All posts tagged mangetout

Round and around

Most annual crop growing systems benefit from some sort of rotation, where you grow different crops in the beds from year to year so that you don’t get a build up of pathogens and a depletion of specific nutrients. Your rotation can last three or four years, and there is lots of information available on how to plan; for example the Royal Horticultural Society give  a brief outline of both three- and four-year rotations here. In practice, many vegetable gardeners either do not have the space to practice a rigorous rotation (for example not growing potatoes at all, or only growing them in containers) or simply can’t be bothered.

My pick-and-mix placement of crops usually works

My pick-and-mix placement of crops usually works

In my small garden, I could be strict with a four-bed rotation as I do have four raised beds. However, I’m not consistent with the crops that I grow, so sometimes I want more than a quarter of the space given over to one type of crop and sometimes less. Also, I like mixing crops in the same bed, which sort of puts a spanner in the works. And anyway, I’m just too disorganised. I like to be creative and spontaneous, so basically I plant what I feel like where I feel like with the proviso that I don’t plant either onions or potatoes in the same place two years running. In fact I try out new crops each year and some of the less conventional ones (like Aztec broccoli or oca) almost certainly have fewer diseases than the standard offerings  and different nutrient demands. I do try to move my beans around each year because (a) they always get a healthy dose of compost dug into their bed before planting and (b) they are nitrogen-fixers, so should help boost the fertility of the place they have been.

Last year the potatoes grew in it, this year it's being used for mangetout

Last year the potatoes grew in it, this year it’s being used for mangetout

In addition, in my garden, I do lots of container growing. I make use of loads of home-made compost for this purpose and, of course, it doesn’t just get used once.You can’t, however, plan a rotation for your pots in the same way as for land. Last year I used lots of my fresh compost for potato-growing in dumpy bags. After I harvested the potatoes, I left the compost in the bags, but folded the tops down to protect it. I don’t want to grow potatoes in the same compost this year, so that has been transferred into some big pots for growing mangetout up the fence. Compost that has had tomatoes or peppers growing in it usually gets transferred into a bed that will be used for squashes. Because tomatoes and potatoes both get blight, I try to avoid transfer of spores in compost so don’t use compost from tomato pots in potato beds.

It all sounds quite complicated, but actually, I don’t have any difficulty remembering what I grew where (especially since I always take lots of photos) and deciding where to plant. I’m sure there are some of you out there who love an organised rotation, but you are clearly not scatty like me!

And while we moved compost today, Max enjoyed the sunshine!

And while we moved compost today, Max enjoyed the sunshine!

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by The Snail of Happiness on April 19, 2014  •  Permalink
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Posted by The Snail of Happiness on April 19, 2014

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Reaching for the sky

The Waste of Space design is bearing fruit (and vegetables).

Permaculture designs, as this is, often incorporate use of vertical as well as horizontal space (often referred to as ‘stacking’). With this in mind I planted yellow-podded mangetout in pots alongside the fence. In order to contain chickens, last year we attached wire mesh to the wooden fence slats and thus increased the height of the structure to about 2m, just the same height that the seed packet suggests these peas grow to.

And that is, indeed, what’s happening:

Making good use of vertical space

Making good use of vertical space

Resulting in an abundant harvest (these were picked just before the photograph above was taken):

Yellow-podded mangetout

Yellow-podded mangetout

I’ve also used an old strawberry planter to make use of vertical space for growing lettuce:

Multistorey lettuce

Multistorey lettuce

In addition, we have harvested a couple of kilos of potatoes from the dumpy bags, but the majority of the harvest from them is yet to come.

This whole area, which was previously unused, is contributing significantly to our food supply this year… onwards and upwards!

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by The Snail of Happiness on July 24, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by The Snail of Happiness on July 24, 2013

https://thesnailofhappiness.com/2013/07/24/reaching-for-the-sky/

Storing the sunshine

PV panels are one way to collect the sun's energy

PV panels are one way to collect the sun’s energy

Solar energy can be collected in all sorts of ways: you can use it to heat water, you can have photovoltaic cells installed and generate electricity, you can have a sun porch and enjoy passive solar heating, or you can grow plants. Green plants use sunshine to convert water and carbon dioxide into carbohydrates… that’s how they grow and that’s photosynthesis. So, any plant cultivation you do means that you are collecting solar energy (and making use of a greenhouse gas, but that’s a whole other story) and it doesn’t require a bank of batteries to store it.

