Sunday, 30 July 2023

Sunday 30th August - plans and pots

It's almost too late to do much with the sad state of my veg patch. I harvested four beans and then pulled up the stalks, so now all that is left are the tomatoes and maybe carrots. Although in 'the nursery' I have a tray of radishes and half a dozen titchy tiny kettuces.

All the physical effort; shuffling the pots and clearing them out took place this morning. Himself came and joined me when he saw what I was up to, and I was very grateful. It's all looking much tidier even if it is mostly bare tubs. We disturbed a big brown toad which shuffled into a nearby flowerbed. I've put a terracotta flowerpot on it's side nearby, and chucked any slugs I uncovered to where I thought it might be.

I spent some time going through this book;

and mapping Huw Edward's raised bed planting scheme for a year of veg onto my 15 tubs, now to be labelled 1-10 to match his plan, T1,T2, T3 (tomatoes at the moment), A and B.  Huw is all too keen on kale - dismal stuff, in my view, and attracts butterflies which lay eggs so you are harvesting caterpillars as well as leaves - and turnips. No thank you. But, in his favour, his month by month instructions are brilliant. I think my lack of success is partly (mostly?) due to my wilfully ignoring them and doing my own thing too often.

So I dug this out for inspiration. It does have a chapter on 'the nine-pot veg patch' which I turned to. Lots of alternatives to kale and turnips, but all the instructions are much more vague. Also they included herbs and edible flowers which I would rather grow elsewhere. 

As always, Google to the rescue. The RHS has useful guides on growing veg in c9ntainers, and on selecting and choosing miniature veg. I shall return to Huw's instructions,  substituting Florence fennel and miniature cauliflowers amongst other things for all that kale.

I shall go back to my pencilled version of Huw's plans and start inking them in, ready to follow them with great(er) attention this time around.

(Apologies to all of you who adore munching on kale...)






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