Garden Diary: Fruit and Vegetables in March

What a week! I won’t mention the dreaded C word as it has already taken over our lives. Thank God we have been enjoying wonderful weather with temperatures as high as the mid-twenties during the day and a minimum of 13C at night.

Time to hunker down in the garden and tackle all the outstanding jobs, especially *one that has been on my ‘wish list’ for a couple of years.

I’ve emptied and cleaned old pots, planted basil and curly parsley seeds and would have planted spinach but I lost the seeds on the way to the garden. No doubt I will find them in a safe place when I’m searching for something else. I will now have to grow all my crops from seed rather than plugs, as the farmers’ market has been cancelled.

The raised vegetable area is now full of baby courgettes, French beans, carrots, peas, aubergine and cucumber. And all but a few containers are now being utilised.

1. Strawberries are happy in their new bed!

After accidentally buying over seventy strawberry plants which by some miracle all survived, I had nowhere to plant them. However, my garden gnome came to the rescue, moved all the herbs from the herb garden and build this raised strawberry bed in its place.

All the activity did not escape the eager eye of our resident blackbird and no sooner had we filled the bed with compost, processed manure and planted the strawberries he was there digging out the strawberries to find worms and other juicy morsels. He even had the audacity to shout at me when I shooed him away!

My gnome quickly came to the rescue and he built a frame so we could net the strawberries and protect the worms.

2. Peas in Progress

The pea seeds planted on Feb 4th continue to thrive under the protective plastic crates. I wonder how long it will be before we see any pea pods?

3. Beans glorious beans

I decided to grow two types of beans this year, the little bush French beans and the traditional runner beans.

The French bean seeds planted on Feb 4th are finally ready to be planted out. Fingers crossed the slugs don’t eat them! I do use slug pellets but cover with crates so the birds can’t get to them. However, I usually see the ants walking off with them, which while annoying is a bonus as they take them back to the nest.

We don’t normally grow runner beans here as it can be far too windy, so with nothing better to do I decided to try growing in pots in the most sheltered and sunny location in the garden. So far so good, and they are still standing. However, despite using good quality compost the leaves look pale so I fed with some Epsom salts. We will see.
Watch this space!

4.Growing Tomatoes in Containers

The cherry and Rosa tomato plugs I purchased from the local market in February are doing well and I have now planted on into the large pots. Good quality compost plus the processed manure compost I hope will produce a good crop… even if the cost does make them gold-plated.

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5. Growing watercress in a container

I decided to grow watercress as apparently, it is one of the powerhouse vegetables with numerous health benefits.

• Vitamin A
• Vitamin C
• Vitamin K
• Calcium
• Manganese

Check out this article which was the source of my inspiration.

I have never tried to grow watercress before so we will see how this experiment pans out. So far, so good. I am using a crate about six inches deep. Good quality soil which I keep moist. Full sun.

6. Spring Onions

I bought these onions at the local farmers market four weeks ago. They are now ready to eat.

Happy days. The next lot of onions I grow will be from seed as the market is now banned due to the Corona Virus. Which is surprising as it is usually empty and a far better place to shop t for urgent supplies as it is in the open.

 

Check out more gardening news for six on Saturday at Mr P’s blog.