The work that went into clearing and and rejuvenating my vegetable troughs seems to be paying off. All but one of my troughs are doing great.
Here are my broad beans. I plan to plant another row down the centre, so when these have finished, there will be a second crop.
At the back, courgette plants. This trough was originally planted entirely with courgette seed. All of the plants came through, so I re-potted half the plants for my neighbours. In front, broccoli plants, only recently planted, but doing well.
At the back, almost out of sight, are my salad leaves – a mixture of lettuces. In the middle are the “good” brussels sprout plants. These was the second planting from the same batch of plant plugs, they are doing so much better than the first plugs I planted. The three plants at the front are more broccoli plants.
Here is a better view of the salad leaves.
And these are the other brussels sprout plants, the first I planted; which almost died, then recovered. Compare them with the massive plants in the earlier picture.
About the brussels. I bought a pack of (I think) 21 plugs. I planted that last trough with 13 plugs, and was going to give the others away. But the person who begged me for them, then decided that Peterborough to Market Deeping was too far to drive for “just some plants” (12 minutes in the car). So I ended up planting them. Meanwhile the first crop appeared to have died off, but the second crop exploded in growth. Both troughs are filled with the same mix of clay, soil and compost. The only difference I can think of is I wrapped the second lot in moist kitchen towel, while waiting for them to be collected. So perhaps the first crop were simply too dry when I planted them, despite my watering. They are so far behind that second planting, I am wondering whether to cut my losses, dig them up and plant something else here.
Anyway, all in all, I don’t think it is a bad showing. Later, I will take some pictures of my tomatoes and fruit plants.
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