It's started.....

It's started - the next growing season

It's always nice to get the first batch of seed off to a flying start; I am quite tough with mine. These are tomatoes at the back, lettuce on the right hand - front and onions in the others. The toms will be grown on indoors until I work out which one is the best to try and get me early toms [these are all earlyish varieties], the lettuce and onions will go straight outside into the unheated greenhouse once they are an inch tall.

First sowings from the 2011 Seed Circle

Ok, so first to go in were the Babington Leeks and the Egyptian Walking Onions. They have been sown in a try with some garlic inbetween; not much to see yet but photos of starts are always as good as photos of the finished crops!

2012 Tomato Seed Listing...

My lovely friend suggested that we go to an open day 2 hours from home, to get tomato seedlings in March and I've said that I probably won't need any - so I thought I'd list my tomato seed stash to see whether I do indeed need a trip out...

There's those from the 2011 A4A Seed Circle [22]:

Alpatieva 905A

Beijing Yellow

Delhi

Demidov

Dwarf Mr Snow  

Early Tanana

Eli

Green Bell Pepper

He-man rootstock,

Koralik 

Korol Rannikh  

Latah

Michael Pollan

Monkeys Ass

Plumpton King

Prairie Fire 

Yellow Out Red In

Red Pear

Slovienian Black

Tasmanian Chocolate Dwarf

T.C. Jones 

Vova Yellow 

Recent aquisitions [3]:

Imur Prior Beta

Christel's Plum

Sweet Pea Currant

Bush tomatoes from Jeannine in Canada [12]

Homesweet

Kootenai

Pendula Orange

Moskovitch

Oregon Spring

Rutgers

Early Girl Bush

Chico III

Celebrity Bush

Beaver Lode Slicer

Alaska

Sasha's Pride

Bush tomatoes given to me last year by a chum [4]

Scotia

Maja

Rambling Gold

Silver Fir Tree 

Others for my bush tomato project [10]

Texan Wild Tomato

Maskotka

Togi Bush [original]

Togi Bush [self saved, so the next generation]

Koralik [different year from the ones above]

Red Cluster Pear - centiflor type

Dwarf Wax

Lime green salad

Latah [again from different stock from above]

Aurora [earliest I've ever had toms, red on 2nd June]

And Vines [68]

Auntie Madge 

Minabel

Atkins Stuffing

Black Plum

Bloody Butcher

Marmande

Jan's Cherry

Galina

Fablonelistnuj [?]

Roma 

Costoluto Florentino

Speckled Russian Plum [not named, just they looked like this on the packet]

Silach

Blue OSU

Mortgage Lifter

Nepal

Snow White

Golden Sunrise

Principe Borghese

Piccolo

Black Truffle 

Polish Linguison

Red Zebra

Mexican Honey

German Lunchbox [no sniggering please]

Goldkrone

Kenilworth King George

GReen Velvet

Giant Plum

Bruds Blackheart

Depp's Pink Firefly

Purple Cherokee

Cuore Di Bue

Millefleur

De Colgar

Falcon
Purple Ukraine

Amish Paste

Gardener's Delight

Southern Nights

Yellow Perfection [get in, these are fabulous]

Purple Russian [honestly, these are amazing]

Togi Vine

White Oxheart

Grushovka

Chiapis Wild

Spanish Big Globe

Smadar

Togi [the previous generation to the above self saved ones]

Riesentraube

Burpees Delicious

Red Pear [From Brooklyn]

Yellow Pear [from Brooklyn]

Abraham Lincoln

Darby Striped Pink/Yellow

Dawson's Russian Oxheart

Stonor's No 2

Arkansas Traveller

Sreonjevlika

Peacevine Cherry

Sugar Plum
Stonor's Most Prolific

Tigerella

Plum from Coullioure [bought in a market]

Piglet Willie's French Black

Olirose

Sungold

Nior

I've got some others that I will definitely not grow, that I will give away in swaps, and I'll be adding the Costoluto Florentinos to those; plus a couple of others that I won't be growing next year.

Plus I have got a couple others saved from this year drying out which I haven't added on here - yet.

I get 109 different varieties from that list ready to sow. Only 1 [Smadar] has one seed; the others have plenty for me to be getting on with.

The sowing starts tomorrow for my bush tomato project; I got great results with bush toms and want to try more this year. Bring it on.

The List

Following on from this Blog post

I will be recording and documenting these seeds to show the benefits and results of partaking in a seed circle with like-minded individuals. 

Somewhere over the next growing season, I will be sowing ALL of these seeds, and tracking their successes, failures and the yields that I got from them.

