End of year round up

Well that was 2017!

A very strange year all round what with Trump and Brexit and the Weinstein fall-out, as well as all the problems out in the far east.

In the garden our efforts were much hampered by needing to spend a lot of time with an elderly neighbour, general care and keeping her company and also a lot of legal stuff. So the garden is a real mess - but will come up looking great in the spring as it always does.

The end of the year has been cold and wet. We had some serious snow and then rain, freezing and further snow. Today the soil is still frozen, so there's not much to be done. Yesterday while the sun was shining briefly I cleared out the spent tomatoes from the greenhouse. I was harvesting ripe tomatoes right up to the end of November.

Generally the year was fairly good for vegetables and absolutely crazy for fruit.

Potatoes

The early warm weather meant that the potatoes grew pretty well and harvested before any blight attack, and unlike last year they didn't drown. I just planted two varieties this year - Desiree reds and white Sante. The Desirees were really good with some nice big ones good for baking, the Santes a bit small but OK. There were very few worm holes or other kind of pest problem. The Desirees have kept well too.

Beans

All the beans were all pretty good - French climbing, runner beans and broad beans. This year I planted "Fasold" French beans and they were great. I won't bother with the Blue Lake again.

Beetroot

The first sowing was really good. I sow the seeds in modules and then plant them out in the veg patch. They all grew well, I think because of the warm weather. Most of the second batch are still out there, didn't grow so quickly, but will provide a few serving during January I should think.

Chard

I bought the wrong packet of seeds - Rhubarb Chard instead of Rainbow Chard - but still pretty tasty and continuing to produce dark green leaves on their red stems to replace those harvested.  They've taken a battering during the snow but are starting to shoot again already for meals during the winter.

Brussels Sprouts

Well, they started out fine, all seedlings surviving. I erected a netting cage to keep off the butterflies and pigeons and pheasants. But they really haven't done too well. They haven't grown very tall and the sprouts are the size of peas. However, we've had a few meals of sprout tops and they were very tasty. Hasn't helped that the strong winds during the autumn and the snow just before Christmas collapsed the cage!

Soft fruit

All the currants did well. We netted the redcurrants and one row of the blackcurrants and got a good crop off both. The gooseberries were good, especially the new bush which I took as a cutting a few years ago - it's really got into it's stride now. The jostaberries also produced - but I don't really think they are worthwhile. They don't have the flavour of blackcurrants.

The raspberries did very well at the beginning of the year, the fruit produced on last year's canes. This year's canes weren't so good, probably because it was cooler and much wetter by the time the fruit formed.

My strawberry plants have increased and we had some lovely fruit (Elsante). I took more cuttings.

Rhubarb

We completed the clearing of the first rhubarb bed and transplanted about 9 plants. We treated them with some care to let them get established, but still managed a few pies and crumbles and some rhubarb and redcurrant jam.

Apples

Amazing! More apples than we could eat, cook up, freeze or give away. Especially amazing because last year was a good apple year and some varieties like Bramleys tend to be one-year-on one-year-off. We have put some in store but some varieties don't keep.

Pears

The pears produced a good crop for the first time in years. They've been devastated by some fungal / bacterium thing which makes the little fruit turn black and drop off. For about 3 years I've been spraying the trees with a "winter wash" which is supposed to kill off such diseases and also eggs of moths and such which would turn into worms in the fruit. Maybe this has had some effect, or maybe just the weather - who knows?  - but I'll be out there spraying again during January and again before the blossom forms.

Plums

Mixed.  We have 4 plum trees of different varieties and a damson. One plum tree which we had given up for dead two years ago produced some lovely fruit, as did the purple plum which makes excellent jam. But the big plum tree (produces BIG PLUMS) was not so good, despite there being very few wasps this year. The wasps usually get to these luscious fruits before we do. The damsons were productive as usual, and we are enjoying damson vodka and vodka-soaked damson chocolates!

Cherries

We have a large, wild cherry tree which the birds love. We once managed to pick enough to make jam, but we don't usually bother and leave them to our feathered friends. The morello cherry produced about 12 cherries which were carefully observed and eaten by the birds when they were just ripe (before we got up in the morning). The Stella cherry is still getting going with only a few, quite tasty, fruits.