The trouble is that in temperate climates we experience seasons. Some periods of the year are sunny and some not, some are hot and some are cold, so our plants are not able to photosynthesise the same amount all year, nor do our solar panels generate the same amount of electricity. Here in the UK we are currently in the middle of summer… and a rather nice one too. The sun is shining and the fruit and vegetables  are growing well (at least they are it we give them some extra water). As a result there is every likelihood that, in our garden at least, we will soon have more produce than we can consume immediately.

Of course, an abundance in the garden means an abundance on the farm too, so seasonal produce is likely to be cheap at a time when we don’t really need to buy it. The answer is to stock up on the sunshine now, or at least the products of the sunshine, and keep them so that you can enjoy them later in the year. The best fruit and vegetables in this respect are those that can be stored as they are harvested – potatoes in paper sacks, beans dried in the air and stored in jars, onions hung in strings and winter squashes ripened in the sun then kept in the cool dark attic. However, many crops require a little more work.

In the middle of processing the apple glut of 2011

In the middle of processing the apple glut of 2011

I posted the other day about bottling peaches, and ages ago wrote about dealing with the High Bank apple glut in 2011 (another is promised for this year). And, thus, I store the sunshine: bottling and freezing are the two main routes I take for produce that will not keep unprocessed. I know that many people make preserves, but we honestly don’t eat much in the way of jams and chutney, so it seems a waste to make these in abundance.

In many ways, freezing is the easier option – there is little chance of produce going off (unless your freezer fails) and there are many things that need no or little preparation before they are frozen. For example, raspberries can go straight into the freezer and, once defrosted, can be eaten as they are. Other things, such as runner beans or mange tout, require blanching before freezing (i.e. plunging into boiling water for a minute or two) and cooking when they are required, but these are very simple processes. Some vegetables and fruit do not freeze well: courgettes, for example. However, even these can be fried in olive oil and frozen for subsequent use in Bolognese, casseroles or on pizza.

But, part of me balks at storage that requires continuous energy input, so I really like being able to keep at least some of my harvest in bottles and jars. Of course, there is an initial high energy requirement for sterilising jars, boiling syrups and then heating the processed product in the jar to ensure that it keeps. But, it is possible to time these activities to coincide with the solar panels producing at their maximum rate so that we are using sunshine even more in the process. I only bottle fruit – there is too much risk of botulism with vegetables as they are much less acidic.  I use proper preserving jars and ensure that I follow the instructions (particularly minimum temperatures and timings) to the letter to prevent contamination and spoiling of the food and I find the whole process remarkably satisfying.

Once I have the dresser in the kitchen packed with jars of preserved fruit, I find myself peaking in just to enjoy the sight of all those bottles of sunshine that will be cheering many a dreary February day.

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by The Snail of Happiness on July 16, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by The Snail of Happiness on July 16, 2013

https://thesnailofhappiness.com/2013/07/16/storing-the-sunshine/

How does your tarmac grow?

Very well thank you, as you can see:

Something from nothing!

Something from nothing!

IMGP1210

Lovely lettuce… in a strawberry planter

In fact, it’s not the tarmac that’s growing anything, but it is providing the base for various containers, all contributing to our vegetable yield this year. For those of you new to my blog, the area in the pictures used to be a complete waste of space, a corner at the end of the driveway that just accumulated junk. A bit of thought and the application of some permaculture principles, and I have turned this area into somewhere useful.

So far this year, we haven’t harvested much from this part of the garden – some lettuce, parsley and about a kilo of potatoes* – but we have high hopes.

It’s lovely to see the mangetout, having been guided by “pea sticks” to grow in the right direction, scrambling up the fence. The mesh on the fence was put there to stop the chickens escaping and wandering down the street, but it has turned out to have a second function – supporting these plants (Yellow-podded – a variety that grows up to six-feet tall).

