Wednesday 13 June 2012

The New Adventure!!!

At the end of April I put an order in at Thompson & Morgan .

This is what I ordered!

On the 4th of May, my postman handed me a parcel bearing the Thompson and Morgan logo on.  After talking to him for a little while and wishing him a lovely day!  I took my white parcel into the living room.

I was so exitced it felt like it was Christmas. I opened up my little parcel to find inside the New Zealand Yam's Oca had arrived. My Fuchsia's to arrived a week later, they are now all planted up in the garden.


Picture's below of the Oca.


 I first heard of the New Zealand yam (Oca) on  The Alan Titchmarsh Show.
After Alan had done his gardening tips of the day.  Alan then went on to talk about the edible garden show, and to talk to one of the stars of the show Botanist James Wong. 
James was on to give a bit of a taste of what to expect from the show. With some new and cool things to grow. Some think a little different to what we all normally grow in the UK.

Did you know: There are about 15-20 things we grow on a regularly basics. But there are 6000 thing's we can grow out door's in the UK.  A most you would think are tropical, exotic and you had no idea you could grow in the UK.  (Source: J.Wong)

The six plant's James talked about was.

  1. Kiwi - Cocktail (Actinidia Issai)
  2. Oca - New Zealand Yams
  3. Shark Fin Melon
  4. Stevia
  5. Electric Daisy
  6. Sweet potato
(Please note I have research some of the information below)

The Kiwi - Cocktail (Actinidia Issai) have edible skin and double the sugar on the in-side.  You can harvest upto 400 fruit per plant.  The Actinidia Issai comes from Sibera and is a Hardy. Also the Actinidia Issai can handle temperature down to minus 35.


Oca New Zealand Yam's  you can eat root like a radish or cook it like a potato.  Also you can use the leaves in a salad too!  The Oca is also bligty resistant!


Shark Fin Melon  is commonly used in a soup. If you cut the melon in half and cook the flesh.  The flesh separates out a bit like a spaghetti squash.  The melon as the same texture as Shark fin in Shark fin soup. You might also think the shark fin melon would taste of fish. But actually the shark fin melon tastes of melon and cucumber. In Spain and Latin America the people make sweets and jams from the melon. Also you can harvest up to 4 melons from one single plant.


Stevia  are 300 times sweeter than sugar and have 0kcals. You might of already heard of Stevia - as there are sweeter's out that use the plant e.g: Truvia (Which I sometimes use).  You can buy the plugs and seeds from Suttons


Electric Daisy  (Sechuan Buttons) is a member of the daisy family.  If your brave enough to try a electric daisy. The daisy is like licking a 9v battery. ( Not sure if I want to try this one)


Sweet Potato is not a potato. This root vegetable is a member of the Ipomoea family, the same as the popular flowering climber Morning Glory.  (source: Thompson & Morgan)
           
You can buy sweet potato slips from most good places.  The sweet potato 'slips' are tubers cut into large piece then placed into water and left to spout leaves, then separated and left to root.  Until now that was the only way you could grow sweet potato. But now Sutton Seeds have developed an sweet potato plant...

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On Thursday 10th of May I decided to pot up the New Zealand yams (Oca).
 But first I wanted to get some new plant pot's to put the Oca in, so I went down to my local Wilkos store.
  Once I had return from Wilkos, straight out side I went with my new plant pot's and the Oca!


I put the wrong date on the label! :(

The Oca I had was small with a three medium size one, so I potted them all. Gave them a nice soak of water and sat them in the greenhouse.  I wanted to put them on my windsill in my bedroom, but the plant pot's are a tag bit to big to fit on!  While the Oca where out in the green house the frost came and I kind of worried a little! But there was no need to worrie, on the 29th of May I had little green leaves popping up.



Since the picture above the Oca have grow that much I have been hmm and arr in when to plant them and how too.  I got some advice from one of the guys at T&M on how to plant them.
Some mad reason I thought you would have to treat them like potatos. Do not know why I thought that.

So on the 9th of June I decided to plant them out side.

So I found one of my potato sack planter's that I had left over from planting my potato's and got some pebbles to cover the holes.  Then I opened up my last sack of compost and tipped the compost into the planter.  I then planted the Oca, I also had a bit of compost left in another bag.  So I used the last bit to fill in any gaps.

Please find picture below


I will keep you all upto date...
Please let me know what you think?

Monday 11 June 2012

Sowing!

Since the 3rd of March I have been busy with experiencing and sowing seeds.

Here is the list of seeds I sowed on the 3rd of March.

