Baby sweetcorn

Although we love sweetcorn - well, all of us apart from Mrs Matt - the girls wanted to grow baby corn too.
So in addition to the few seeds of sweetcorn I had left over from last year I bought some baby corn.

Baby sweetcorn

They've pretty much all come up and are growing fast. Won't belong before they'll need putting in the allotment (more on that in a subsequent post).

Here's a quick look at what's growing in the greenhouse at the moment. Sweetcorn, various brocolli, herbs and far too many courgettes at the back!

Green greenhouse

Beans are out

Over the last week our Broad Beans have been planted out by the raspberries with the fence as support. These were a special request from Mrs Matt as she likes them with gammon and parsley sauce. The rest of us prefer the squeaky French beans which have just been planted. Six broad beans germinated but Emily and I planted the strongest five. This gave us the opportunity to have a good look at the rejected plant and how a broad bean grows. As always it's very impressive to see how Mother Nature works (click on the picture for a detailed close-up).Emily's sweetcorn have also gone out in a little block. As they are wind pollinated it is best to plant them in a block rather than a line.
A few slug pellets sprinkled around them and the broad beans should give them a fighting chance while they get established in their new homes.

The raspberries are doing well with new canes growing strongly. They seem to get visibly bigger every day. and new shoots seem to come up all over the place. They may need controlling later but we'll let them do what they want for the time being.

The strawberries have reacted very well to their new home with all but one of them producing flowers. With a bit of luck (and fertiliser) they, along with the raspberries, might - just might - provide enough fruit for the two little girls who seem to devour them for fun these days.

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.