Well that was 2017 - so now it's time to start planning 2018!

That was 2016

Christmas is over, the turkey carcass in the pot for stew and a new year starts tomorrow.
The last week has been cold and frosty with blue skies and sunshine during the day and clear, starry skies at night. At last a bit of proper winter weather. Until now it's been just grey, wet and very warm for December. We had a couple of days of frost which is supposed to be good for brussel sprouts and raspberries. It does clear off some pests and bugs too.

In general this year has been warm with some periods of really heavy rain and then some - shorter - periods of sunshine. 2016 is supposed to be the warmest year on record for the whole world, so global warming maybe starting to kick in. Definiely been some crazy weather which is what the scientists predict.

Round up of the year in our garden:

 

Vegetables

The big success this year was Brussel Sprouts. We've carefully nurtured them, with a big cage with fine mesh to keep out the butterflies and the pigeons and pheasants. Very little problem with slugs despite the wet weather. We had a good feed off the sprout tops and pleanty for Christmas dinner. They should keep us in green veg for another few weeks.
Chard was good and is still giving a few leaves, but the second sowing just didn't take.
Runner Beans and Broad Beans did well, but the French Beans were a complete disaster.
Onions and Leeks also did fairly well and better than expected as this was our first try after a break of a few years because of the Allium Leaf Miner. I just did a few Leeks and the ones we picked early were great, but those we left in to grow bigger got the dreaded bugs again.
The Sweetcorn experiment was a flop. We had a couple of rather misshapen cobs with just half of the kernels swelled up. Tastysnack but not a meal.
Marrows, Courgettes and Squashes were excellent, especially the Butternut Squashes. They were very late getting going, with slugs giving them a hard time for a while, but eventually produced lots of medium-sized fruit with good flavour.
This year I just did Tomatoes (Alicante) in the greenhouse, unlike previous years when we have also grown beef tomatoes in the small conservatory. 9 plants produced a massive harvest. We still have a handful of small tomatoes in the fridge and a good batch of tomato chutney.
Potatoes: Not a good year. It started with drowning spuds and didn't improve much. Spuds were of modest size and some had holes in the middle, rendering them pretty useless. The best potatoes have ben from the big pots. Got 3 pots in the greenhouse at the moment and one is just beginning to sprout.

Fruit

The soft fruits - currants, raspberries and loganberries were very productive. The only thing we do to them is a bit of basic pruning and put a bit of compost around the roots each year, so they are gold-dust really.  We did put nets over the currants because the blackbirds and pigeons can strip the redcurrants and iin the last couple of years have been moving on to the blackcurrants.

The Cooking Apples, especially the Bramley, have been amazing and the red eater. We have apples stored in trays in the conservatory (not heated) and boxes of cooked apples in the freezer. This is the first year we have just left fallen apples on the grass to rot - or be eaten by birds, squirrels or mice. But the Russet and the small eating apple didn't do so well.

The Damson produced bucket-loads. Plenty for jam, mostly damson & apple, pies and damson vodka which is lovely and makes great Christmas presents in small 125ml bottles.

The small plum tree (similar but not quite the same as a Victoria) was good, but we had nothing from the the purple plum and the big plum despite lots of blossom.

Flowers & trees

The warm, wet weather meant shrubs and trees grew like crazy so lots to trim back in the autumn and massive quantity of leaves to sweep up and compost.

Wildlife

Each spring I have a bit of a panic about the bees and this year they seemed to start a bit slowly. We had a warm month and then it went cold again. But eventually plenty of bees came into the garden to forage. Obviously its difficult to assess absolutely but I have the impression that honey bees (from hives) were in short number, but bumble bees of various sorts were doing OK. The press report wasps having a bad year. I think there were fewer, especially in the autumn, but I managed to get stung stepping on a wasps nest on the rockery and there was a sizeable nest by the rhubarb.

A lot fewer butterflies than usual.  Spotted a caterpillar of the elephant hawk-moth which apparantly like fuschias.

