Our vegetable garden journey has been an eventful one, but it’s done and now it’s about the real business at hand: planting, growing and harvesting our veg.
It’s difficult not to talk about the incompetence and unprofessionalism of Marshalls when it comes to our veg patch. They caused me plenty of angst and worry. At one point I felt like all the effort I’d put into building the veg patch would result in no vegetables being planted and harvested this summer.
Thankfully, I was able to seed early on, and with the lockdown lifted our local garden centre came through for us. So our veg patch is now at around 85% capacity.
Marshalls have still not delivered about half of what they should have, and I’ve cancelled our order because as part of their our communication they said we’d get our remaining veg plugs by the end June – three months after placing our order.
After cancelling the order, three red alert tomatoes arrived, which is yet another example of their ineptitude. One was snapped in half, one was extremely small and on its last legs (it probably won’t make it), and one was acceptable. These plants cost us £10, and they refuse to refund us.
I planted eight superior and healthy tomato plants from our garden centre for the same amount of money last week.
But let’s move past Marshalls because they’re not worth dwelling and focusing on. In the video below, we look at what’s been planted in our raised beds and what we’re already harvesting. Growing and harvesting your own veg is exciting.
What are we growing and harvesting this year?
Since we’ve generally glossed over the types of veg we’re growing in the video, these are the exact varieties.
Tomatoes
- Moneymaker
- Gardener’s Delight
- Beef steak
- Shirley
- Grafted Sungold
- Sungold
- Ailsa Craig
- Red Alert
From DT Brown seeds
- Organic radish – Sparkler
- Rocket – Speedy
- Spinach – Trumpet F1
- Pak Choi – Yuushou F1
- Leek – Lancaster F1
- Organic carrot – Autumn King 2
- Organic lettuce
- Kale – smoothie mix
From Marshalls – veg plugs
- Tomato – Red Alert
- Runner bean – Red Rum
- Maris Piper seed potatoes
- Leek Jolant
- Cucumber – mini petita
- Brussel sprouts – Brigitte
- Oriental salad mix (Pak Choi Cantaong, Chinese Broccoli Kailaan, Chinese kale, Pak Choi Yukai Sa, Tat Soi Tatsai, Choy Sum Tsai Tai)
From our garden centre
- Cucamelons
- Courgette – yellow
- Pumpkin – Racer
- Spinach – renegade
- Black kale
- Burpless cucumber
- Marrow bush
Oh that’s so frustrating. Especially when every day of this good weather for planting counts . I’m glad that you’ve got a local garden centre that’s been able to step in, and I guess it’s all part of the learning curve for next season. It’s so annoying though when a company fails to deliver to its promise ????
We’re relieved that the garden centre had a relatively decent selection.
First and last time we’ll ever buy from Marshalls.
As you said, a lot lessons have been learnt. Next year, I won’t be relying on plugs. We’ve purchased a lot of seeds, and we will do that instead. More work, but we will be in control.
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