Gardening behind the scenes

I seem to have gone quiet on my blog, but I am doing a lot of gardening thinking.

First of all, I have progressed with my study, putting together a good summary of stems after the one on roots I posted before.

Then, over the weekend, I almost read three books: one on self-sufficiency & organic gardening, one about grapes (which I have to start managing, if they survive the snow that is), and one on companion planting.

I made an updated drawing of the planting scheme & rotation on my plot and have decided to give myself SMART (Specific Measurable Achievable Realistic Timed) objectives for this year's gardening. So far, I have just experimented and got whatever came. It's now time for me to make a step forward and see if I can achieve according to plan.

The only objective I have come up with so far is being self-sufficient on chilli (and garlic).

Garlic-wise, what I have done is planting double what I planted the years before. But that was before I decided on establishing objectives. I could actually plant some spring garlic. I'll have to have a think about it, as space is scarce already. The council measured my plot and came back with a vague answer, of the kind 'size varies every year, we cannot keep measuring all the plots all the time'. Except they did measure mine and never told me how big it is. Not 10 poles for sure.

The trick will be growing the chillies, as I never made it beyond flower - well, I got some chillies from the garden centre's grown-up plants, so once the plant is established it is not too difficult. It's getting the plants established that I have to work on, so I am alreading trying to figure out where and how to grow them. I have seen them grown in polytunnels at Riverford and at my neighbour's, so I guess I will have to build some such structure.

-- Post From My iPhone