2021 - A Real Winter!

2020 ended with snow and 2021 has largely followed suit. If it isn't sowing or freezing it's been pouring with rain. The ground is saturated and the green pipe and waterfall have been flowing the fastest we've seen in nearly 15 years here. 

2020 was a year for records - wettest February, hottest summer. Apparently this is the coldest January for 10 years. 

These snowy photos taken on 25th January. 

View from our back door

    Across the veg gardens from the greenhouse

 

The nets over the Brussels sprouts nearly collapsed with the snow.

All very beautiful, but difficult to get much done. There were some warm spells when I spread compost over the empty beds and did a bit of tidying up.

Planted up some big pots with potatoes - 2 in the greenhouse, 3 in the annexe conservatory, but much too cold to sprout. The pointy cabbages in the greenhouse are coming on slowly and the luttuces are hanging on. The Brussels sprouts, when not covered by snow, are doing really well and we.ve had several meals with plenty more  coming on the second planting (nearest the front on the right under the snow!). Also had a few Chantenay carrots from the greenhouse.

What's growing now

It's the back end of November. The days are shorter and the light not so bright during the daytime. Last night was the first real frost of the year.

We've eaten all the potatoes we grew this year (there's four adults in the house to feed now), only a dozen or so tomatoes ripenng on the kitchen window sill, beans and the first sowing of pointy cabbages finished. So what's left:

In the garden:

• Lots of celery - great germination and planted out about 36 seedlings which have now become a forest. We eat quite a lot in salads and stews and just to munch. I've put some in the freezer for winter cooking.
• Brussels sprouts - doing brilliantly this year. We've already had several meals and will have some tonight. There are two groups, one planted out from their modules a little later so are further behind. So we should have plenty into the new year.
• A few kale plants - looking rather sad because the cabbage white caterpillars devasted them early on, but are now pushing out a few leaves which will go in stir-fries.
• A lovely patch of rainbow chard - provided many meals already and looks like they will continue through to the spring.
• