'Ello Richard 'ows Yer Veg?

Doing well thanks.

News, news and more news

I have named my Jamaican chilli pepper plant Usain. I went away for a week and it had grown two foot!

 it has literally bolted.... 

That's not buffering by the way, it's just a photo.

Sorry. I'll stop the the Usain Bolt jokes now.

My potatoes are ready for harvest. Woop, woop! 

My first cucumber of the year has appeared, yay!

After months of waiting I finally have some tabasco peppers growing. Thank you heat wave!

I've also grown some Kohlrabi... Unfortunately I did not take any photos before I cooked it. So I went on to Google image search to find a suitable picture to show you what it looked like. Alas my search was in vain. I could not find an exact match. So I'll just say they look like and hopefully you can conjure up a mental image. A cross between a radish and a turnip with a bit of fifty's B-Movie monster thrown in for good measure. 

In a word ugly.

Speaking of fifty's B-Movies my cabbage patch has been the terrible victim of  the Pieris Brassicae. Better know as the cabbage butterfly... 

There are literately hundreds of caterpillars throughout my sorry looking greens.  

The purpose of this beast is breed, eat and repeat.  

 Apparently the female can lay twenty to hundred eggs. They have been very busy butterflies and

as you can see my cabbages are well and truly losing the war to the very hungry caterpillars.

Right then time to hang up the gloves and have a cup of tea!

Ta-ta for now.

Of Cabbages and Kings

Hello There

Sorry for the late post... again.

Recently I have been working on my plot out the back. I gave it a good tidy up.  This meant trimming back the hawthorn and elder flower. Unfortunately this has a disagreeable affect on my asthma and hay-fever. Thanks to Amazon I had found a suitable solution and it comes with such a nice carry case. 

The back plot is now all neatly ordered and looking very presentable.  I've managed to get hold of some second hand paving slabs. It's now much easy to reap and sow, all thanks to some old concrete. 

The green house is looking lively with tomato and chilli plants growing rapidly and I have dedicated some of the table space to "speedygrow" mixed salad which should be ready in a couple of weeks.


I've also given bean sprouts a try. Turns out they are idiot proof. No need for fancy soil prep or tedious spacing. They germinate in a day or two and they are ready for harvest in six to seven days afterwards. Bang on!

Thanks for reading, bye for now.

We Plough The Fields and Scatter

Hello,

It has been while since I last wrote. Not my fault honest!

I managed to get a job with insane hours. Then Max Payne 3 and Ghost Recon: Future Soldier were released and it would have been rude to not purchase them and play them to completion. So as you can see all events leading to this late entry where completely out of my hands. Don't all green house related progress has been steady and productive.

I believe it's time for an update.

With all this beautiful weather with its bountiful sunshine has really upped the growth rate of every thing. For example I planted some courgette seed, They only took two days to germinate! Now that's crazy quick.

I've had to move my tomatoes to larger pots so they have room to spread and hopefully I shall be getting a good yield from them. The peppers have actually decided to give life a go , I would really like to try to make my own brand hot sauce, I've got a name for it as well “Moustachio Greenfingerz.”

In other news I've had a crack at trying to stir fry some of my greens. I used Cabbage, Pak Choi, spinach and Swiss chard.

So I got the Wok out and added some sweet chilli sauce a bit of sliced ham.

I'd love to say this is a serving suggestion, but it looks like a dogs dinner. It's just sort of thrown on to a bed of Tesco's own rice. BUT I can assure you the dog had none of it, It was surprisingly palatable. I will be trying it again, I will be working on presentation

In other, other news I've put together a summer play list for the greenhouse. I thought I should share it with you hopefully the link below works if not. Tough.

30 Songs I deem "Summery" 

Before I go I'd like say anyone who knows their hymns now has “we plough the fields and scatter” stuck on replay in their head and are somehow unable to remember past the line “the good seed on the earth” 

Have a good one

Richard Philip.

Sow it Continues!

Hi again, sorry for late second post, I blame it on new video games, Dvds, Books and other pay day distractions. But do not fear! Although the blog may have been neglected the greenhouse has not been. All the missing panes replaced, door fixed and the shelves are up! So it's all good!

Well now, it's all going quite well. Lots of things planted, lots of things growing. The speakers are in and all the little seedlings are enjoying a good sonic battering.

I randomly bought a pink pearl hyacinth the other day..... not sure why but it smells heavenly!
A vast improvement on chicken manure.

I recently gained a new addiction.

It goes on anything!

Right then time for me to stop blogging and do something of use

Until next time

Cheerio.

1st things 1st

Hi there, you have you just stumbled onto a gardening blog written by an Comic book reading, metal listening, temp working, X-box playing amiable twenty-something.

welcome

I have recently been given an amazing gift by a very generous neighbour. My own green house. My own slice of England if you will. I have only been able to grow fairly hardy outdoors fruit and veg.

Until now.

The growing shall be EPIC!

I take a fairly laid back approach to gardening... I rarely read plating instructions my rule of thumb is:

Seed + Good compost + Fertiliser + Regular Water + time = food

Not rocket science and anyway trees can't read and there seems to be plenty of them about.

Some people talk to their plants, good for them. I wont be. But I will be rigging up some speakers and introducing them to the vast world of metal. Why?

http://mythbustersresults.com/episode23

2^nd text box down last sentence. That's why.

Right that's me done for now. Stay tuned for more garden related exploits soon.

Hope you've enjoyed reading this blog as much as I enjoyed making someone else write it.

R.P