Parsnips taking over

The Tender and True parsnips are now 8 weeks old, and suddenly the greenery has shot up and is getting very bushy and tall.

I only hope that the parsnips are growing equally as vigorously beneath the surface.  Sadly it will be months before I find out.

Tender and true parsnips after 8 weeks

 I've also this week taken out some of the smaller plants, to give the larger ones room to grow.  I've transplanted these into gaps where carrot seedlings did not come up.  I don't know whether they will continue to grow or not, but it's worth a go.

Spring onions - at 8 weeks

The spring onions are doing very nicely now, and are even resembling small spring onions.

Spring Onion Sentry plants - after 8 weeks

It still looks a while until I can eat them though.  I suppose I could pick some now, but it seems a waste after waiting this long to eat them before they really get to full size.

Last Tom Thumb lettuce

So, as with the Little gem lettuce, they have been disappearing fast.  This is the last one.

Tom Thumb lettuce

Of the two types, this has been my personal favourite, as I think it has the slightly better taste, and has given more of a predictable crop.

This will be the last of the Tom Thumb lettuce posts, as there will be no more to eat by the end of this week.

Last few little gem lettuces

We've been steadily eating and giving away to friends and family our crop of little gem lettuces.

This is one of three that currently remain.

I'm resigned to the fact that they will never grow to resemble the picture on the packet, but still have no idea why not.  They were certainly tasty enough though!

Purple Haze - after a month

So a month has passed since I planted these, and they are still growing well, but I'm a long way from taking a first harvest.

Purple Haze carrots after a month

I've actually planted a few more of these in some gaps where I have eaten the lettuces, so I'm hoping they will be tasty when I do get to eat them.

11 weeks in - Early Nantes Carrots

Here's how the carrots are looking after 11 weeks.

11 Week old Early Nantes Carrots

As can be seen, they are still growing nicely, and I can only hope that the carrot is buried deep into the soil.

The second crop, now at 7 weeks old is shown below.

7 Week old carrot seedlings

No sign of carrot tops poking through yet, but healthy seedlings nonetheless.

First harvest of Beetroot

I took a look at the Alto F1 Hybrid beetroot this morning, and while some of the roots don't look up to much, some of them were showing quite a lot above the soil, as in the picture below.

Alto F1 Hybrid beetroot at 10 weeks

It's been 10 weeks since I planted the beetroot, and I've read guides saying they shall be ready for harvest after 72 days, so I thought I'd uproot a few of the largest to see how far down under ground the roots went.  Especially as some of the leaves are looking a little worse for wear - here's a photo of the beetroot plants from above.

Alto F1 Beetroot as seen from above

You can see a lot of marks on the leaves, and some going very brown.  I thought, therefore, that it was well worth picking a few to see how they are doing.

This is the result...

Harvested Alto F1 Beetroot after 10 weeks

You can see from the picture exactly how much of the beetroot was sticking out of the ground, and how much was below.  In truth, I'm a little disappointed as I was imagining great big roots burying down, and the result isn't great.  They are about two inches long.  I'm not sure how long the beetroot should be, but I was hoping for a bit more.  I'll leave the remaining beetroots in the ground for a lot longer, as these were the biggest of the plants.  I'll next harvest in two or three weeks and hope that the roots are a lot longer.

Now I just need to decide how to cook the beetroot.  I was hoping to pickle it, but there doesn't seem sufficient to allow that.

French Breakfast Radishes - Harvested!

We had a salad this evening which meant eating more of the bountiful crop of lettuces and joining them this time was the radish crop which was finally ready ( as well as lots of shop bought bits and pieces!).

We only took a few radishes, so there are plenty more for further meals.  These are the lucky radishes who made the cut.

Crop of French Breakfast radishes

Not exactly uniform size and shape, I've no idea how supermarket produce all seem to look exactly the same! It's quite tricky to tell how long each radish is until they are uprooted, as they all looked much the same when in the ground.   They tasted very nice though, not as peppery as other radishes, but nice and crunchy.  From hole in the ground to on the dinner plate and eaten in less than an hour, you can't get much fresher than that!

So now the postings for French Breakfast radish are complete, and by clicking on the link "French Breakfast Radish" you can see the photos and growth from seed to harvest.  This one can be put down as a success I think.

Spring onions (sentry) doing nicely

The final post for this week is a catch up on the Spring onion seedlings.  They are growing along nicely and starting to look like mini spring onions now.