There was a little frogspawn in the spring although I didn't hear any croaking males. During the summer we saw several small frogs and large toads around the garden and a couple of newts. A friend asked me to write a report on the changes to frogs and toads in the 10 years we've been here, so I did this blog post in October >>

Hot harvest

Crazy hot, sunny weather!

Last Monday the temperature was 14C and raining; today 30C and not a clound in the sky.  The soft fruit bushes are producing big-time - redcurrants, raspberries, tayberries, loganberries with blackcurrants nearly ready. The gooseberries are not doing so well. The new bush is fine but the old ones under the plum trees are rather sorry. I think I should take some cuttings to get new bushes to take over in a year or two. The two jostaberries have produced a significant crop for the first time. They are like big blackcurrants but sweeter. very nice with cereal and yoghurt for breakfast!

At the weekend I lifted a couple of rows of Orla potatoes. Very nice indeed! Generally a good size (for early spuds) and just a few with worm-holes. The middle bed potatoes still look like they are swimming with standing water at the top of the bed. This heat should dry things up a bit I guess. I planted out 20 beetroot seedlings where the Orlas were and set up another batch of seeds in modules (you can never have enough beetroot!).

Broad beans are doing well. We've had several meals and I have a box in the freezer. They freeze really well and are easy to do - just shell them and pop in a plastic ice-cream box. Looking forward to some runner beans by the weekend.

With all the harvesting comes processing. As well as big pies and crumbles and raspberry trifles we've made some gorgeous redcurrant jelly. Most of the rest of the redcurrants and raspberries are in the freezer, ready for jams, jellies, whatever during the winter.

That was May!

It's JUNE! - not flaming June as today has dawned cold and wet. Whatever happened to May?

Well, we actually had some lovely spring - even summery - weather during May, which meant we could get out and DO STUFF in the garden. Quite a lot of digging over of vegetable plots that were neglected after  last year's crops were harvested, clearing some horrible ground-elder that is marching above and under ground from the neighbouring field, tending various seedlings sown in the greenhouse, re-potting 40 brussel sprouts and 60 Ailsa Craig onions from the seed tray into little pots......as well as cutting the grass (which with the wet and warm weather is growing like crazy), trimming bushes, hedges and so on. It's been really busy - hence a dearth of blogs.

Last weekend was a bank holiday and we had son Paul staying. We were all out in the garden for 4 full days and achieved miracles.

Planted out the rest of the squashes (6 Sprinters - kind of butternut). Already have 7 marrows, 5 Winter-fest squashes, 2 Turks Turban squashes growing outdoors.

Put out the French beans with their bamboo wigwams (Paul says they're teepees, wigwams being something entirely different!). I've always planted Blue Lake, but the last few years only about 50% of beans have germinated, both saved and bought-in seeds, so I've tried a different variety - Cobra. They nearly all germinated and are looking pretty good out there.

A new venture - Sweetcorn. We sowed these in the conservatory for warmth and on Saturday planted 18 about 12" tall in the raised bed.  The bed is a bit close to the hedge and so worried about rabbits and of course pigeons and pheasants who are greedy and eat everything. So we used out some poles, connectors and netting to make a cage to keep them safe until they get bigger. Mind you, it's also right by the hazel tree which attracts squirrels in the autumn. We'll have to keep a look out for robbers!

We also slung netting over the redcurrants which last year got completely devastated by birds.

Last autumn we acquired 30m of hedging courtesy of a tree scheme from the council to patch up some of the hedge between our garden and the field. But with Mum going and then with such wet, wet weather over the winter we hadn't put them in. Mostly hawthorn and some hazels, they were all wrapped up in bundles by the wood shed and beginning to look a bit sorry.So Chas spent most of Bank Holiday Monday transplanting them into pots where hopefully they will recover and thrive until we can get them to their proper positions.

Here's the walnut trees now with leaves. Also showing the raised bed and cage
with the Sweetcorn and tops of the French bean wigwams.

Summer days

Not sure what happened to July and here we are at the end of August! At this time of year there's lots going on in the garden and we've had several friends visiting. They love to spend a few days in the country ("it's so quiet!") and enjoying our home-made food. So not much time for blogging.

