My Rocket Garden arrived this morning so it was a very exciting day for me. I’ve recently taken over a patch of land approximately the size of two tennis courts and after a couple of months of clearing and digging (it was well over head-high in brambles, nettles, knotweed and all sorts!), I’ve managed to get a few raised beds in place and have been eagerly waiting to plant some veg.
Ready for planting (apart from needing to add compost and build wigwams and so on!)
It’s nearly the end of May, and if I’m honest, I was getting a little bit anxious that my veg patch wouldn’t be planted in time, but now that the plants have arrived and I’ve got them in the ground I can see I had nothing to worry about – in fact, I’ll probably order some more beans, sweetcorn and so on so that I can do another planting session towards the middle/end of June. I think that will be fine as we’ve got the whole summer ahead of us still.
When my plants arrived I followed the instructions, carefully unpacking them all and laying them out. I was soon surrounded by groups of beans, peas, broccoli, lettuce etc and I felt a little overwhelmed at how many plants I had to put in the ground. I think I have in the region of 100 plants.
Giving my new plants a good soaking – they were thirsty!
I checked in with the Rocket Garden team and they advised me to give all the plants a drink and pop them into a grow bag while I was busy faffing (my choice of words, not theirs!) So I did exactly that, I filled a wheelbarrow with a couple of inches of water and stood the plants up in it for a few minutes before loosely planting them in a bag of compost that I had in the greenhouse. And then I set about fencing off the chicken run from the veg patch, digging in some extra compost, building my bean & pea supports and planning which veg would go in which bed.
The planting process is underway!
When I was finally ready, it was a fairly easy process. One at a time, I dug a hole for the plant to go into, popped in a small handful of worm cast (as per Rocket Gardens advice), gently put the plant in, covered with soil and watered it in. Initially I followed the guide to know how far apart to plant each plant, but I soon decided that I’d just go by eye, and gave everything about 30-40cm and hope for the best!
My veg patch is now looking really rather splendid I think! Let’s hope they all stay alive, at least until the next Diary of a Rocket Gardener blog post!
Lesson of the day: Get organised beforehand!! This would be my first bit of advice to any budding Rocket Gardeners out there….learn from my mistake and get your veg patch sorted and ready before your plants arrive, otherwise you’ll be chasing your tail a bit.