Internet fame and other setbacks

I was at a wedding party the other night and someone, in the middle of normal conversation, made a reference to "Fuck carrots, eh?" It confused the fuck out of me; I was under the impression that only a couple of friends read this, possibly out of pity (and my wife, of course, who's contractually obligated).

It turns out that it's more popular than I thought. At a party mostly full of people who I know and like, but don't get to see very often, no less than 6 people came up to me specifically to say how much they enjoyed reading about my vegetable garden online. Not entirely sure what I'm supposed to do with an audience. Hi guys - I'll try to keep doing whatever it is that makes you read this and not do the other things.

This time of the year is where the garden work switches, from sowing and cultivating seedlings, to planting things out and letting them grow and spread. I now have most of my major summer/autumn vegetables planted out in the ground and thriving.

Brussels sprouts 

Broccoli 

Experimental tomato bed and oca 

A plethora of beans - French, runner and broad from left to right. 

More oca, more French beans, some mange tout and a nasturtium

I have also planted out my leeks for the winter. If you remember last year, I learned a valuable lesson about leeks - despite being a leafy plant, the actual eatey-bit needs to be buried underground. Those who plant their leeks on the surface get lots of inedible green leaves and not very much in the way of an edible white stalk. I'm actually following the instructions and planting them in deep holes this time, so that they can be buried as they grow taller to elongate the stalk.

Thinking of things which need to be buried, I'm attempting something new with my potatoes this year, which may or may not work. In order to get the best harvest of maincrop potatoes, you're supposed to "earth-up", which basically means burying the leaves in dirt to encourage the plant to produce more potatoes higher up the stem. With the quantities of potatoes that I grow, this requires a lot of expensive dirt and a lot of backbreaking effort to apply it.

STRAW!

I did some research on the interwebs and found a lot of people claiming success with growing potatoes in straw. The idea is that the straw blocks out the light as well as dirt, fooling the plant into thinking it's underground. It's quicker, cheaper and requires a fuck of a lot less effort to apply. Plus, it has the added advantage of being easy to lift away and compost once harvesting's begun. No more digging for potatoes; now I just have to lift away the straw et voila.

At least, therein lies the theory. I'm willing to give it a go because it'll save me so much work, but I'm not convinced that it will block out the light well enough to not affect the harvest. Plus I've got trust issues with straw due to previous bad experiences. This time, I bought the straw from a local farm shop instead of pet straw, which brought its own issues. A bag was £2 and a bale was £3. I'd be a fool not to buy a bale, right?

Turns out that bales are very good value for money, as they are very heavily compressed and contain a lot of straw. The tied bale just about fit in the boot of my estate car. I put it in my shed and then cut the pieces of string that were holding it together so I could get some out. And then it just about fit in the shed. I used as much of it as I could, but I still have this much left:

Let's hope I don't need anything towards the back of that shed for another year or so.

Not a clue what I'm going to do with it.

The other disaster recently was not self-inflicted, but was instead the actions of the bloody winds that will not stop whistling about. My beautiful vertical gardening strawberry planters survived everything that nature could throw at them. Unfortunately, the fence that they were hanging from did not.

 Before

 After

After repairs. I was too upset to take a photo of what they looked like when I found them.

Thankfully, they all appear to have survived their faceplant to the concrete and I've managed to replant all of the ones that were thrown free. Whether they'll produce anything this year or be too traumatised is in the balance. I've also got my nifty vertical gardening planters, that are supposed to lift the strawberries into the sunlight and away from slugs and other pests, sitting on the ground, which is far from ideal. At some point, I'll look at finding somewhere else to hang them, but at present I just don't want to risk them going for a burton again.

Still, to end on a cheerful note, here's a picture of the vegetable garden in all its glory, lovingly stitched together from several different photographs.

PJW