear all the soil away and allow the water to untangle the roots leaving....

... a nice clean plant and root system which can be replanted without any breakages.

The final plant bed, hopefully these will continue to grow at the same rate and some BBQs will be in our future, with corn on the cob straight off the plant :)

I am thinking of starting some more sweetcorn seedlings straight away, in case some of these don't take, and also possibly to extend the bed to grow some more.

To add another chapter to the "Tomato Tolstoy" I have finally potted out every seedling into larger pots, I doubled up the hanging baskets so there are two plants in each now. Now to keep watering them EVERY day and seeing which grows best.

The rest of the garden is coming on very well too; I will need to be pricking out the lettuce, carrots and parsnips soon as they are looking far more established. No sign yet of Lettuces, but the Kitchen Window herb garden is looking good.

Today was so warm I have come inside to do this blog rather than be outside in the sun; think I'll go back out now though as it's baking out there and I do like the sun.

Final comment; the pond is much clearer now, and today I saw lots of fish in it and a large frog that stuck it's head out through some weed to cool down, then splashed off after a couple of minutes. There were also some Damsel Flies scooting around, but photographs of them just didn't come out.