We won a few elephant garlic cloves in one of our National Vegetable Society Essex District Association raffles at the beginning of 2020. We tried to grow garlic last year with little success, but we were up for giving it another go this year! We grew the garlic in multipurpose compost last year, but we... Continue Reading →
Peppers: indoor vs outdoor growing
So it turns out peppers prefer to be grown indoors, or at least it gives them a head start over their outdoor counterparts. Although the ones that are growing outdoors are starting to set some fruits, there are definitely lots more on the plants in the greenhouse, and the peppers are generally larger. This is... Continue Reading →
A rainbow (well green and yellow!) of container courgettes
The Sunstripe courgette has got its first courgettes forming - very exciting! And as advertised, it is virtually spineless which is great news, as the spines can be very prickly at times, and for some reason seem to react with my skin to give me a rash! The Midnight are further ahead. We've already had... Continue Reading →
Giving the peas some TLC
Since we planted them out, we haven't needed to give the sugar snap peas too much TLC at all. We've watered them a couple of times as it has been so dry here, but other than that we've been able to just sit back and watch them grow. We noticed this week that they were... Continue Reading →
The outdoor cucumbers are really going for it!
If you remember, we have a few varieties of cucumbers that we are trying outside. Marketmore, Diva, and Tasty King. The Marketmore are the most advanced, and have now reached the top of their canes and are starting to make their own way up the wire netting. As we said before, we usually take the... Continue Reading →
Thinning out the turnips
As we mentioned in our article the other week, the turnips are growing really well in their container so far. And are starting to produce tiny turnips! Unfortunately, there's not enough space in the container to fit them all in to maturity though. Therefore, we thinned them out at the weekend. This is the end... Continue Reading →
Supporting our peppers
Now our peppers are in their final pots, they need supporting to prevent them being blown over by the wind, and also to support the plant once laden with peppers - as they can get quite heavy! We put a cane in a couple of inches away from the base of each plant, and pushed... Continue Reading →
Next steps with our brassicas
As we mentioned in our last blog post on the brassicas, we weeded them today. They weren't too bad in the end, but given another couple of weeks the weeds would've grown out of control and the cauliflowers would be too big to get in between so they would've had to stay like that, with... Continue Reading →
The peppers are starting to set
We have peppers and chillies! They may not have long set, but they are definitely starting to take shape. These are the Basket of Fire chillies which have got quite a few chillies forming now, and lots more flowers still to be pollinated! We feel like they already look very spicy!! Next up, we've got the Redskin which... Continue Reading →
Radishes galore!
We said radishes were fast growing, and we weren't lying! We had our first harvest of these less than 6 weeks from sowing. Our beetroot are nearly there too now and we could probably start eating these any day now. We just need to wait until the weather improves a bit so we fancy salad!... Continue Reading →
