New Kitchen Garden takes shape and planting out Snowball Cauliflower

Last year I allowed the pigs to plough up a large area which I intended to be used as a kitchen garden. They did a great job of eating all the grass, roots, old overgrown fruit bushes etc. In the process they manured the land for me. My plan was for this

I had removed my rhubarb plants and stored them over winter in trays in the shed. They have now been planted on the left strip of land and have started to shoot. Bed 1 will be planted with root crops, bed 2 with peas and beans and bed 3 with brassicas. So a 3 year crop rotation is the idea. Other crops are grown in the greenhouse and covered raised beds as well as a herb garden. Today I planted out my Snowball cauliflowers 4 rows of 8 spaced 50cm apart and 50cm between rows. These plants were sown in early February and have been in the cold frame since they had seed leaves. I staggered the rows so that the plants are diagonal to the ones in the adjacent row in order to maximise space for each plant.

Each plant was firmed in with my knuckles so that they would not flop over in the wind. Rain is forecast but if it doesn't come I will need to water each plant station.

Planting Leeks

The leeks that were sown into a deep tray indoors were first hardened off in the cold frame for a couple of weeks. By now they just look like thin, weak and wispy green stalks. They will be planted out 9 per square in my polythene covered square foot garden. After a quick clean up of the square, I first add a top dressing of fresh compost to put nutrients back into the growing medium that was depleted by the last crop. I press this down by hand to make a firm surface then dib nine holes roughly equally spaced.

Carefully tease the leek seedlings apart and just drop them one by one into the holes. Don't try to fill in the holes nor try to push the seedlings into the holes.

Your square should look like this when all the nine seedlings have been dropped in.

Pour water into each hole, this not only waters the plant but in the process drags the seedling down into the hole and settles the roots. Again, do not fill in the holes! They should be left to fill naturally with successive waterings and the leeks will eventually grow to fill these voids.

I planted over a hundred of these, leeks have such fine flavour and is one of my favourite vegetables!

Planting Tomato plants in the Greenhouse

Dig hole directly underneath the support wire


Put string in the hole then lift vertically to the wire support and tie off.





Place the string along the bottom of the hole


Set the plant diectly on top of the string.



Cut the string with a little extra length


Take the cut end of string and wrap around and down the side of the root ball.


Fill in around the root ball trapping the string and carefully wind the plant around the string.

Cheap and easy Greenhouse Part 1

Cheap and easy Greenhouse Part t2