Lettuce Harvest!

Luxury Lettuce

On Monday I finally celebrated my first harvest of lettuce from the plot. One of the lettuces was about to shoot so harvesting was overdue. I got a nice bowl of mixed lettuce including some of that mustardy tasting lettuce I forgot the name of plus some chives, parsley and dill. It tasted great with my usual oil-vinegar-garlic-vinagrette and went down well with the fish pie I had made. There is still a lot of lettuce left in the plot and while I found a few slugs sitting in the leaves when I washed the lettuce it has not been damaged by them at all. I wonder whether I’m just lucky of if my (admittedly random) intercropping is having an effect. The lettuces are interspersed with marigolds and herbs.

Struggling Squashes, A Tomato Team And An Amazing Arnica

The various little kale plants on my windowsill have not been doing too well lately. The ones in the DIY seed tray (toilet paper rolls in plastic lunchbox) seem to have been too moist. My construction clearly did not have enough drainage. Therefore I transplanted them in a bigger box with better airing and space for excess water. I also spread out the kale plants I got from Nenya to give them more space to grow.

My windowsill on the 24th of June

The two little hokkaido squashes I had left on the windowsill didn’t look too happy so I gave them a new pot with more space and positioned them where I hope they’ll get a maximum of sun. The plant that has been doing really well is my arnica even though it had outgrown its pot. I gave it a bigger one. I hope it’ll keep growing and flowering eventually. I can already picture the beautiful yellow flower in my mind (and on google picture search).

Remember my pet courgette? I named it Charmie and I keep in a big pot on the windowsill. It is now in flower. Unfortunately, they don’t seem to be strong enough to fruit though and just fall off after a while. I noticed that Charmie’s leaves have grown quite a bit in the last two weeks. I read that plants put all their power into their leaves if they are struggling. So that could be why she is not growing fruits. I don’t understand what’s wrong though. Maybe it’s the Scottish summer.

Charmie the courgette enjoying the view

You will have noticed two newcomers next to the arnica. They are my tomatoes Sean and Rob. Sean is a “Tomato Noir” and was the only one that survived from a tray I planted in the RoyalEd greenhouse. He was very small and barely surviving when I took him home around the beginning of this month. Look at him now! Rob joined Sean a couple of weeks ago from the Cyrenians Farm polytunnel where he was a bit lonely. Both seem to enjoy the windowsill and are starting to flower.

My coriander is flowering, too which looks really beautiful. I moved it to the garden alongside two little rhubarb plants Nenya had given me from the KB greenhouse. I risked putting one of the rhubarbs behind the potatoes. That might be too shady a place but then rhubarb is said to be pretty robust and reliable. If it fails I have the second one as a backup further front. The courgette in the bed has pretty much died and been eaten by slugs – it had not been doing too well anyway. Surprisingly, the two Bubble and Squeak squashed are standing

their ground pretty well and one is in flower. I’m most happy about my lettuces. They have grown a lot and are still not attempting to flower. I’ll make them into a nice salad alongside my fish pie tomorrow. Mmmmh!

Lovely lettuce in my bed

I really want more lettuce and herbs and they are the types of plants that seem to be doing well. The transplanting of the rhubarbs and coriander had left a bit of space on the windowsill so I sowed salad burnet, wild rocket, mixed salad, thyme, borage and Greek basil.

Short Update

This is what my bed looks like today:

My bed on the 3rd of June

The potatoes are thriving, so do the lettuces. The dill, parsley and chives haven’t grown much since I planted them in but they seem to be doing ok. The squashes don’t look to happy. They seem to be lacking in something. They haven’t grown much and some of the leaves are turning slightly yellowish. I guess they either don’t get enough light or there is something wrong with the soil. I suspect it’s the latter since everything in my bed is growing rather slowly. Since it’s the first year this bed is being planted in I can’t expect too much I think. In any case I’ll learn – I hope.

My plants shall be released!

My courgettes will probably feel a whole lot better.

I finally transplanted some of my plants from the window sill. The chives and parsley went in the bed along with some two hokkaido squashes and two courgettes. I tried to position the squash plants near the sunny end of the bed. I have no idea if they will be okay, as conditions are still suboptimal there. I kept some on the window sill and will transplant my nicest courgette into a bigger pot and raise it in the living room. It’s gonna be my pet

I interspersed my bed with the rest of the marigolds I still had on the window sill. I hope that they will do well as I’d love to have lots of marigolds flowering in my bed. I’m happy with the ones I sowed directly into the bed in April. At least the centrally positioned ones have grown quite a bit and now have bigger leaves than the ones from the window sill.