Spring onion seedlings 7 weeks after planting

Tender and True parsnips still going well

Just a quick post to show how the parsnips look today - still growing nicely.

The only worry now is how large the parsnip plants with grow to.  After just a few weeks, they are already a decent size, I just hope they don't grow to take over the vegetable plot.


Remember to click on the "Tender and True parsnips" link on the top right of this page or directly below here to see week by week how the parsnips have been growing from seed to seedling to fully grown plant to the date of harvest.  

Purple Haze Carrot seedlings after 3 weeks

They're coming along nicely now and a lot of carrot shoots have surfaced, so as they come up I have just tried to  ensure none are too close together.  I'll thin them properly when a little bigger, but for now I'm happy to see the seedlings just growing stronger.

Purple Haze carrot seedlings

Remember to click on the "Purple carrots" link on the right of this page or directly at the bottom of this post to see week by week how the carrots have grown from seed to seedling to fully grown plant to (hopefully) the date of harvest.

Horseradish leaves

Horseradish pant leaves

It's been about 6 weeks since I planted these, and the leaves are growing well. Not a lot else to report on the horseradish as it (hopefully) is growing well under the soil.  I may not update this weekly, but maybe monthly until harvest in early Winter.

French Breakfast radishes nearly ready for harvesting

The last week has seen the radishes suddenly go supersonic.  Checkout the photo from last week, and compare it to this.  A huge growth spurt in just one week.

French breakfast radish after 4 weeks

So it seems it is almost ready for eating.  I'm stunned how much it has grown this week, after such a lacklustre start.  Still, I think I'll leave it for one more week as allegedly the longer it is in the ground, the pepperiar it gets, if that is a word (probably not).  so that will be 5 weeks from sowing to harvest, which is longer than I was expecting, but not by much.


Remember to click on the "French Breakfast Radish" link on the right of this page or directly at the bottom of this post to see week by week how the radishes have grown from seed to the date of harvest.

Tom Thumb lettuces disappearing quickly

There may not be too many more photos or posts of these lettuces as there isn't too much more to add.  They look to have grown to their full size, and are being steadily eaten.

Tom Thumb lettuce after 10 weeks

Remember to click on the "tom Thumb lettuce" link on the right of this page or directly at the bottom of this post to see week by week how the lettuce has grown from seed to the date of harvest.

Little Gem lettuce - maybe growing a head?

So my problem with the little gem lettuce not growing according to plan, maybe me being a little too over eager for results.  This is how it is looking now, after 10 weeks.

Little Gem lettuce after 10 weeks

You can see the centre of the lettuce is closing up a little, and maybe, just maybe forming a small little gem lettuce head in the middle.  I'll just have to wait a little longer to see, thankfully despite eating lots of these and the Tom Thumb lettuce over the past few weeks, we still have loads left and so I can let these grow and grow without fear of them getting eaten before they reach maturity.


Remember to click on the "Little Gem Lettuce" link on the right of this page or directly at the bottom of this post to see week by week how the lettuce has grown from seed to the date of harvest.

Early Nantes 2 carrots at 10 weeks

10 weeks in, and I couldn't resist scraping away a little soil to check if the carrots are growing or not.  It's quite frustrating just seeing the green leaves and hoping something is going on under the ground.  Anyway, I was happy to see that there is something definitely carrot like there.

Early Nantes 2 carrots at 10 weeks

As you can see, it is not much, but still encouraging to see something there!  I've added a second photo showing how the carrot seedlings look without the top bit of soil being scraped away.

The second crop, which is a month behind, so now 6 weeks old is also growing well.

6 week old carrot seedlings

Remember to click on the "Early Nantes 2 Carrots" link on the top right of this page or directly below here to see week by week how the carrots have grown from seed to the date of harvest.  

Boltardy Beetroot update after 6 weeks

Still no sign of any beetroot poking through the soil, but hopefully in the next couple of weeks, I'll see the first signs.

Boltardy beetroot after 6 weeks

It still seems to be growing strongly, but still a long way off getting a crop I think.  Not much else to add, so a few photos instead.

Boltardy beetroot seedlings

More Boltardy Beetroot

Remember to click on the "Boltardy beetroot" link on the right of this page to see week by week how the beetroot has grown from seed to the date of harvest.