(apart from the chocolate tomato seeds.  I sowed them on the 23rd of March)

 
Broccoli
Curly Kale
Petruna's
Marigold (Grand-da)
Cauliflower
Pak choi
Cabbage
Quince
Sweet peas (Royal Family Mix)
Nastrutras
Buzy Lizzie (mix)


I keep being asked how do I get some of my seeds to germinate.  Well this is how I mainly get them started.  By putting a make-up remover pad on a saucer.  Then I pour some water on and sprinkle the seeds on, then pop a clear cup on top.  Simple really!



 
After two hours I noticed the Broccoli started to spout or should I say germinate.  Two weeks later I potted the Broccoli, Curly Kale, Cauliflower, Cabbage, Broccoli, Petruna's, Marigold (Grand-da), Pakchoi, Nastrutras, Buzy Lizzie (mix) and sweet peas up.  Then popped them all in my lil greenhouse.  A week later I noticed my Curly kale, Cauliflower, Cabbage and the rest of the above plants was doing great. 

But a snail had eat the Broccoli, I had found he/she on the pot.  Then the frost came and killed off most of the plants I had grew from seed. Apart from Curly Kale, Cauliflower, Cabbage and Tomato's.


Broccoli
Petruna's
Marigold (Grand-da)
Pakchoi
Nastrutras
Buzy Lizzie (mix)

Read how I saved my garden from the frost, in my plant marathon


But I have not yet seen any think of the Quince seeds yet!
I will keep you posted if and when they pop up!


Tom and the Potato's

On the 23rd March (2012) I sowed my Chocolate tomato seeds, that I had collected from last year tomatos.  At first I was not sure if they would spout or not!  So on 28th March (2012) I was exticed to see little baby seedling had come up.

A week later I took them out doors to to plant up for the first time in little white cup's.
Then on the 14th of May I planted the tomato's up in those black pot's from Morrisons (Supermarket) eight for 99p.



Like I have said over and over again in other blog post's, we have had frost and cold weather.
So the tomato's have not done so well.

This is how they look today (11 June)




I am hoping they will pick up soon, I'm giving them food every day just to get them going.

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For a long time now I have been dying to grow my own Potato's. 
So this year I decided to get some seed potato's to grow, I got 'Charlotte'.

I had some empty tub's, so I put some kitchen roll in and placed the seed potato's in the tub's.
About three weeks went pass and the seed potato's had chitted.  So on the 4th Of May I took the chitted potato's out and planted them up.  A week later little green leaves appeared, I put some more compost on top. Then so on as the leaves came up, til they got to the top.

This is how the Potato's look today (11th June)


I will keep you all posted on how I get on with the potato's and tomato's.




Saturday 2 June 2012

Plant Marathon!

Over ten week ago I sowed Impatiens, Lobelia's, Petunia's, Nastrutras, just to name a few.
I popped them in my propagater's and  first time ever popped them in my greenhouse, because I sowed too many.  I noramlly put them on my bedroom windowsill.  Then the frost came and like most of us have found, it kill off any chance of life! :(

RIP Seeds/Seedlings

So yesterday (23rd May) I decided and I am a shamed to say. Today (24th May) I went and bought some plants and some more compost, has I knew I won't have enough.


Here is the list of plants below.

  1. Geranium's Mixed
  2. French Marigold's Mixed
  3. Celosia
  4. Petunia's Mixed
  5. Lobelia - Regatta Mixed
  6. Lobelia - Trailing Mix
  7. Impatiens - Chelsea
  8. Nicotana - Mixed
So after getting the plants and try to find local Honey (which I think needs to be another post!).  I came home which was at 12o'clock and set to work. Emptying the pot's on the wall's, cleaning them out. Pot up plants that decided to start growing where you don't want them.  But I still want to keep them, to see what they turn into.

Oh and kill the slugs and snails, the old fashion way with the beer. I use an old drink bottle with a drop of old (out-of-date) beer. When I see a snail/slug I un-do the lid and pop/drop the snail/slug in. I don't seem to have many in the garden anymore! 

Once I had sorted every think out, I started to pot up all the pot's on the wall's, then I moved on to the two black pot's and potted them up well. 

A couple of weeks ago my uncle gave me three pots of Cosmos and a pot of Lavateria that he had luckily growed from seed.  I found my big green tub left from my rose's, to use.  So I popped in some stones for dainage and fill the tub of soil!

I spilt the Lavateria up into four peices and planted that to the back, then I popped in the Cosmos's and nictiana's. What every I had left over I put in the pot too......

Here are the picture's I took these yesterday morning!!!








I love this one!