Achocha Lady’s Slipper (cyclanthera pedata)

 

Alliums

Babington Leek (allium ampeloprasum babingtonii)                     

Stamme onions

Egyptian Walking onion Catawissa allium cepa proliferum

Broad Beans

Vitelotte 

Unknown Variety

French Beans

Major Cooke 

Bonne Bouche

Cherokee Trail of Tears

Succotash

Magpie

Madeira Maroon

Edamame

Swedish One Dot

Runner beans

Mrs Connell’s Black 

Corn

Painted Mountain

Herb

Borage

Dill 

Quillquiña = Bolivian Coriander

Rocket

Turkish Rocket (Bunias orientalis).

Lovage

Flat Leaved Parsley

Sorrel Belleville

Kale 

Siberian Kale

Nero di Toscana aka Black Kale

Lettuce

Grandpa Admire’s

Pommee Brune d’Hiver

Pink

Parsnip

Avon Resistor

Peas and Mangetout

Golden Sweet mangetout 

King Tut/Pran’s Pea 

Magnum Bonum

Paula

Salmon-Flowered Pea 

Skånsk Märgärt

Stephen’s Pea 

Suttons Purple Podded 

Pepper, Chilli

Alberto’s Locoto, a Rocoto pepper

Chilli de Cayenne 

Small Unnamed Chilli 

Anaheim Chilli

Pepper, Sweet

Napier Pointy Red

Pumpkin/Squash

Hungarian Zucchini

Georgia Candy Rooster Squash 

Waltham - butter nut squash

Zapallito Squash 

Tomato

Alpatieva 905A

Beijing Yellow

Delhi

Demidov

Dwarf Mr Snow  

Early Tanana

Eli

Green Bell Pepper

He-man rootstock,

Koralik 

Korol Rannikh  

Latah

Michael Pollan

Monkeys Ass

Plumpton King

Prairie Fire 

Yellow Out Red In

Red Pear

Slovienian Black

Tasmanian Chocolate Dwarf

T.C. Jones 

Vova Yellow 

True Potato Seed

Blue Belle TPS                            

Spring Cabbage Durham Early

Tzimbalo Solanum Caripense

Sweet Peas [mainly pink]

Helianthus Sungold

A little part of a big picture....

So today I took delivery of the results of one of the Seed Swap Circles that I am a contributor to.  This is year 2 of this particular circle; which is run through a popular allotment forum. 

72 bags of seed I received, the list is below. 

A decent photo will follow, once I've found the lead! For now though, the image was taken on my blackberry....

Now, I've not knowingly met any of the people in this community; and I know I've swapped with them informally, and perhaps some of the seeds that were shared were grown from seeds that I originally swapped with them, or from last year's circle. But the bigger picture here is that we are saving and swapping from seeds from all over the place, from HSL, from Real Seeds, from friends, family and overseas; and we are helping to save a little piece of our history in these lovely seeds. 

It's blooming marvelous, and I am hoping that the participant of my own circles will feel the same once their seeds are sent out in the New Year. 

And a very timely delivery, with tomorrow being the solstice, I'm going to get the Babington Leeks and Egyptian Walking Onions into soil first thing tomorrow. 

If you have never saved seeds, or if you do save and are not part of a circle, I heartily recommend it. Have a look at our Seed Saving in Schools document which may give you some ideas as to how to save your own seed and activities to get people interested in saving their own seeds....oh, and it also saves a fortune each year as 72 varieties from a seed catalogue would be about, well, probably about £140.

Here is the list:

Achocha Lady’s Slipper (cyclanthera pedata)

Alliums

Babington Leek (allium ampeloprasum babingtonii)                     

Stamme onions

Egyptian Walking onion Catawissa allium cepa proliferum

Broad Beans

Vitelotte 

Unknown Variety

French Beans

Major Cooke 

Bonne Bouche

Cherokee Trail of Tears

Succotash

Magpie

Madeira Maroon

Edamame

Swedish One Dot

Runner beans

Mrs Connell’s Black 

Corn

Painted Mountain

Herb

Borage

Dill 

Quillquiña = Bolivian Coriander

Rocket

Turkish Rocket (Bunias orientalis).

Lovage

Flat Leaved Parsley

Sorrel Belleville

Kale 

Siberian Kale

Nero di Toscana aka Black Kale

Lettuce

Grandpa Admire’s

Pommee Brune d’Hiver

Pink

Parsnip

Avon Resistor

Peas and Mangetout

Golden Sweet mangetout 

King Tut/Pran’s Pea 

Magnum Bonum

Paula

Salmon-Flowered Pea 

Skånsk Märgärt

Stephen’s Pea 

Suttons Purple Podded 

Pepper, Chilli

Alberto’s Locoto, a Rocoto pepper

Chilli de Cayenne 

Small Unnamed Chilli 

Anaheim Chilli

Pepper, Sweet

Napier Pointy Red

 Pumpkin/Squash

 Hungarian Zucchini

Georgia Candy Rooster Squash 

Waltham - butter nut squash

Zapallito Squash 

   