The soft fruits - currants, loganberries and gooseberries and the first flush of raspberries have all gone - the birds took all the redcurrants before we could net them and quite a lot of the blackcurrants. The raspberries and loganberries were pretty good with enough to make raspberry jam and put some in the freezer. The second flowers, on this year's new raspberry canes, are just opening and are buzzing with bees. At least they were for the last few days. Today it's raining heavily and the forecasters warn there will be two weeks rain falling today.

The weather has been pretty mixed with some very hot spells interspersed with grey, drizzly and rainy days. There's been a few days of heavy downpours. But overall I have the impression that the season has been fairly dry. The green pipe has not been running and when digging potatoes the soil has been quite dry.

Potatoes have ben a bit of a disappointment. The Kestrels and the Pentland Javelins were very good quality, hardly any worm holes, but mostly small. Keen gardeners will refer to to my previous post about the poppies and nod knowingly about how I should have done more weeding.  But some "feral" Desirees left from last year and growing under the runner beans are enormous - also with no infestation or damage. I have yet to dig up the official Desiree patch. I did manage to weed that a bit and being a later variety they kept the leaf for longer than the whites. I'm hoping!

Marrows and squashes have done well. Struggling to keep up with picking the courgettes to avoid them turning into marrows. The larger courgettes become soup or souffle and the marrows into chutney and "poor man's ratatouille" which is a kind of stew with marrow, onions, tomatoes and loads of garlic and herbs. It's good to freeze and bring out in the winter with chops or sausages.

All this activity to a backdrop of gorgeous flowers, pretty butterflies and dragonflies and accompanied by birdsong and aerial displays of the swallows. Wonderland!

Hot garden round-up

Hottest days since 2006 apparently! The last two days have been unbearably hot - the garden thermometer showing 31 C. The tomatoes in the greenhouse have been wilting despite watering twice a day. African violets on the window-sills in the house have got scorched with the sun. I've been out with the hose in the evening to keep the vegetables and salads going and the fruit trees. The apple trees are loaded with small fruit and are at risk if they don't get enough water. I think the last serious rain was two weeks ago and the ground is pretty dry.

Despite the dry weather the broad beans are doing well. We usually have a couple of meals from the top shoots, but this year, after one meal of  bean tops last week, and my advice in my blog post, the black fly have got in there probably boosted by the hot sunshine. Nasty little things and not worth bothering to clean the shoots. Don't think I'd enjoy them wondering if I was going to bite into a bunch of crunchy aphids (although I always say you can't be an organic gardener and a vegetarian!). The blackflies suck the goodness from the plant, especially the small developing beans, so I've given them a good spray with dilute washing-up liquid. They certainly squirmed a bit so hopefully there will be less today.

The French beans have been eaten by something - rabbits, pheasants? but the Runner beans are doing well with plenty of bright red flowers. The lettuces and rainbow chard are still going strong.

The marrows and courgettes and squashes are all doing well now after a shaky start. One of the bought-in courgette plants is producing lots of yellow courgettes so looking forward to tasting them when they are big enough.

We've had to abandon the redcurrants this year - the pigeons have been eating them green. So we've netted one row of blackcurrants and the pigeons have moved on the the second row of blackcurrants. Yesterday 12 pigeons flew up as I walked up the path. The gooseberries are great. We had a gooseberry meringue pie at the weekend and looking forward to gooseberry fool / pie / ice-cream......

Table-top sale

I tried my hand at selling some of our produce. We have occasionally put out punnets of plums and apples by the front gate with an honesty box which brought in a few pounds - but more importantly got the fruit to good homes before they went rotten.

Our local volunteer group Coleorton & New Lount Volunteer Group had a fund-raising table-top sale event in the community hall just up the road so I thought I'd support them and see what I could sell.

I took along 36 jars of jam and marmalade in various size pots and a selection of herbaceous plants and herbs. Didn't make a fortune. Of course a lot of local people make jam and have fabulous gardens so weren't really interested in buying more. Had some interesting discussions about what variety of raspberries to grow and how to get jellies to set!