The lettuces are in a container that was originally intended for growing strawberries. Somehow the fruit-growing was not successful, so it has found a new function – multistory leaves – which seems to be going well so far. Sometimes, success just requires some lateral thinking!

-oOo-

* It’s early for potatoes yet, but it’s possible to remove some from the edge of the dumpy bags without disturbing the root system too much. Although this will reduce our total yield, it means that I am able to supply us with new potatoes at a time of year when the ones in the shops are very expensive. Those in the soil rather than containers will be harvested later in the season when they have produced their maximum crop.

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by The Snail of Happiness on July 5, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by The Snail of Happiness on July 5, 2013

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Reasons to be cheerful (or give thanks!)

Normally at this time of year we would be enjoying a wide range of stored produce from the garden, but 2012 will not be remembered as a year of gluts, so we have no pumpkins and squashes, few runner beans in the freezer, and only a limited amount of apple (stewed and frozen or pureed and bottled). I am thinking wistfully about the mountains of apples last year, the winters when we have eaten gallons of courgette soup and the times when we had enough ripened squashes in the loft to provide stored sunshine on even the gloomiest days. Not this year, though.

Sunrise 18 November… from out of our back door

So, what s there to be grateful for this year? Well, the first thing is that we don’t have to rely on what we grow to feed ourselves – if we did, we’d starve this winter. Fortunately, even if we only buy locally produced food, there is plenty – potatoes, meat, leeks, onions, swede… so we won’t go hungry. Living in a marginal area, the country has lots of land that isn’t suitable for plant crops, but is suitable for raising sheep, s0 there’s a source of protein from land that, in arable terms, is pretty useless. Living in the countryside means not only lovely surroundings, but lots of local growers, producers and foragers, allowing us to support the local economy whilst eating well. Llwynhelyg, our local farm shop, sources the majority of the produce that they sell from Wales or the borders, so we even have a one stop shop that delivers the majority of our needs from fairly local farmers and makers.

Peppers ripening today in my office

However, we are also still producing at least a little of our own food. There is a raised bed containing broccoli (fingers crossed for a good harvest from January onwards) and kale (which we have already started eating). We also have leeks growing and still some bunching onions (some of which we ate this evening along with broad beans that were frozen a few moths ago). The Claytonia that I planted doesn’t seem to have germinated, but the oriental greens have and I have high hopes for them plus there is some root parsley that seems to be coming along nicely… and we are using the leaves already even if the roots don’t do well. Meanwhile indoors, there are still a few sweet peppers on the plants that we are hoping to overwinter and some of the rocoto chillis are now ripening up. By the look of the picture here, they may well make great Christmas trees! We even, believe it or not, still have mange tout growing in pots outdoors, although a frost will finish these off soon, no doubt.

November mange tout

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by The Snail of Happiness on November 21, 2012  •  Permalink
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Posted by The Snail of Happiness on November 21, 2012

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Finally, some abundance!

Finally… things are getting going in the garden. The lateness of many crops has been caused both by the dreadful weather in June and much of July and by my lateness in planting some things. Actually, the latter, the result if inefficiency on my part, has probably been for the best as it helped several crops avoid the worst of the weather.

Tomato #1

So, I picked our first ripe tomato yesterday – all credit to Rich from Coed Hills who gave me the plant, grown from open pollinated seed, making it some sort of hybrid. It’s perfect and yellow and I just can’t quite decide how to eat it! I’ve also harvested what might be the last of our rhubarb of 2012, but it’s now bottled in a syrup including orange juice and ginger wine… that’s a treat I’m looking forward to enjoying later in the year (probably with homemade yoghurt).

Yellow-podded mangetout growing up the chicken-proof fence

We’ve also now got a decent crop of mangetout, broad beans and peppers coming along. To keep the season going (and growing) I planted the last of my mangetout seeds a couple of weeks ago and, just this morning, supplied them with sticks to grow up until they reach the fence. The Boston squash in the ‘waste of space’ dumpy bag is now enjoying a free range lifestyle, the corn has finally started to grow (although too late, I fear), the runner beans are flowering and starting to produce pods… and the sun is shining. Maybe I won’t get a homegrown courgette this summer, or a corn cob, but I will have eaten more lettuce from the garden than ever before and, as I have mentioned before, the potato crop has been great.

