Flowers

It was a beautifully sunny weekend so we spent some time adding a splash of colour around the garden.
While Megan inspected the daffodils that were proudly declaring that spring had arrived, Mrs Matt and Emily visited the local garden centre. They soon returned home with various plants. Megan was very keen to help out but quickly decided that she knew all about planting flowers and went off to do her own.Give them a few days to get settled and hopefully we'll have some lovely spots of colour around the gardens.

Movement at last

I'm pleased (and relieved) to say that over the past few days there has been a bit of progress in the seedling department of Matt's Patch.
One of the three courgettes has decided to come out and play. This is the first time I've grown courgettes so I'm very surprised by the size of the little fellow. Two great big leaves that seemed to appear from nowhere. I know the seeds are bigger than other things like pepper and tomato but the size of these leaves is ridiculous! They were instantly big!

A couple of the broad beans have also popped their heads up along with a solitary tomato plant. No news as yet from the peppers or the cucumbers. I'm readying the search party.

The salad leaves are doing well (mixed lettuce, land cress and spinach). I've sown a second crop of lettuce seeds so that there will be a constant supply for the slugs. Wouldn't want them going hungry!

A friend of ours has kindly given us some strawberry plants from their garden so now we have nine plants in total. The new ones are not as far on as the shop-bought ones but they're all doing well and I can almost see a strawberry jam production line being set up ...

Emily's sweetcorn (Incredible F1) have also been planted. To help get them started I soaked them in tepid water for about 20 mins prior to planting. The last time we grew sweetcorn they were simply rubbed with butter, covered in foil and put on the barbecue within a few minutes of being picked and tasted beautiful!

Since moving my potatoes to the sun room in the house they are doing much better with the additional light. I still have to get their containers sorted.

Strawberry Fields

In our last house Emily had a very successful strawberry patch and we want to grow a new one in Matt's Patch. So over the weekend when we were in the local garden centre we bought three young strawberry plants. I never know which ones to get, but this problem was solved by the fact that they really only had one variety - Cambridge Favourite. I've since looked it up and it seems that this variety is popular with the 'pick your own' growers as they are flavoursome and hold up well on the plants. We shall see.

There are already raspberry canes in the garden and we had some nice fruit off them when we first moved in. I'm toying with the idea of putting the strawberry plants in the same area, to create a fruit corner, but I don't think there'll be enough sun as it's surrounded by some bushes that I moved that were blocking off the whole corner.

At the moment the strawbs are still in their pots in the greenhouse. I'm treating them like a new pet, where you have to let them get used to their new home before you let them out.

Potatoes
A few days ago I have moved my seed potatoes into the sun room at the back of the house as I was worried that they were not getting enough light in the garage to do their chitting. They seem to be doing better now but that could be my imagination. I'll just have to make sure that two-year-old Megan does not discover them!

Seeds
I'm starting to get anxious about the seeds I've planted. So far only the lettuce and land cress have decided to have any inclination of joining Matt's Patch. The seeds have been in for about two and a half weeks now and not a sign. I think I need to be more patient.
Emily also wants to grow some sweetcorn so I bought some yesterday and we'll hopefully get them in pots tonight.

Chit Chat

Potatoes. Spuds. Taters. Tatties.
Boiled, mashed, fried, chipped, roasted, baked. Is there a more versatile vegetable than the humble potato?

So in honour of the potato I have decided to try growing a few of my own as a bit of a challenge. However, as I don't know the first thing about growing spuds, this could prove interesting.

A bit of research on the internet says that apart from growing in drills in the soil, they can be grown in all sorts of containers, from dustbins to plant pots to stacks of tyres.

So with my brain overloaded with 'tater data' imagine my joy when I happened to spot a seed stall in Coventry market. Outside they had about 30 different varieties of seed potato. I tried making a mental note of some of the names and then it was back on Google to do some more research. I never knew that Golden Wonder was actually a type of potato! The Potato Council website has some good info. I know! A potato council! I hope there's no such thing at the potato police.

So armed with some more info I went and bought some seed potatoes from the market. I didn't go overboard although it would have been so easy! I spent a bank-breaking £1.70 and bought 3 or 4 of each of the following varieties:

• Red Duke of York (First Early)
• Charlotte (Salad)
• King Edward (Main)
• Desiree (Main)

Hopefully the main season ones will produces a nice crop for jackets. Mrs. Matt does like her jackets (and shoes and handbags but I haven't found a way of growing them yet!).

At the moment all my potatoes are in their own egg boxes next to the window in the garage so that they can get their sprouts going. This process is called 'chitting' to those in the know. The aim is to get nice strong dark coloured shoots, rather than thin spindly white shoots.


So while my potatoes are getting their sprouts out I'm going to have to think about where I can plant them when they're ready to go which should be in a few weeks.

The Greenhouse Effect

The people we bought our house from were kind enough to leave their greenhouse complete with aluminium racks and even an old wireless thermometer which looked like it hadn't worked in ages. After fitting new batteries to the thermometer it burst into life. There should be another part to it so that the greenhouse temperature can be monitored from the comfort of the house. We've never found this part - maybe it died some time ago. Anyway the main bit is working and the other day it reported that it was 25°C. Toasty!

Over the winter the only thing in the greenhouse was a couple of bales of hay for the guinea pig. Obviously that had to change so just over a week ago (Sunday 22nd Feb) Megan and I set about planting our vegetable seeds. So far we have planted some of the following:

• Courgettes (Astia F1)
  
• Broad beans - Dwarf type (The Sutton)
  
• Tomatoes (Shirley F1)
  
• Salads made up of lettuce, land cress (which is like water cress only ... on land) and spinach
  
• Bell Peppers of various types although they were all in one packet. Hmmm.

The first to show their faces were some of the lettuce plants. Well done, we have a winner!

With the salad plants I'm going to (hopefully) plant some every 3-4 weeks so that there is a nice steady supply. Once large enough they will go outside in a planter. Probably to be eaten by slugs. I think the pecking order will be slugs, us, then Patch the guinea pig.

This last weekend I planted some cucumber (Telegraph) seeds - all five of them! According to the packet, if trained properly they could reach 50cm! Which just begs the question how exactly do you train a cucumber?

I still have French Beans to plant but according to the packet it's still too early - even in a greenhouse. What do they know - I may just put some in pots just to see ...

Welcome!

Welcome to Matt's Patch. The aim of this blog is to be a kind of diary of all the activities that we go through making our garden into a place to be enjoyed by all the family. Hopefully it will also be somewhere I can make a note of the things we learn along the way.

We moved in to our house in the Midlands in September 2008 and over the winter we have not had much chance to do a lot in the garden. However, now that the snow from a month ago is just a memory and the weather is beginning to warm up slightly, things are on the move. The sap is definitely rising!

We have a lot to do and it will take a good while to do it. There are lawns on all sides of the house, and several beds and some large trees on the boundaries. Oh, and a greenhouse that I think is great but Mrs. Matt is not too keen on.

So this blog will document all that happens in "Matt's Patch" from cutting down trees, turfing lawn and growing vegetables.