Sowing Summer Seeds

Things are in full swing now in the gardens. The winter is gone, the evenings are lighter, and everything is growing! I’ve been busy sowing seed, I’m nearly half way through, and I’m preparing the beds for planting out. I just finished preparing the cold frames in the Vegetable Inspirations garden for the first planting of lettuce, by taking the doors off and giving them a dose of our compost. Everyone is sowing now, and I think that we’re going to be fighting for space in the glasshouse and polytunnels soon – we start a lot of plants off early under heated glass, things like squash, tomatoes, chillies, basil and in my case mouse melons. Basically, things that like the warm and dislike the cold. Doing this means by the time the weather’s warm enough for them to be planted out we already have nice sized plants, and they will begin to crop sooner and therefore longer, meaning more food for us.

For Helen, Claire and myself diploma assessments have been a frequent occurrence as we near the end of our time here. We’re being assessed on all sorts of things, from sowing seed to watering to correctly applying nutrients to plants. We also have a more theoretical side to the diploma, in the form of test questions to answer. I now know that yellowing of young leaves, particularly of acid loving plants, indicates an iron deficiency. And now, so do you!

Garden Redevelopments

We’ve been doing a lot of redevelopment of the gardens over the winter, removing an old garden, enlarging an existing one, and installing a brand new one. It has been hard work, and once again the volunteers have proved just how valuable they are to us, but now it’s starting to feel like we’re getting there. The big project has been the enlargement of our allotment garden. This started a while ago, at the beginning of 2010 with the moving of two semi-mature oak trees to make way for the new garden. They didn’t like it, but we’ll see how they cope in their new home! Since then, we’ve put in a new fence, greenhouse, fruit cage, pond (my favourite), and re-laid all the paths. It looks lovely, and I don’t think any of us can wait to see it brimming over with veg come the summer.

We’re currently in the process of removing the old pest and disease control garden, the key messages from that garden will be moving to the new and improved allotment garden. In my opinion the most interesting development is the Cuban garden. This is going to be an exotic garden with a feel of Cuban urban growing. We have a new walled courtyard area, which is (supposed to be, I should add) part tumbledown, and we’ll have beds growing more unusual veg acquired by the Sowing New Seeds team. We’ve got quite a few exotic looking plants to put in, and some painting to do, and I think when it’s finished we’ll have something unique to Ryton Gardens.