F1 Alto Hybrid beetroot update

You can see from the picture attached that the alto f1 hybrid beetroot is still growing strongly. I've invested in pickling jars now, ready for when they are dug up, but I think that will be a few weeks yet - I'd like them to grow to a decent size.

9 week old alto f1 hybrid beetroot plants

You can see that all plants now have some root, although some more than others.  I'm now searching for recipes for the beetroot, and have found some that sound pretty good, including several which would combine my horseradish and the beetroot.

Remember to click on the "Alto F1 Hybrid beetroot" link on the right of this page to see week by week how the beetroot has grown from seed to the date of harvest.

Looking more like spring onions now.

The spring onion plants are growing well and starting to fatten up a little and do look more like mini spring onions rather then the rubbish little grass like stalks that they resembled a couple of weeks ago.

Spring onions after 6 weeks

With any luck, in a couple of weeks (ok maybe optimistic)  could have lettuce, spring onion and radish all from the garden to make pretty much an entire side salad.

Not much to report here.

Another week gone, not a lot happened with the parsnips.  I may not photograph these every week from now on, as they seem to do diddly and will be growing for a loooong time.

Purple Haze F1 Hybrid

I actually read the seed packet earlier, and found the proper name of purple carrots is "Purple Haze F1 Hybrid", which sounds good to me.  Carrots named after a Jimi Hendrix song can't be too bad.

Happy to also report that the carrots germinated this week, two weeks after planting.  Please excuse the photo, I'm not so good at close up photos just yet, but you can see the small shoots just coming through.

2 week old Purple Haze carrot seedlings

Tasty - but still not what I expected

The lettuces continue to thrive, but I am still bemused by how unlike all other pictures of little gem lettuce mine appear to be.  Perhaps I got a dodgy packet of seed.

Still looks nothing like the seed packet does it?!

Growing quickly

The leaves are growing bigger every day, and all four roots that were planted have now sprouted.  I have realised I have no idea how big Horseradish plants grow to.  I may have seriously erred on this, as if they grow big they will undoubtedly put a lot of my rows of plants into shade.  One of the horseradish plants is already growing up through the row of radishes

Horseradish leaves

I'm probably getting ahead of myself, but assuming I get a decent crop of horseradish I need to start thinking about what to do with it. I want to make lots and lots of horseradish sauce with it, but it's got to keep well in jars.  I need to look for some decent recipes I think.

hmmm

So after three weeks, we can see a little bit of radish - if you look really really closely.  They won't be ready after 3-4 weeks as promised, however I am reassured that they are growing into something vaguely resembling a radish.

Radishes after 3 weeks

...

Not too much to report really, a few more thin little shoots have come up and are turning to fern.  Not sure there is much point on reporting on this weekly seeing as I can't eat any for another couple of years!

Boltardy coming along well

At 5 weeks, the Boltardy beetroot is doing very nicely.

5 week old Boltardy beetroot seedlings

Think I may have planted too many!

The Tom Thumb lettuces are now being eaten regularly, and very nice they are too.  Problem is, we seem to be eating lettuce or some form of salad every day now.  It is probably all entirely in my head, but fresh homegrown lettuce does taste a lot better than those bought in a shop.

So here we are at 9 weeks from sowing.

Tom Thumb lettuce 9 weeks after sowing

I don't know if we'll be able to eat all the remaining lettuces before they go to seed.  I'm not even sure when they will go to seed or become inedible.  I'll keep you posted.

First pathetic crop!

During the week I was reading about thinning carrots, so looking at my first crop of Early Nantes 2 carrots I decided some of them needed some extra space.  I uprooted about 5 seedlings, giving the rest about two inches between each plant. While the small seedlings definitely looked like carrots, they were very very small, about the size of a matchstick each.  We dropped them into a salad, but they pretty much got lost in there!

Here are the first crop, now at 9 weeks old.

The second crop which was sown a month after the first lot, and is shown below.  These are still too close together, so I'll need to think these out in the next week or two I think, but I can't imagine I'll even get the smallest of carrots to eat from these when thinned.

Starting to see some beetroot

Into week 8 for the first crop of beetroot, and I have finally spotted some root at the base of the leaves. In the photo below, you can just about see some fattening up of the stem at the bottom of the stalk.  I was worried last week that after nearly two months nothing seemed to be happening, but now it looks that we might have some beetroot to eat after all.

