In this category you will find everything that is growing and living outside in the garden, like growing vegetables and fruit and raising animals for there meat and chickens for eggs
Direct sowing of pumpkins, which actually sprouted
A friend of ours was so nice to donate us a few trailers of cow manure. My husband pushed it together and hilled it to a long mountain. This spring, before we went on our trip, end of April, I direct sowed Hokkaido pumpkin in this mountain of manure. The nights where still very cold, but there also where some warm sonny days. I did not really expected much from this, but I wanted to try it out.
Surprisingly enough the second half of Mai a seedling appeared and a few weeks later another two.
Parallel I also sowed the same pumpkins in the greenhouse which I planted middle of June.
We luckily have enough rain this season, since I sowed ratter high in the mountain of manure and that dry’s out the quickest. I should sow and plant at the foot of the manure mountain.
Thanks to all of the rain (we have very much at the moment) the pumpkins are thriving and it looks like this at the moment.
Don’t mind the weeds in the back. I will have to tackle those before they form seeds.
An easy solution for a pigeon problem and growing lettuce
This spring I had sown a few things in my planter table, but nothing really came. What was appearing where dents in the soil and a dill plant that got picked of.
One day my husband saw pigeons feasting in the planter table. For that we have an easy solution. We tied a rope criss-cross over the plant space and pigeons can not land here anymore.
Now the dill can grow and I planted lettuce seedlings which grew well and we are eating off already.
The second planter table, strangely enough, did not get touched by the pigeons. The herbs I planted this spring and a second batch of lettuce I planted only recently as a succession planting.
Preparing the greenhouse for the new growing season, sowing and starting seedlings for planting outside
It was already the 20. of Mai when I started to prepare the greenhouse for the new growing season. I gave all of the planters a nice thick layer of compost and started sowing.
I sowed almost everything that should stay in the greenhouse direct into the greenhouse planters. I sowed cucumbers, for fresh eating and pickling, watermelon, some tomatoes, basil, dill, one courgette and flowers. Only the celery, chilli and lettuce I pre-cultivated in trays. I have been watering the greenhouse every day and all sprouted well. Up until now there has been no real problem with pests yet, but I do keep a close eye on everything.
For the first time in years the watermelons are taking off really good and are even forming fruit already, as you can see on the picture above.
With the cucumbers I keep on top with cutting of any side shoots and if I see any leaves with a discolouring or any damage I remove it. This way I hope to keep the plants healthy as long as possible. The first pickling cucumbers are already forming.
In the middle June I planted some lettuce in the greenhouse planters and we have been eating from it already, as to the lettuce I planted outside at the same time, which is still too small to harvest from.
A volunteer Asia-Salat Red Giant appeared between some dill and went into flower already. I will let it go to seed and self-sow.
The Asia-Salat I have in the greenhouse still looks good, but all of the Asia-Salat and radishes I planted/ sowed outside are perforated and dying. We have a big problem with cabbage flea beetles (phyllotreta). About middle of June, when the wetter has been a bit dryer, everything outside started to have little holes in the leaves.
I have sowed borage and marigolds for the insects in the greenhouse and the borage has started flowering already.
The basil is ready for harvesting and will be turned into a delicious pesto soon. I have large-leaved basil, like I always have, red basil and Thai basil. The last 2 are new for us and we will try out how they taste. If we like them we will grow them more often.
I am very happy I gave the space and sowed one seed of courgette in a planter in the greenhouse. It sprouted wonderfully and thrives very well. We will be able to harvest the first courgettes in the coming days.
Strangely enough with the courgette I sowed in little planters to plant outside later, only one seed sprouted. A few weeks later I sowed again, but double this time. Now many more sprouted, so it is looking good on having lots off courgettes this year.
I am only wondering why the first batch did not want to sprout. Maybe it was to cold standing on the ground. I should provide for some shelving before next spring. This would give me some more space to pre-cultivate seedlings as well.
At the moment everything stands on the ground and the seedlings in the trays also put there roots into the soil below, which is not very helpful. Also I thing I have been using the wrong soil for pre-cultivating. The seedlings in the trays came up nicely, but after some time some of the seedlings did not look so good anymore, the tomato seedlings did not really grow and some seedlings simply died. We also had a few slugs that caused some damage among the seedlings. Another possibility is that the seedlings just where to long in the trays, but I found the seedlings to small to plant, only they just did not want to grow a little more.
I was thinking that the soil I used was maybe not ideal, so looked for something better. I did not find soil to pre-cultivate locally, so I bought a good potting soil and sifted out the larger pieces. I am trying this out with lettuce and with another batch of celery. Time will tell if this is better.
To finish this post an overview picture of the greenhouse at the moment. The courgette is right around the corner, so that is not visible.
Beautiful Chaos 