Since a lot of my leaf mulch had been blown off in the storm, I took the opportunity to add some more (worm-rich!) soil from one of the compost bins. I thought the bed could do with some more raising and more worms. I then went to get some newspaper to mulch over the added compost. We didn’t have much so I walked to the paper recycling bank. Unfortunately, it just had been emptied. Luckily someone had dumped a cardboard box full of brown packaging paper – even better for my purposes! So I covered the bare soil on my bed and when I ran out of paper I tore apart the box which was a super-easy job as it was damp from the rain. I finished the job by piling leaf mulch on top.

One of the beans I got from Nenya starts developing a climbing shoot. I transplanted it close to one of the rosehip branches on a tiny raised bed of its own. I hope the bean will climb up the rosehip. I propped two little sticks underneath the branch to give it some initial support. I hope there is going to be enough sun for the bean to do well – I have doubts but at least the leylandii havoc has done a good job in reducing the density of the rosehip.

The French bean

Looking at the remains of the cardboard box that I had just reused and recycled so effectively made me happy. I always take a lot from these little things. A couple of weeks ago I treated myself to a coffee at the library café, forgot to ask for a sit-in and was instantly presented with a dreadful takeaway cup. I decided to make up for my mistake by at least reusing it once. It has since become a plant pot and when it becomes dodgy it will be a good source of carbon in the compost – just like all the paper and cereal boxes my flat produces. Call me funny or strange, but I love composting!

Leylandii Havoc

Morning surprise...

Poor rosehip

Leyllandi removed - my lettuce plant survived entirely undamaged. The rosehip looks battered.

There was a big storm last night, alas not as bad as the tornado in Missouri, but quite a few things got turned upside down and apparently the Bus Station had to close. (It must have a delicate roof I reckon.)

I soon found out that my backgreen has not been exempt from the effects of the storm. When I looked out of the kitchen window this morning I found a large branch of the Leylandii tree neatly covering my plot. I got a bit concerned about my potatoes that had been doing so nicely. However, it turned out that the major casualty was the rosehip bush behind my plot. I managed to remove the heavy branch and relieve the battered bush off its weight. A few branches had snapped but most of them had just been pushed to the ground. I am confident the rosehip will recover the leylandii havoc.

None of the plants in my bed was damaged. My centrally positioned lettuce plant survived completely intact. I ate it for lunch right after having removed the branch!

What I really need to do is add some leaf mulch. Over time lots of it has disintegrated or got blown away. You can spot lots of bare newspaper on the photos. That’s where the leaf mulch should be.

I am quite lucky I haven’t transplanted more stuff from the window sill yet. It might not have survived the storm. Lucky lazy gardener, that’s me!

Potbound

Courgettes asking to go out!

As you can see from the lack of updates I haven’t done much in the garden lately and many of the plants on my window sill need bigger pots or transplated into the garden. I just got a fresh bag of compost for propagating stuff from Nenya, as well as an amazing variety of seeds, small plants and big pots! I should definitely transplant some of my marigold and herbs into the garden and sow more. I decided that I will put the potbound courgettes into bigger pots and either leave them to fruit in the living room or in a sunny spot in the garden. I kind of like the living room idea – wouldn’t that be something? Permaplot presents: Organic courgettes fresh from the living-room! To further optimize the principle of minimal effort I should relocate them to the kitchen but then it’s too shady there.

Squashes, dill, coriander, lettuce and kale.

Except for the kale everything on the window sill has grown rapidly in the last few weeks. The courgettes are about to flower now. Note the newcomers on the picture: climbing french beans, asturian tree cabbage, more kale, rhubarb, lettuce. Nenya kindly exchanged these lovely plants for some of my hokkaido and bubble and squeak squashes.

Spuds and propagation news

I bought some potatoes a couple of weeks ago and left them to sprout which they did dutifully. They are non-organic spuds from the evil shop but at least they are Scottish and a non-floury salad variety. Unfortunately, I forgot which one. After being unsuccessful in freegling some jerusalem artichokes I was luckily given some at the Growing Communities Networking Event. Perfect!  So these went in the bed near the shady end. I also added some shooting onions I found on the farm compost the other day. I put them between the brassicas – I hope they will enjoy each others company!

Propagation sill on 19 April

The propagation action in the living room is looking more exciting by the day! The courgettes are doing fantastic. They have grown so much I had to put them in separate pots – I still haven’t figured out where I want to put them, I certainly can’t keep replanting them all the time. The “Hokkaido” and “Bubble and Squeak” squashes are doing fine, the “Spaghetti” looked like it was about to germinate but hasn’t, neither has the spinach unfortunately. I haven’t given up on them yet though and keep watering. I changed the positioning of the pots but that did not seem to have any effect.