Free-ranging squash, plus corn and lettuce

I know that overall it’s been a poor season for home production, but I think the summer is going to end with some abundance and a greater range of fresh food than we have been able to enjoy so far.

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by The Snail of Happiness on August 8, 2012  •  Permalink
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Posted by The Snail of Happiness on August 8, 2012

https://thesnailofhappiness.com/2012/08/08/finally-abundance/

Filling the gap

In my earlier ‘Waste of Space‘ post I described my plans for a previously unused area beside the house. The first stage was just to get something in the area and I started by placing some potatoes along the fence in bags. These have grown like mad, but the rain and strong winds last Friday rather battered them – being raised above the ground they are more exposed than plants growing directly in the soil. However, they weren’t completely destroyed and so should still be producing tubers down in the compost.

Mangetout with some of the storm-ravaged potatoes

But potatoes were only the beginning. The next addition was two large pots of mangetout to grow up the fence. This fence has had to be covered with mesh and the height increased because of escaping chickens that would  get over the top (via the compost bins) in order to visit the neighbours or take a stroll down the street. Sadly our greatest escapee, Gytha, died yesterday, but the mesh has to stay as the others are not entirely trustworthy. So, tall pea plants seemed a good way to mask the mesh and make use of vertical space that was just begging to be utilised. The plants were started in the greenhouse where some of them were eaten by a mouse; however, some survived and are now a few inches tall… fingers crossed they will produce some pods.

My latest addition to the area is a ‘dumpy bag’ filled with compost from my big green cone compost bin and planted with the ‘three sisters’. For those of you who don’t know, a dumpy bag is one of those cubic metre sacks that building materials arrive in. The builders merchants won’t take them back for reuse (in case they fail, I guess) and so they are generally regarded as rubbish. We have several of them and I’ve heard of them being used elsewhere for planting so thought I would give it a go once I had enough compost to fill one.

Mostly from waste: a dumpy bag filled with grass clippings, cardboard and home-made compost.

As for the ‘three sisters‘, they are squash, corn and beans, which grow well together as a ‘guild’. In theory, the corn should provide support for the beans, but I know that corn is a tricky crop here in west Wales, so I have added some canes for the beans. My planting is very dense, but since the bag contains compost with a cardboard-grass clippings-cardboard sandwich in the base (to hold moisture and provide heat as it breaks down) there should be plenty of nutrients and the beans should fix nitrogen to further boost the fertility. I did cover the top of the home-made compost with about an inch of coir fibre with no added nutrients to serve as a mulch and discourage weed growth from the compost until the squash leaves get big enough to suppress any weeds on their own. I only had three runner bean plants left from my earlier garden planting and these are looking the worse for wear, but I’m hoping that they will perk up now they are in such a great growing medium. I planted three different squashes: Boston (a winter squash), summer crookneck and a courgette (zucchini)… any rampant rambling can be across the tarmac or along the little fence. This is a real experiment for me, but I think that it might be quite successful.

Slowly less of the space is wasted

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by The Snail of Happiness on June 13, 2012  •  Permalink
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Posted by The Snail of Happiness on June 13, 2012

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A waste of space

The end of our house; our neighbour’s pink house overlooks this area

We live in a cul-de-sac… near the end. This means that our plot of land is a funny shape. Not triangular, but much wider behind the house than in front of it. The house is oblong, the rear garden extends along the back and down either side, we park the car in front and then there’s this strange bit of space to the left as you look at the house that is tarmaced, but not where the car goes and outside the garden and overlooked by our next door neighbours. We have lived here for more than 10 years and in all that time the only thing that we have ever done with this small area is store things… usually things like rubble or building materials.

Sunshine and shade and access into the garden

This, however, is changing. In order to optimise the use of our land, I want this area to be productive. It is at the northeast corner of the house and is in the shade some of the day, but it does get sunshine first thing and as the afternoon progresses. I really didn’t fancy removing the tarmac, so for the time being it is going to be used for container growing. The first crop that we have installed is potato… in bags filled with lovely homemade compost. These were started off in the greenhouse to give them an early boost, but now they are outdoors fending for themselves. The chickens like potato tops, so having them in the main part of the garden would have required some sort of barrier to be constructed around them… but putting them in our dead space means they are protected from hungry beaks – a win-win situation. Also they are just two metres from the IBC, so watering will be a doddle. HURRAH!

