Anyone planting ANYTHING at the moment?

[FluffyMuppet]

At the weekend I planted 4 Jerusalem artichoke tubers which I got in my veggie delivery box - they're supposed to be really hardy and better off outside. I planted mine in containers though, so I don't know how well that will work out. It does mean they can't escape and take over the garden though! 8)

[Shirley]

nice one catalyst and couscous - thanks for the seed catalogue links - will have a good look through those later.

[gunners71uk]

sowed some sweet peas in pots shiney , thats it at the mo. too early to sow parsnip etc her i wait till end feb i think.

[ina]

It's snowing, and the ground is rock hard. Definitely no sowing or planting going on at the moment!

[Steve Hanson]

It has reached the dizzy heights of 6 degrees Celsius here in not tooooooooooooooo sunny France, so I have prepared a seed bed for the Fruit & Nut tree seeds I collected last year. I made a raised bed out of green oak part filed it with well rotted compost and topped it up with soil from a mound of turf dug up last year for all the other raised beds, which I sieved and then added sharp sand to encourage good drainage. Then I covered it in black plastic to stop it from drying out or getting too waterlogged until the weather decides it is French again and rises to the customary 21 degrees Celsius

I planted in rows of 10 seeds per row about 4 inches apart.
2 rows of Walnuts
3 rows of Plumbs
3 rows of Apples
2 rows of Cherries
3 rows of Nectarines (small)
3 rows of Peaches

Plus
10 pots for Damsons
6 pots for more Cherries

I have also prepared and planted cuttings for fruit & nut trees in a sheltered spot next to the solar tunnel, I am going to try an experiment with own root fruit trees and publish the results on my web site later.
I found the following text on the web and I intend to simply follow the advice.
This project is based on the unpublished work of Hugh Ermen, formerly of Brogdale Horticultural Experimental Station and now retired and breeding new varieties of fruit trees.
Hugh discovered that there are several advantages in growing apples on their own roots [OR], i.e. not grafted onto a rootstock. Those advantages are:
· Better health - although not altering the basic susceptibility of the variety to disease
· Fruit development is typical of the variety, giving:-
· Best possible flavour
· Best storage life
· Typical fruit size for the variety
· Best overall fruit quality
- Best fruit set, given adequate pollination. Fruit from OR trees have more seeds, indicating increased fertility.
It is highly likely that the degree of self-fertility is increased.
The only disadvantage of OR trees is that most varieties are more vigorous than is usually wanted. This means that trees may make a lot of wood at the expense of fruit bud production, giving big trees that take a long time to come into crop. Conventionally grafting onto a dwarfing rootstock would control this vigour. With OR trees a number of traditional techniques are used to induce early cropping. Once cropping begins the tree’s energies are channeled into fruit production and growth slows down to a controllable level. The techniques, which are usually sufficient to bring about cropping, are:
· Withholding nitrogen [which stimulates growth] and withholding irrigation [except in serious drought]
· tying down 1 and 2 year old branches to the horizontal. This induces fruit bud formation.
· Summer pruning [induces fruit buds] and avoiding winter pruning [which stimulates re-growth]
Once cropping has begun a normal feeding and watering regime can begin. The average cropping OR tree can be maintained at a size very slightly larger than a tree on MM106 rootstock.
Unfortunately Hugh’s O.R. trees at Brogdale have now been destroyed for redevelopment of the site. The ORFT Project is busy propagating OR trees for planting in our trial grounds.. In a year or two we hope to have OR trees for sale when we have filled our immediate needs on site.
OR fruit trees may be just as ‘coppice-able’ as other trees, and may be useful where damage from gales, animals or vandals is likely. Without a graft union trees can be planted deeper, and multi-stem trees with a crotch below ground level will be harder to uproot.
‘Coppice-ability’ is also the basis of our "Coppice Orchard". This consists of OR trees planted in rows running north-south. When the canopy of the orchard closes, a north - south row will be coppiced and the land in the row used for light demanding crops, e.g. vegetables on a no-dig system, while the trees regrow. The trees either side of the glade will have higher light levels on their sides and produce more fruit buds. The next year another north - south row is cut but not the immediate neighbours as these will have the extra buds, so the next row for coppicing will be next-door-but-one. In other words this will be Alternate Row Coppicing. This process is repeated every year, creating a series of parallel , sheltered glades. Eventually the rows of trees forming the avenues between the glades will also be coppiced in turn, but by then the ‘glade’ trees will have regrown to form the avenues. As the trees re-grow there will be glades at all stages of regrowth until the cycle repeats itself, and niches for plants suited to full light, semi-shade or heavy shade, creating opportunities for different types of land use. The number of years before re-coppicing [and so the length of the coppicing cycle] is one of the many aspects of the project that we will only learn by doing it. The exact timing of coppicing can be adjusted to suit the type of produce that is wanted most.
Apart from apples, the main planting sites of the orchard also have OR pears and plums, hazelnuts, and nitrogen fixing trees and shrubs.
Instead of just producing fruit the coppice orchard can produce a wide range of crops – small wood, fruit, soft fruit, vegetables, possibly cereals, fungi and the more traditional bees and poultry.
Another possible yield might be heat from Jean Pain type ‘heat heaps’ using woodchips and other shredded orchard wastes. These heaps slowly compost and can yield heat over 15 months, so that a heap the size of a garage can give enough heat to provide hot water and heating for a small house over two winters. And when the heat stops you are left with a large pile of compost!
There is an old Chinese proverb that says ‘fertility follows in the footsteps of the farmer’ which is reworked as the permaculture principle ‘Fertility Follows Attention’. In the coppice orchard there is the potential for producing a great range of our needs in a single system, and productivity should benefit from our attention not being divided between vegetable plot, orchard, woodland, etc. The rotation of crops avoids disease build-ups, and if all residues are returned to the site there should be a build up of fertility. The plan is to include nitrogen fixing and soil conditioning plants, insectary plants to support useful insects, bird and bumble bee nest boxes, small ponds for amphibians and hedgehogs and generally to maximize the natural diversity, and yields, of the site.