Reminds me of a story my old sales manager used to tell: Two shoe salesmen got off a plane in an undeveloped part of Africa. "Oh no!" said the first "No-one wears shoes here. I'll never meet my target on this patch!". "Oh great!" said the second "No-one has any shoes here. I'll be able to sell several pairs to everyone and collect my biggest bonus ever!".

It's the way you look at your market. Clearly my local market is knowledgeable about plants so would appreciate unusual specimens, and jams and preserves that are extra-special find favour. I sold a couple of jars of marmalade to a lady who says she likes to try other people's marmalades for ideas for her own, and jellies found favour for people who don't like pips!

Jams, jellies & marmalade on the table-top sale

Much-needed rain

After two rather dull but humid days at the weekend we had a violent thunderstorm yesterday evening and this morning it's pouring. Just the thing to fill up the water butts!

Having seen the weather forecast for Coleorton yesterday afternoon I spent a couple of hours harvesting raspberries, loganberries and tayberries which were ripening fast in the heat and would get ruined with the impending downpour.

Redcurrants

Juicy ripe redcurrants

Today I picked this year's first batch of redcurrants. I only had half an hour to spare and picked 4.5 lbs off just one bush.

The last two years we've had to put nets over the 6 redcurrant bushes to stop the blackbirds and pigeons raiding them. They would completely strip the currants and be so bold that they were stealing currants on the other side of the bush as we were harvesting.

This afternoon I was being scolded by a blackbird the whole time I was picking. There's a self-sown bush down by the pond which we leave uncovered for the birds, mostly frequented by blackbirds and robins.

Blackcurrant harvest

We have 12 blackcurrant bushes and the fruit is lovely and ripe now. My neighbour volunteered to help with the picking and she worked tirelessly in the sunshine for 3 hours yesterday afternoon. The haul from just 6 bushes was 12  pounds. I finished off the redcurrants and collected some raspberries from the various bushes. V went away with raspberries for tea and promise of redcurrant jelly and blackcurrant jam.
There's another 6 bushes to pick!
Blackcurrants are lovely - I love the smell of the leaves too - but a little goes a long way. I make jelly and puree and just freeze the currants for use during the winter months. The puree freezes well and is great poured over vanilla ice-cream or cereal and yoghurt for breakfast. Other blackcurrant recipes:

• Ice-cream - using the puree
• Crumble - best added to apple or pears to reduce the intensity of the flavour
• Summer pudding. I've only made this once or twice. You can use all kinds of summer berries and fruit. My Mum says her landlady (when she was a student teacher back in 1930s!) used to make it just with blackcurrants and served with Devonshire clotted cream. Mmm!
• Fruit pudding - sponge topping over a mix of red and black currants
• Blackcurrant muffins - use  currants in place of blueberries

Busy weekend with redcurrants and tree cutting

We had to take advantage of the few dry spells but managed to get a couple of big jobs done - netting the redcurrants and preparing space for the potted fruit trees.

Last year's Redcurrants - the ones' the birds didn't get!

I hate putting nets over the redcurrants because it does seem a bit mean that we don't share with  the blackbirds and pigeons - but the problem is that left alone the birds don't leave enough for us humans! The pigeons land on top of the bushes, attacking from the top and breaking the branches to get to the fruit. The blackbirds come from below and take the ripe fruit on the lower branches. They are pretty persistent and I have often been picking on on side of a bush and a blackbird on the other side. They get quite annoyed and make their scolding noise if you try and chase them away. Anyway this year we decided to put nets over the six redcurrant bushes. The nets are old and needed some repairs so we'll see how enterprising our feathered friends are in getting to the lovely berries.
The other big job we did - or at least got started with - was to clear space for the new fruit trees we bought last year and which are still in pots. We cut down a malus tree that has rather insignificant flowers for just a week in the spring. It's been trained rather badly into an umbrella shape with the result the grass below is dead. The other area for planting is where a couple of shrubs died in the deep freeze winter before last. We pulled out the stumps and dug over the ground pulling up loads of ground elder to burn.
Next job is to get rid of the tree trunk and dig in lots of compost. We'll use the trunk and larger branches for firewood and have a big bonfire with the rest (as soon as it stops raining!)