Tomato

Alpatieva 905A

Beijing Yellow

Delhi

Demidov

Dwarf Mr Snow  

Early Tanana

Eli

Green Bell Pepper

He-man rootstock,

Koralik 

Korol Rannikh  

Latah

Michael Pollan

Monkeys Ass

Plumpton King

Prairie Fire 

Yellow Out Red In

Red Pear

Slovienian Black

Tasmanian Chocolate Dwarf

T.C. Jones 

Vova Yellow 

True Potato Seed

Blue Belle TPS                            

Spring Cabbage Durham Early

Tzimbalo Solanum Caripense

Sweet Peas [mainly pink]

Helianthus Sungold

Here is the photo:

 and I'm off now, to prepare some seed trays for tomorrow. 

Happy Winter Solstice to you all for tomorrow, I'll have my head down sowing seeds and especially planting Garlic.

OCD - ish

I am currently in a job where I teach Organic Gardening to SEN teenagers. As part of this, I have spent some time with the Garden Organic Growth project. One of the things that they are taught is to be very specific about what is composted where - so perennial weeds are burnt, and annual weeds are chopped down and composted in their compost bin. Ever since, I have been ever-so-slightly obsessed with chopping down my own 'to be composted material' at home. This for example, is the foliage from 24 tomato plants, 9 pepper/chilli plants and the droppings from our very large grape. I collected them and as the bag filled up, got the choppers out and chopped them down. Then filled it again, and again and again; possibly about 12 times. And then I added today's potato peelings, carrot peelings and coffee grounds. So there is alot of 'stuff' in here - probably 2 wheelbarrows full if it wasn't chopped down.

This is a shopping bag, not a huge composting bag; from a popular supermarket.

It can be quiet therapeutic, just chopping down stuff for composting.

Village Show and peas

 I've added this as I put it on faceache just to start a new album and I had so many 'likes' that I felt bad deleting it. So now it has it's place somewhere....It needs cropping now it's on here but what the heck...

We had our village show in Sept and I just wanted to showcase a couple of cup cakes. These first ones were made by my chum, Debbie - and I thought they were fantastic

Whereas these were the winners, made by the 'only goths in the village' [so they think] and I bought these afterwards in the raffle and can concur - they were fabulous.

Photos in Northumberland

 We went to Northumberland and I took a few shots on my Olympus EP-1

This first one is of a Dandelion on the side of the walls of Lindisfarne Castle. 

One of the roughest places in the UK - weather-wise....and yet there it sits, hanging on and still keeping it's seed head intact. 

Marvelous.

 

 This one is at Alnwick Gardens next to the Castle. 

It's of a little girl running across the swing bridge.

 This was taken in the grass with Lindisfarne Castle in the background.

 Ditto

 And this is of grasses also hanging onto Lindisfarne Castle walls.

If you haven't been to Alnwick Gardens, I'm not going to spoil the surprise that greets you when you walk through the entrance, suffice to say it's breathtaking. esp on a sunny day. 

So this is a shot out in the rose garden.

Photos in Edinburgh

We took a trip in our camper van up North to Northumberland and to Edinburgh a few weeks back, and I thought I'd add some of the photos on here. All were taken with my Olympus EP-1

This first one is a shot of the entrance to the campsite.

 

And this next one is of a church with a speeding bus - taken as we waited for the bus that was to break down on it's way up the hill. 

We did the Rebus tour - we don't often 'do' tours but we thought we would as it would stop us from spending too much money and we would learn stuff about Edinburgh that we didn't already know. I'd recommend it, however try to do it on a non-rainy day. This is a shot from some steps as we went round the city.

And on the same tour, a bench.

All in all, our 2 days were great, the first day we had glorious sunshine and were too hot to walk around the city; the second day we had a grey start, it got greyer and wetter and by the time we got back to the campsite, at about 7pm - it was raining heavily and it didn't stop all night long. So we headed in a southerly direction towards the 'non-rain' and yes, it only stopped raining 5 miles from home. So we had the last day of the hols at home, in the sun.

Beans, beans and more beans

Warning - this is a trial!

We bought one packet of Asd* soup beans [other supermarkets are available] and sowed them in land turned over just once, that hadn't been used for growing for years.

We sowed half in each 80cm wide row, which was about 10m long. 

This was the week before the end of last year's summer term; so about mid July.

We started harvesting them in October; and didn't harvest them all [I'd estimate about 2/3 of them were harvested] the rest were lost due to wet weather the pods got too wet to deal with without a workshop to lay them all out to dry.

So - the stats. We sowed 500g of seeds, and got out 5490g - a very good increase in yield of over ten times the amount we put in. Also, a fair amount of the soup beans were not beans, but green lentils, and peas; so an even better yield for the beans that grew well.

