I can only hang my head in shame, lots of stuff has happened with the garden for months and I have not tweeted, written posts or even displayed pictures I toke a few weeks ago. So whats been happening?

1. weeding.
2. planting of tomatoes, cucumbers, courgettes, leeks, salsify, potatoes, chilli’s, pepers,berry bushes, beans, lettuce, radish and a few other seeds and herbs.
3. supports and netting erected to protect strawberries and to grow my bean and monge tout.
4. compost attacked and eaten by ratty, which has now been batted, I hope.
5. Irrigation system in place.

So quite alot going on, I am planning some pics and a new way of showing some of the classic fruit and veg and how they are looking throughput the growing season to help others see what they should look like & when, I hope this will help you if its your first time growing your own so you know your going in the right direction!

Next year I will be starting a little gardening advice application that will be online via this blog or it will be via a new site with a nice little iPad / iPhone app, depends on time really.

Nothing goes 100% perfect all of the time. Its only my first year and yes I still have a few issues going on. Some of the seedlings have died due to the plants falling over and loosing their base in the soil. Still got plenty growing so when thining out I will try to use all my little seedlings to make sure we get a good lot of crops. I am also going to use my pound store 4 for a pound seeds to try out a few different growing times and techniques this year but that s for another day and another post.

So enough of the chit chat, remember to water them all really well but not over the top! plus the pots are not featured in these images as there is no growth yet but week two images might just have a few little gems to show!

1 Week and this is what we have got to show for it.

** Use picture lense to view photos as its better than clicking on them! its a nice little slide-show / viewer

[View with PicLens]

Well I am going to try and make my posts on this years crop really easy to follow so that newbies to gardening can pick up just as easy as I did!

The first thing to remember is that if you water, feed and look after the soil, plants and seedlings you will get plenty of crops! Last year was my first year and I had way too much. During the summer and warm days you must water every day! if in the ground it does not matter if the ground is soaked. The plants, weeds and everything in the surrounding areas will suck it up before the next mornings sun was fully risen.

BTW the week that I started planting I also weeded and prepare the ground outside for this years crop. Will place compost and feed in the ground a couple of week before sowing seeds and seedlings outside.

My top tips:

1. Weed all the time, make sure the plants are not fight for water, nutrition and most importantly sun. If you leave them they will win and its alot hard to get rid of them when they are big with huge roots.
2. Make sure you water every day during the summer and every other day on the mild days where you can get away with doing it a little less.
3. Always use plant food. Not too much but every three weeks will keep the plants growing and happy. Its not expensive and if you go to the 99p store you can get it for a £1 a bottle. A small plot will only need one of two for the summer so you will not spend alot of money on that! but remember that if you grow toms that they love tomato food so buy some of that too in the 99p store.
4. Always harvest the fruit and veg as soon as you can, beans, tomatoes and cucumbers all grow lots of products and the more you pick the more the bush / plant can grow.
5. Look out for pests and insects, they are usually slow to move on in but when they do they can really mess up your crop so make sure you have treatment at home or can get it quick to stop the little buggers taking over.
6. Plant the crops inside in heated propagators or non-heated for slower results but make sure you plant them with plenty of time to get them established for the summer and stagger them going outside to get crops week after week and not in one go.
7. Enjoy it, its really easy and not every thing will work but if you follow my tips and step on time and in good time you will have a love crop and will get them “Green fingers” I cant shift!

So what did I do in week one (20th of Feb 2010)

1. Got my heated and non-heated propagators and 3/4inch pots ready in my spare room. I then filled them all up with compost (must be John Innes).
2. Read each packet of seeds to make sure you give them the right spacing and depth.
3. Plant them a little deeper and firm the soil! Gemma did not do some rows to deep and did not firm the soil making some seedlings die as they did not have enough root in the soil before they grew out the top soil.
4. Firm firm and top up soil where needed.
5. Water them very lightly and place in warm, bright and safe areas away from pets and children!
6. Keep them warm and at a constant temperature!
7. Tidy up the mess thats if you are like me.
8. Oh and label the seedlings!

Lets see what I did

** Use picture lense to view photos as its better than clicking on them! its a nice little slide-show / viewer

[View with PicLens]

Not a huge harvest this week but a nice little lot for this week. There are still plenty more fruit and veg to come so it wont be my last post.

I reckon that todays little lot would have been about £12 in the shops! so that with every thing else makes us break into profit! with more to come, plus all dead plants go in compostor and help me make compost for next years, 80 litres of compost to add to bounty.

Here is what I harvested:

todays potatoes harvest

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These are the few potatoes we harvested today. I recon we have about another 5 harvests this size.

Ok so I thought I would work out what has been spent.

• Cains £40
• Pots £20
• Propagators £40
• Greenhouse £20
• Compost £30
• Seeds £40

So about £190’s to get going. I have loads of seeds left so I think seeds could come down to £20. So £170’s is alot but apart from compsost and seeds they will be usuable for next year! What crops do I think I have got so far:

• Tomatoes to date: 50 * 12 / 15 (per punet of shop baught) = 40, 40 * £1 = £40
• Cucumbers to date: 80, 80 * £1 = £80
• Potatoes: (not yet all picked) 12, 1 bag, £3
• Chillis: 4, 1 pack, £3
• Peppers, 8, 2 packs, £4
• Dwarf beans, 200, 10 packs, £30
• Runner beans, 80, 8 packs, £24

So without any of my other crops, onions, spring onions, sweet corn, betroot, carrots and loads of all the other to pick we are looking at an income / savings of: £184.

So I have all the equipment, seeds and still more crops to come and they have almost paid for themselfs!

Say ne more.