[Wombat]

Interesting stuff Steve!

[Shirley]

that IS very interesting - we've got apple trees but they seem to be poorly and quite old so we might just plant some new ones too.

[Libby]

I started my pepper seeds off in the kitchen.

[kevin m.]

I sowed 'Shirley' and 'Ildi' Tomatoes yesterday,also some Petunias seeds which came free with this week's 'Garden News' magazine.
Today,I'm sowing Chillies and Peppers.
I found a packet of Mustard seeds that I'd forgotten I had,so I might try them on the kitchen windowsill,together with Rocket and Mizuna greens,for an indoor 'cut and come again' salad crop.
Prepared some ground for Shallots yesterday-so will hopefully get them planted out before the week is out,now that the weather seems to be improving(too wet today though).

[Shirley]

I sowed 'Shirley' and 'Ildi' Tomatoes yesterday,also some Petunias seeds which came free with this week's 'Garden News' magazine.

Ooh I've been sown!!

[Tigerhair]

Ow does it feel babes?

[Shirley]

well - let's just say that the earth moved.

[Wombat]

Now I'm worried..................

[nick]

have been planting lettuce, broccoli (jennings and green sprouting) more corn, pumpkin (golden nugget - from earlier sowings, one plant has got more kgs than from butternut and qld blue - some old seeds that i bought a couple of years ago thinking they would be nice to grow so out of half a packet one germinated) mini cabbage, cauliflower, parsley, leeks, rogue de marmande tomatoes (give a try to see if I can grow tomatoes up to the first frost) zucchini (golden and black) carrots, beans and an avocado seed that was trying to grow.

[Libby]

My chilli peppers have sprouted(well 4 of them)
Its only been a few days. Panic now as I haven,t got a greenhouse yet


I know I,ve still got a bit of time, but will they grow ok outdoors if I don,t get one in time?