All changed in 2 weeks! 01.06.08

Welcome back to Reads Retreat, my guide to growing your own veg in raised beds.

Sorry for the prolonged absence, but hope now to get back to my weekly ( maybe more ? ) updates.

As the title states, there's been a lot of changes, not only in the garden, but also we now have another mobile family member: Our darling daughter walked unaided yesterday right across the living room. What a great moment, a memory to treasure forever. Isn't life great !
Down on the plot:
The spuds in the tubs are fairly flourishing, with tremendous growth all around - so much so that its getting difficult to actually see the containers.
We had an exploratory dig in one container last week, just to see how things were going. There were a large amount of new pots , but they were sadly far too small to harvest. Really need to now sit back and let them do their stuff, remembering to provide plenty of water along the way.

Just outside the patio door, there's more spuds in the brick container that was home last year to my tomatoes.
There's also a couple of other pots:
2 contain my Bay Leaf plants. These were bought for £1.50 each earlier in the year. They were potbound but are now doing well in fresh compost and larger pots. Has anyone used these as hedging before ? There's also a few pots of herbs that Sammie planted. All doing fine.

I've started transferring my toms outside, in containers, to their final growing positions. The larger pot is home to the "Tomazing" variety that secret squirrel brought for me, whilst the other is "Gardeners Delight" , grown from seed earlier this year.
Sadly, a large number of toms that i grew from seed are starting to go to waste, lack of time meaning they are pot bound and wilting. I will try and plant out as many as possible over the coming weeks and salvage what i can.

One of the 2 gooseberry bushes that i got from Wilkinsons has finally taken root and started to grow on well. Plenty of new leaf growth is an encouraging site, but i think it will be a while before i can take a harvest from here.
Sadly, the other bush that I planted has not done anything at all. It's fair to say that it is adead gooseberry - i.e. it is no more !
This is unfortunate as this is the green variety that i really hoped would do well.
Hey ho, onwards and upwards.


On a more successful note, my strawberries in the hanging basket are doing great.
The only problem of note is that one of the fruits turned mouldy and had to be discarded. I was thinking of putting a layer of straw under the fruit to help keep them dry / off the soil.
Is that a good idea ?
Let me know folks - I've not grown these before !



The Broad Beans (v. Bunyard Exhibition ) are living up to their name, putting on a fine show of flowers.
Lower down the stems the pods are already forming, and although we did "nick" a few last week for the table ( delish) that are still a way off being ready to fully harvest.
Isn't it funny when kids tell you they dont like something, even when they've never tried them!
I guess we'll have to get creative on the culinary front, and hide them under the mash.
The pods we ate only contained tiny beans, but they tasted gorgeous - i would say that though, i'm biased.

Still loads to tell you about, and I'll update this posting a bit later, as Im off now to the outlaws for dinner!

TTFN