Episode 337. How I grow elephant garlic - a podcast by Richard

Join me in today's podcast, where I am discussing how to grow elephant garlic. I also share the latest from the plots.



Episode 337 transcriptHello and welcoem to episode 337 of the veg grower podcast. My names Richard and I am on a mission to grow as much food as I possibly can in my allotment and modern victory garden.



Today is the 22nd June 2020 and today I will be talking about where we are heading here at the veg grower podacst hq a bit of a update if you like. But first we have the diary pieces from over the weekend.Music fades



Its Saturday the 20th June 2020 today. And today I have a been sowing some more peas. Peas are bit illusive for me I can grow them but I always have problems with them. This year the peas I have grown at home Where growing great but I grew them under protection of some wire mesh. Well when the peas couldn’t grow past this wire mesh I adjusted the protection and then the chickens where able to get to the pea plants. Of course that meant that the chickens would eat at the plants and therefore I get no peas.So I am sowing more peas to try and make sure I get some this time around and beat the chickens by putting up some proper protection. These peas I am sowing in a length of guttering like I have done before and the variety of peas is called petit de provence which can be sown in July too.



Other then that the wife and I had had another tidy up and sweep around the garden pruning many of our bushes and the ivy as we went along and I have also potted up some of my cabbage and swede seedlings that where sown a couple of weeks ago. So I rather busy productive day.Birds tweet.



Its Sunday the 21st June 2020 overnight I have some bad news to share. You may remember that last week we hatched some more but one seemed to be struggling to hatch until I stepped in. Well unfortunately that quail didn’t make it and it passed on over night. I tried my best with it unfortunately I don’t thing it was strong enough to make it. So sorry to share that sad news.Today I have been pricking out a lot more of my seedlings. My beet leaf, my rocket and my basil again like yesterday these where sown a couple of weeks ago and have been growing well but its time to get them into root trainers so that I can plant them out in the garden in a couple of weeks time. Now I find that pricking out a very time consuming and a little tedious job however on a nice day like today while listening to some podcasts the time does pass by and more importantly it gets the job done.



To prick out my seedling I use a dibber and gently remove each plant and pot them into individual root trainers to grow on. Pretty soon these will go into the ground. I am ofton asked why do I sow seeds in pots instead of in the ground and its a good question but the main reason I sow my seeds in pots is so that I can help the young seedling grow on without battling against weeds which can inhibit the growth of my plants or disturb them. THtas my logic anyway of course I am not saying I do it right but its what I do and it works for me although it probab;y does make more work.Well that what I ahve been up to today.



Birds tweetWell today is Monday the 22nd June 2020 Ive been on the allotment today and Ive noticed the allotment is very quite compared to how it has been in the past few weeks. I am guessing more and more are returning to work or they are avoiding the heat and going early morning and late afternoon.



Anyway today I built myself a second compost bin. At the beginning of lockdown you may remember I built a compost bin out of some old pallet wood. Theres a video on youtube if you are interested which I’ll link too in the blog post.Well today I build a second one in the same way but just a bit bigger. My first one is full up and Ive even planted squash plants in it so I needed another bin which I had planned to do anyway.This is usung up my collection of pallet wood which was originally usued in my be...

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