We’ve got bags of potatoes!

There is plenty of space round there, as it turns out and so then next things I’m going to put there are two large pots of mangetout because they can make use of the vertical space too, growing up the fence. They haven’t germinated yet, but they are in their pots in the greenhouse, so fingers crossed. And finally this year I am going to make use of one of those dumpy bags we have been saving because they ‘might be useful for something’ (our whole house is full of stuff that ‘might be useful’). If you don’t know, dumpy bags are those big sacks that building material arrives in – sand, soil, gravel, wood chips… the builders merchants won’t take them back, so you end up accumulating them. They are amazingly strong and we have cut them up to use as weed-proofing under the paths between the raised beds, but we don’t need any more for that purpose. So, I am going to fill one of them as much as I can with compost (I might be able to manage a depth of 25cm) and try growing squashes in it… that way I can empty the two compost bins that I would normally leave a bit longer to finish rotting down, since squashes like a compost heap to grow in. I’ll put it in the spot that gets the maximum amount of sunshine and hopefully I will have created yet another productive growing space.

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by The Snail of Happiness on May 22, 2012  •  Permalink
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Posted by The Snail of Happiness on May 22, 2012

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Variety is the spice of life

Perhaps it’s a bit late in the year to be thinking about what edibles to plant, but as the seedlings and shoots start to emerge I have been thinking about what I am growing, as well as what I don’t grow and what I’d like to grow…

I suppose that my starting point always has to be what we like to eat or, more importantly don’t like to eat… for example, Mr Snail-of-happiness can’t stand cucumber so I don’t bother to grow it. We did get given a plant a couple of years ago, which I couldn’t bear just to compost and I did discover that the chickens LOVE cucumber, but even so I don’t think that it’s worth the trouble (after all, there are lots of other things they LOVE… apple cores, lettuce leaves, scrapings from the porridge pot, slugs…).

Another question is what is expensive to buy or is associated with lots of food miles? I like to grow chillies and peppers because, when locally produced, these are quite expensive. I also like early potatoes (the first ones of the season are always costly), which can be planted in the greenhouse in containers to get a head start on the season. I don’t have room to grow lots of potatoes and anyway blight is endemic in this area so maincrop are not worth the effort, but the joy of new potatoes straight out of the ground cannot be overemphasised!

On this note, I think about what is good straight out of the garden. A crop of salad leaves is always worthwhile. I grow ‘cut-and-come-again’ varieties, so that we only need to pick as much as we  are going to eat immediately – perhaps just a few leaves for a sandwich. Other straight from the garden hits are purple sprouting broccoli, kale (so good to have fresh greens through the winter) and mangetout.

As well as things for immediate consumption, I like to grow some things that store well… pumpkins and squashes are popular because they require no processing prior to storage and they taste great even after months in the loft.

Then, there are things that I simply can’t find in the shops… salsify, oca, different varieties of chilli. This year I am planting root parsley on the recommendation of someone else who grows it very successfully locally. Vegetables that are unusual are less likely to have a large native ‘predator’ population and there may be fewer diseases locally to which they are susceptible, which is an additional benefit. Sourcing the more unusual seed or tubers (like you need for oca) may be tricky, but we are very lucky to be near the home of The Real Seed Catalogue… a valuable resource and quite inspirational. I bought my oca tubers from them last year and have been able to plant saved tubers this year, so avoiding additional expense. In fact, the Real Seed folks encourage seed saving, so are trying to put themselves out of business in the long run! Another great seed resource is Garden Organic’s Heritage Seed Library… become a member and you have access to some very interesting varieties and are supporting the preservation of varieties that would otherwise be lost.

So, what do you grow and where do you get your seeds from? I’m always looking for inspiration.

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by The Snail of Happiness on April 21, 2012  •  Permalink
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Posted by The Snail of Happiness on April 21, 2012

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