We are having half each, as I bought the seeds - I am putting them into jars for presents and the school will be doing the same for their Christmas Fayre.

All in all, a complete success.

Autumn 2011

I'm so bad. I've not been on here for ages - mainly because summer is so busy! But I wanted to blog the lovely present [from a swap] that came through the post today.


A chum on a forum I am on [not the Vine] wanted some potato onions - so I've sent those and as bush tomatoes have been so successful for us and the schools this year, I asked for a few [a few I said] bush toms if she had any....and this was what she sent.

Flippin loads of them!!!


Anyway J - thank you so much, me and the students will be growing these in and around Coventry, Oxford and Derby next year and we'll save from them and share them round the UK.

Brilliant.

Heritage Vegetable Review - Salmon Flowered Pea

Salmon Flowered Pea
The bag of peas was part of a batch that were ex HSL as the germination rate wasn't enough to give to members. So I nabbed a bag.

First flowers out yesterday so I grabbed a photo this morning. Lovely looking flower.



Just wanted to capture the stem and the pinkiness where the leaf axils are. [June 2011]

Heritage Vegetable Review - Sweet Lupino Bean

Sweet Lupino Bean


These seeds were bought from ebay and to be honest they have been a bit hard to germinate. I got one however, which is very satisfying. Half the remaining seeds are currently in the airing cupboard in damp compost and vermiculite to try and encourage them to sprout.

I love the leaf of these. The new leaves seem to be quite yellow so I am repotting this one at the weekend. I really need to make sure this survives to get some beans from it. [June 2011]

Today's photos of the greenhouse

I only have a 8x6 greenhouse, so I have to pack it in there. It is my place to grow toms and peppers; as well as my propagation and cutting area, and I also overwinter things in there so it has to be multifunctional.
This is how I grow cucumbers I have a large old recycling container, sat on a large flat tray. I have 7 cukes in there, and all climb up twine to the roof. As the cukes grow, I trim off the lower leaves, and will hand pollinate 1 or 2 fruits from each once they are in full swing.....which means very careful bagging and poking as cuke flowers are very small and tricky to handle.
I also grow on 2 levels; so I have big trays on the floor with toms in big pots. These are trained up behind the staging and onto twine up to the roof. The staging has peppers at the front, and a few toms at the back in smaller pots, again trained up twine. All leaves are taken off as they grow so that I can fit more plants in.
These are my spare peppers and toms. The toms are all from armpits from my main toms, and will either go to schools/community growing areas that I am working in or will go under my main tom frame at the lottie - they can grow lower to the ground as they are armpits and as I have mulched the ground under my tom frame at the lottie with straw, the toms can just go wild under there and grow almost like strawberries. The peppers, will all go into spare pots around the garden or get given away.

Update 8th June 2011 - Seed Saving 2011

Ok, I've not updated for a while. Far too busy sowing, growing, driving etc.

So I just wanted to type out a list of seeds that I am expecting to save this year.

Blue de Solaise Leeks
Tender and True Parsnips
Red Swiss Chard
Sheepnose Pepper
Lau Pointed Leaf Lettuce


For HSL as a Seed Guardian
Chinese Radish
Giant Crimson Radish
Buffalo Horn Tomato [Buffalo Tom - yay]

And loads of beans and Peas including
Parsley Pea
Victorian Purple Podded Pea
Goldensweet Mangetout
Crimson Flowered Broad Bean [thanks Janet for the seeds]
All the old faves such as Madeira Maroon, Dapple Grey, Canadian Wonder and many others

Most tomatoes will be saved from, and peppers will be glued to preserve purity and saved from, once I find the PVA glue.

I'll choose some of the cukes to save from - I have one called Luke which is apparently prolific and was called Dave and was a seed that was stopped by the 'MAN' from being distributed and so I'll see how that pans out.

I'll try to hand pollinate all the squashes so as at least one of each can be saved from.


I need to sow for saving:
Mountaineer's White Half Runner bean

And I need to put aside some Blue Azur Kohl Rabi for saving, if Mark doesn't pull them all up for eating! I can do this now that the Radishes are nearly done flowering.

Gonna be a busy summer by the looks of it!

Scotia or Furry Hog?

Scotia - what I was expecting to be honest....

All the furry hogs look like this one


This is a scotia...but looks like a furry hog



A line of Furry Hogs at the back, and a line of Scotias at the front. Furry Hogs sown in one batch and Scotias all sown on a different day, in one batch.

The question is - is this the leaf that I should be expecting from a Furry Hog and just a few got mixed in with the Scotias; or has some cross-fertilisation gone on and do I have to isolate the 'pepper leaf' type Scotias AND the Furry Hogs so that all the toms from this year's saved toms don't all end up cross pollinating with the Furries.....

Hmm......it's exciting!!!