At the end of the last post, we had just got the greenhouse up, a fairly major undertaking - think Meccano on a grand scale, with rubbish instructions and you'll be somewhere near!
This is the greenhouse we bought (the Standard 12, which is about 6'x12'), and despite what I said above I would recommend it to anyone on a budget - it's big enough, the covering is good with good light transmission, the rear window will take an automatic opener with minimal modification, and it seems to retain heat well too.
Anyway, enough of the waffle already, here's some pics;
This was the exciting moment of starting to fill the greenhouse, on 10th June.
The plan was to have tomato plants in the first half, left and right - nearer to the door for ventilation, then cucumbers and chillis in the second half - cucumbers nearer to the centre for more humidity. Every plant in there was grown from seed at home, so I feel quite proud looking at this picture.
The tomato plants are; Pink Brandywine, Black Russian, Ailsa Craig and Roma which were left over from last year, San Marzano and Rio Grande plum tomatoes which I'm trying for the first time this year. Don't think I'll bother with the Brandywine again next year - too many of them are suffering with blossom end rot this year, and I only got about 2 fruits per plant last year... Bad yield for the effort involved!
Everything Else...
Of course plenty of things have been happening apart from the greenhouse. Where to start?!
On my last post, at the beginning of June, I'd planted potatoes in bed #3 and tubs, the onions, shallots & garlic were in bed #1, I had a bed ready for courgettes etc., and bed #2 was being sieved.
So, bed #1 ;
The weather hasn't been kind to my onions, and they were all badly attacked by slugs & snails. A lot of the red ones went to seed, even though I paid extra for heat-treated ones. The shallots and garlic did better to begin with, but eventually the garlic succumbed to rust, and the shallots were in danger of rotting in the wet ground.
The shallots were a reasonable size, so I decided to harvest them even though the foliage hadn't died off - they might not store brilliantly, but at least they wouldn't rot in the ground!
I lifted them on July 7th, on a reasonably dry day, and laid them out on a pallet to dry off.
Oh 'eck... it's well after midnight, and I'm struggling to keep me eye's open...! Think I'm going to have to kaffle - I promise I won't leave it a month to tell you about my potatoes... Although I don't suppose you'll be as interested as I am :)
