What We Are Growing This Year. Part 2: Greenhouse & Salad Vegetables
From the veg patch last year we enjoyed a plentiful harvest with more than enough to share with family and friends. The kids even set up a small business selling fresh produce to our builders and had a stall a few times outside their grandparents house. They would like to have a stall more regularly but we have such little footfall down our lane it isn’t worth it for them. In our local town there is a weekly farmers market and we would love to try having a seasonal stall one day selling a mix of fresh and preserved foods.
Having been though a first growing season we have learnt what we grew too much of and what we would definitely plant more of this year. This has helped us plan our space along with rotating the crops we can. The greenhouse is such a wonderful space and is home to most of our salad crops. The grapevine also loves its spot in the back corner.
Salad Vegetables
Tomatoes
Last year’s tomatoes were fabulous and we enjoyed the mix of varieties. We had plenty for eating fresh and cooking during the summer but not enough to preserve or make sauces to store. This was from 11 plants. This year we have planted 2 more in the greenhouse so 13 in total and have another 8 outside. Hopefully that will be enough.
We have:
Gardeners Delight - Small to medium traditional tomato.
Costoluto Fiorentino - Large ribbed Italian beefsteak.
Amish Paste - Large plum tomato with fewer seeds so ideal for cooking.
Jen’s Tangerine - Bright orange large cherry tomato.
Chadwick Cherry - Mid sized bright red cherry tomato.
Cucumbers
Cucumbers are a firm favourite in our house. We grew 6 plants last year and they all did well until succumbing to blackfly half way through the season. A real shame. This year we have planted 8 plants and will try to keep on top of pest control.
We have:
Tamra Slicing Cucumber
Gergana
We have also been given a couple of outdoor ridge cucumbers which I am keen to try although I have muddled the pots up with my courgettes so who knows where they may end up!
Peppers and Chilli’s
Unfortunately our carefully chosen peppers and chillis failed to germinate either in the house to greenhouse so we have bought some established plants from our local nursery that is still delivering. A classic red pepper, not sure of the variety and a mix of chillis. Also poor germination from the aubergines but luckily a lady does the lane had three spare plants. Again, variety unknown.
Lettuce/Salad leaves
We have been growing a mixture of lettuces form Real Seeds called Mortons Mix. They seem to be a good variety of red and green types. We start them off in soil blocks then plant out in the greenhouse once big enough aiming to pick the outer leaves as we need them. We also have a couple of rows of rocket and have thrown in some cut and come again mixed leaves my parents had spare. Looking forward to watching these beds fill our over the coming weeks.