Weegie's veggies

A week later I sowed two rows of parsnips with a row of radishes in between. I had already started off leeks, runner beans, beetroot and courgettes indoors. The municipal compost was quite coarse and twiggy and I mixed it in a bit with the soil. I also dug in some Vitax Q4 slow release pellets. Sod's law meant that I only discovered the "no dig" approach by Charles Dowding and others a few days later - doh!

After a few weeks things were going well. This photo taken on 7 June shows the radishes already swamping the parsnip seedlings, while the rhubarb took off like a triffid.



I had also planted out the leeks, runners, beans, beetroot plus some red russian kale. To protect the beds from pigeons and four-legged friends I made simple covers from strips of chicken wire with canes threaded through each side. They've worked really well and are light and easy to move around.

Looks great weegie, job well done!

Thanks, Jay!

I should have mentioned that I live in Glasgow - for some reason I cannot edit my profile to include this.

Two weeks later, 21 June, and things are coming on apace. We enjoyed the radishes and the parsnips survived their near smothering. Carrots are visible - I was very reluctant to sow them as in the past they have succumbed to fly, but Mr W was so keen.... I waited till June to try and dodge the bugs but only time will tell. The courgettes (Atena Polka) turned a bit yellow but a liquid feed made a big improvement.


The middle bed has leeks at the far end, then swede and red russian kale interplanted with beetroot clumps and lettuce.


In the third bed the rhubarb is getting bigger than I expected. in front of it are more leeks and beetroot, and three wigwams of runner beans. There should have been four but I ran out of canes, so sowed some CCA lettuce in the gap.

I tried to edit my last post but for some reason I can't. ???

Anyway, more photos, this time from 30 June, so not much more than a week after the last lot. Things are growing almost before my very eyes!

Something, probably a fox, dug a deep hole in the parsnips in spite of the kebab sticks that I put in, so I've added some mesh. Lots of tiny yellow courgettes are forming.



I'm really pleased with the leeks in the middle bed - I've tried leeks for years but never had much success. These ones are Tornado, which I started off indoors in early March and planted out in clumps mid May. There are also some Musselburgh, to osmall to see which I sowed in modules a bit late, 11 May, and planted out at the beginning of June. I'm hoping that they will overwinter then grow a bit more in spring next year.


I'm not sure that my interplanting among the brassicas was such a good idea, though...


The runner beans are doing well - they always do (oops, shouldn't have said that!). The beetroot and leeks are getting a bit swamped, though, even though we are picking some of the rhubarb.


I'm trying to restrain Mr W from picking too much as it is so new, but it's growing so vigorously that it's hard to convince him. I would normally have grown peas there but he's not so keen on them, and we both like rhubarb, so it seemed only fair to give it a try. Next year I'll get some more canes and have a fourth wigwam of Alderman.

The only pests so far (apart from the fox and cats) has been leaf miners in the chard and beetroot. I go out twice a day to pick off the eggs, with masking tape if it's dry, but will mix up a neem oil spray and see if that helps. My problem weed is horsetail - I dig it out as best I can but it's impossible to get rid of it completely.

Weegie, when you've made a few more posts you'll be able to edit your profile and post images directly to your thread instead of on Dropbox.
Personally, I tend not to follow links to images as they're not always what you expect.
We've had some weirdos in the past as you can imagine!!

haha VC, there's still some weirdoes around! *twitch* haha

Well done on your progress Weegie! That all looks ace! Very well done indeed

Fortunately, the resident weirdos don't need Banning for their images...............yet.

Hi VC - thanks for the explanation. I wasn't sure if it was something like that or my Firefox browser which can be a bit temperamental.

They look great! Did you buy or build the raised beds? I'm looking to make some of my own but have no idea where to start and how to work out depth, position, time of year. If you have any tips please let me know!

Thanks, brmead - we're rather pleased too!

We made the beds ourselves. When we first bought the house 35 years ago there was just grass, and we were so excited to have a free hand with our first attempts at gardening. The first year we just stripped off the grass to make beds but the soil was so poor and the spot so shady that things didn't really grow very well. The topsoil is really shallow - dig down six inches and you hit solid clay, so raised beds were the solution. The boards were only about 6 inches wide and were just scavenged from skips. As they rotted and were replaced we made them a little higher. We also put a lowish wooden fence around the three beds to keep the children off - they had a great time with their pals chasing each other round it.

Two of the current beds (the ones furthest from the camera in the first picture) had new boards this spring and we made them significantly higher as we are getting old and stiff and don't want to bend over so much! This time we bought in new, pressure treated wood which we hope will last the rest of our lifetime. We also bought in a tonne / 665L of green waste from the council for £30 plus £30 delivery. It took the best part of a day to barrow it in as we had to take it through a shed and up some steps.

It's raining quite hard at the moment so I won't measure the boards now but the internal dimensions of two of the beds, i.e. growing area, are 99cm x 231cm, while the third one (the oldest) is 107 x 231. The dimensions were partly dictated by the available wood and the available space. Even once you add on about 10cm for the thickness of the sides you can still reach all parts of the bed. Four feet / 120cm is often recommended as the maximum comfortable width. Some folk make them 5 foot / 152 cm wide but that would be too much of a stretch for me.

If you are thinking of having cloches or frames you should check what their standard dimensions are and how well they would fit, to get the best value.

Ideally you want a sunny spot sheltered from wind but in practice there may not be much choice. Our garden faces south so in summer we get quite a lot of sun, but there are also mature trees and hedges around, and in midwinter the sun doesn't clear the back fence at all.

HTH - have fun!

I've always used plastic cane rings to support my runner bean wigwams. I only have two, but this year I've added third wigwam. As I'm trying to cut down on plastic, I came up with this instead:



It's made from elder, buddleia and ivy, all sourced from the wilder parts of the garden. I'm rather pleased with myself!



It will look even better once the jute twine fades. When it disintegrates it can just go on the compost heap.

I can't believe how fast things are growing. The weather has been pretty much perfect - warm and lots of sun, with quite heavy rain every few days.

I tried some interplanting among the brassicas as recommended by Charles Dowding. Some of the veg I had never tried before so wasn't sure how long they'd take to grow or how big. Results are interesting!

7 June - red russian kale and beetroot clumps


21 June - lettuce plants (Cocarde) among the kale, then a few kohlrabi, some swede plants and radish seedlings


30 June - all looks ok so far...


8 July - hmm, maybe I overdid it!


13 July -


We've eaten most of the radishes and I've now pulled a lot of the beetroot. The intersown lettuces are doing surprisingly well considering they're not getting much light. I'm really interested to see which will run to seed first - the ones among the kale or the ones in full sun. We're picking them as cut-and-come-again, so far very successfully.

I have a rogue runner bean! I sowed Polestar which has the usual red flowers, but one of the plants has beautiful coral pink ones. Celebration, perhaps?



It will be interesting to compare the beans for taste and texture. A few years ago I grew Scarlet Emperor and found that nearly half of them were something else - the pods were a little paler, flatter, and less stringy. I should have tried to save some seed but they were growing in such a tangle and I was more interested in eating them.

Weegie your veg plots looking good i do like your homemade cane support might have to try that next year.

If you leave a couple of those radishes to go to seed they produce pods that in my opinion taste nicer than the actual radishes themselves.