Growth

I was given a load of modular plastic raised beds, and originally didn't think I would use them, but being a convert of no-dig vegetable growing, and short of places to put plants, I set this one up, then another, and a third. This one is filled with onions.

The garden and this blog are alike in one way - I return, do a bit, then leave for months. Actually, I do more in the garden than I write about here, partly because creating a blog entry seems onerous - in fact, it's not the writing but making sure I have a few nice pictures to add that usually holds things up. Anyway, this is by the by - the garden is still there, and although I did mostly abandon vegetable growing from midsummer onwards last year (see the previous entry), I have been very busy recently, and want to record it here.

In fact, I got off to the best start of any year this time. It's been gradual - I suppose I started by getting my boxes of seed packets out, and going through them. I sowed sweet peas first, because they were a bit more urgent than most other things (although, having sown them in good time in mid-March, they sulked and only started germinating a month later). Then I decided a spreadsheet of all the seeds and plants I had would be a sensible step. Like most gardeners, I have a variety of stuff left over from previous years - and last autumn a trip to the nearest garden centre yielded a lot more seeds, as they were considerably reduced in price.

Then something unexpected - I received a lot of garden paraphernalia for free; although it wouldn't have been stuff I would have chosen to buy, a lot was useful - seed trays and propagators, a mini greenhouse, garden shelving, that sort of thing. So there was now somewhere convenient to sow more seeds, and to put them out of the way. The spreadsheet encouraged me to be systematic, sowing those crops that needed an earlier start first. The spring was exceptionally cold, with several feet of snow spread over a number of heavy falls, but in fact that made it feel less stressful.

And it's always the way that doing a little encourages more - clearing a bit of the patio, pruning a shrub, planting some bulbs, you see what else needs to be done, and a positive feedback can begin to build. It can't last forever, but I've been riding the wave for over a month, which is good by my standards.

So what is growing? Well, a lot. Along with the mini greenhouse, I had a cold frame which was another bargain in the garden centre sale, although that has mostly hosted flowering plants for another part of the garden. And amongst the free donations was another one, which I built straight away - they're so useful I wish I'd got one years ago. The second has mostly been for vegetables so far. Above all, my guiding feeling this spring has been no more self-limitation. In the past I would say 'I'm not growing X because I won't have enough time/space to devote to it' - but why? Instead, I am trying everything, knowing that some will fail, and the more there is to start with, the more should succeed. So for instance, brassicas are a group of vegetables I've shied away from, which is partly self-sustaining, because a lack of familiarity and experience with them makes me less confident to grow them. But it's not rocket science (one of my favourite clichéd phrases), and this year I'm trying the lot - cabbages, cauliflower, broccoli, kale, etc. Actually, the only common vegetable I can think of that I'm not growing this year is asparagus (although I am trying asparagus peas). Peas, broad, French, borlotti, and runner beans, sweetcorn, peppers, chillies, tomatoes, aubergines, cucumbers, all sorts of salad leaves, Jerusalem artichoke, carrots, parsnips, beetroot, turnips, chard, spinach, kohl rabi, swede, celeriac and celery, leeks, onions, garlic, shallots - the list is very extensive (I'll put a full list of varieties in another blog post sometime). I've sown around 67* different types of vegetable seeds so far, in addition to onion, shallot, and garlic sets. There's a way to go, but I'm getting there.

The next job is making sure the garden is ready to receieve them. More on that in due course...

*I wrote this in late April, but didn't publish until mid May, by which time I was up to 115.