Thursday 1 March 2012

St David's Day Daffodil & Egg shells

Day off today so spent the morning down the plot,weeded around the raspberries and the loganberries and putting the ash from last week’s bonfire round the plants. Also dug out the last of the compost from the bin and spread round the plot so I can start composting again, I added all the old chicken straw to it first thing that should start if off nicely.
Also had a stroll round the Garden and finally I have some or should I say one Daffodil out and what timing too on St David’s Day

The last week or two I have been reading Joes allotment again (love this book) and in particular the section on brassicas in it he uses crushed up egg shells for Calcium to get his brassicas going when planning, I tried this last year with a few cabbages and they did do very well indeed. So this year I have decided to give it a shot properly so I brought a load of egg shells home from work (about 300!) dried them and crushed them up and now I have a nice tub of crushed up shells some I have feed back to the chickens as they use this for their new eggs. I plan to use his Brassica mix of a wheel barrow full of compost mixed with sharp sand or grit then a good helping of fish, blood and bone, 2 nice handfuls of lime to deter club root and finally the egg shells.

So with that in my mind I got to it and sowed a few cabbages and cauliflowers. I'm using All the year round for the cauliflower and Golden Acre for the cabbage I got this free last month with The Kitchen Garden magazine, getting right into this Magazine its full of useful articles that I find useful.

 Also the other day I could not resist a tomato seed called Golden Pear it looks amazing and have used this in the kitchen before and they are really sweet so I sowed that today as well (I know I said that I wasn’t going to buy anymore tomato seeds! But I just had to……right?) I also made another sowing of broad beans as some have rotted off.

As this is my first proper year of growing for the allotment (last year was very last minute.com ) so I have started keeping an allotment Journal, my wife brought it for me a few years back but never really felt the need to use it but this year it’s been a must that way I can look back next year and see what I did when and what I used, not only that but it’s got great advice and a list of when you should be planning etc, it’s called Carol Klein’s Grow Your Own Veg Journal

Well have a cracking weekend all, and if the weathers nice get out in that garden!

11 comments:

  1. The daffodil certainly arrived at an appropriate time. It sounds like you're really getting on with your sowing now. I feel like I'm getting left behind.

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  2. either that or i'm just getting carried away! haha

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  3. I love your daffodil its one of my favorite flowers for sure. Your garden journal is a great idea for gardeners. I am sure it has some great ideas for keeping on top of your allotment garden.

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  4. I haven't heard if using egg shells for brassicas. That is something I might try out. Thanks for the tips.

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  5. You've definitely got a good source of eggshells there. I save, bake, crush and feed them back to my chickens as well - though I don't have 300 at a time! I got that Carol Klein journal a couple of years ago - it's beautifully put together and I stuck loads of photos on the blank pages to track my growing year.

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  6. I've never heard of using egg shells for cabbages before. As we probably only get through half a dozen eggs a week it might be a bit of a none starter. Although maybe if I start saving them now.....

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  7. With all those eggshells maybe you should set up a crushed eggshells business - you could market it as a slug deterrent too as many articles suggest that it works well for that.

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    1. never thought of using it for slug protection! might get some more.we chuck out so many each week if i get loads i could always give it away to my readers

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  8. At this time of year there is so much to do it's hard to know where to start but you seem to have it all sorted.

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    1. dont know about that Elaine but i am determind to keep on top thid year

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  9. Oh what wonderful timing of your daffodils.

    I've never had golden pear tomotoates, so may look for the seeds to plant some. I am so excited to be growing once again now that i have more space to grow.

    I think a journal is a good idea. When i startd originally growing, I really found it helpful and noted what worked and what didnt etc. Happy growing , lookign forward to comparing growing notes once again :)

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