Hi Tiny Gardener here…
It has definitely been feeling a little bit more like spring here in Cornwall these past couple of weeks. Whilst the weather has been dry, I’ve been doing a bit of preparation for receiving my spring plants.
Over the last couple of weeks, I pulled up the last remaining turnip plants and the overgrown corn salad plants which had gone a bit crazy. I left one of the cloche tunnel doors open to air out the soil but unfortunately my sneaky cat found her way in and left a most unwanted present! I quickly disposed of the evidence and have since taken further action to protect the plot until my plants arrive. I have closed the tunnel doors for now and secured them with some heavy stones. After removing a blueberry plant from the other smaller bed, I placed some cardboard over the soil to keep the weeds (and sneaky cat) at bay!
Below is a picture of her. Cute as she is, I will be exploring some more ways to keep pets, particularly cats, out of my plot over the next few weeks. I’ll keep you posted on what I find.
A nudge from Rocket Gardens made me realise that the potatoes I had been chitting on my conservatory windowsill for the past few weeks needed to be planted. They had developed some good sized green shoots and were ready for the next stage. I found myself a couple of large pots and got the little beauties planted.
Since my plot is rather tiny, I wanted to keep my planters free for the veg plants that’ll be arriving soon. I chose two large containers for the job of growing my potatoes and made sure they had some good drainage holes at the bottom. I filled the pots half full with compost and placed 4 in the larger pot and 2 in the slightly smaller one and covered them with another layer of compost (about 10cm more) and gave them a good drink of water.
FYI, I’m growing Jazzy variety of potatoes as they are a small salad potato, which I thought would be good for growing in containers. I had a few more seed potatoes than I needed and I’m passing the extras on to a friend for her vegetable plot. It will be fun to see how they get on in their different homes.
Now I just need to wait for the foliage to start peeping through and then I will earth up (adding extra layers of compost to cover the shoots) until the compost reaches the top of the pot.
I’ve never grown potatoes before so I am excited to harvest them in the summer. I will keep you updated with how they are getting on.