Beetroot after 8 weeks

Here's a close up of the root actually forming. Unfortunately the photo shows I need to do a bit of weeding around the plants.

Close up of the root starting to form.

 As I've mentioned before, this variety Alto F1 Hybrid, is supposed to be sort of sausage shaped, which makes it good for slicing into sandwiches and pickling apparently.  I can only hope then that this root goes down quite a way into the ground.  I'm not sure when to harvest this beetroot, but I'll leave it a few more weeks I think to allow it to fatten some more.

The leaves are still showing worrying dark patches on them, but I'm not overly worried as the plants seem to be growing well still. Supposedly the leaves are edible, but I don't fancy it myself.

Garlic

I don't expect to update this page much - as nothing seems to happen.

I had some garlic in the kitchen over Christmas which had begun to sprout green shoots, so I just dropped a few cloves into the ground to see what would happen.  I have no idea what variety of garlic it is, or even if it will give me a crop, I just plonked it in the ground and hoped for the best.

Garlic growing

They grew pretty nicely in the spring, to the size they are now.  From what i've read, I'll need to harvest them in Autumn time, but until then, they just sit around growing slowly.

Garlic with a few weeds around

Asparagus

I bought a few small Asparagus plants from the garden centre and dropped them in the ground in April.  My research tells me that I won't be able to take a decent crop from these plants for at least a couple of years.  Until then, the plants just need to grow bigger and build up their strength, so not much point in me keeping strict tabs on them.  Stupidly, I did not keep the label, so again have no idea what type of asparagus this will be.

Asparagus a few weeks after planting

Asparagus 

They seem to have settled in fairly well and some of the plants are even sending up more little shoots, like in the photo below.

Young asparagus plant a few weeks after being bought from the garden centre

The older shoots have all turned to a type of fern, which from my limited research, then enables the plant to build up it's strength.

This will really be a test of patience, having to wait several years to take the first decent asparagus crop, although I'll likely take a few sneaky stems next year.

I'm taking comfort from the fact that each plant should eventually send up about 20 to 25 shoots a year, and with 6 plants in my row, that's plenty of asparagus for us every year.  The best bit, is that once the long wait for the first crop is over, it is the easiest vegetable there is, it just keeps cropping up again year after year!

Ideally I'd love a bed of perennial vegetables like this, but I'm not sure any other plants work like this.

Tom Thumb lettuce

I'm not sure how much bigger these lettuces will grow.  They were described as a mini variety on the packet, yet they are growing fairly big already.  I've been picking them as I need them for salads, generally taking the plants that look most crowded, and leaving the bigger plants to continue to grow.

8 week old Tom Thumb lettuce

The other issue we now have is ants.  Thousands of the little sods.  There are little holes in the soil, and ants crawling all over the place.  You can see one on the lettuce above if you look carefully enough!

I don't want to put ant poison down in a veg patch as i don't know the effect it will have on the vegetables, so I'm stuck with them for now.  They don't seem to do any harm (yet), but as soon as they do, I'll need to work out a way to get them to move on.

5 week old parsnip seedlings

The seedlings are still coming along well after their slow start to life.  They are surrounded by rocket (to the left) and radishes to the right, but they will be long gone by the time the parsnips get to be big enough to need more room.

Right now, they probably need to be thinned out a bit, but it is pretty tricky deciding which seedlings die and which may live.  

It's a pretty big investment in time growing parsnips, as it will be about 8 or 9 months from planting to eating, so I am desperately hoping that when i finally get to uproot them, that there is something there under the soil!  

2 week old radish seedlings

A little over two weeks and the French Breakfast radishes are looking pretty good - no sign of any actual radish yet, but the plants look strong.   According to reports I've read, these should be ready in another week or so, which I find pretty hard to believe.

2 week old radish seedlings

Slow going

All seems well with the carrots, they all look healthy, and are growing nicely.

At some point soon I'll need to thin them out so they all have room to grow, but for now, they are about an inch apart which seems about right.

The first batch are now 8 weeks old and as can be seen below, still look healthy.

8 week old Early Nantes 2 Carrot seedlings

The second batch of seedlings are now 4 weeks old, and are shown below, overlapping a little bit with a few stray spring onion seeds.

Coming along nicely

Not much to report, but after 4 weeks, the boltardy beetroot seedlings look healthy still.

4 week old boltardy beetroot seedlings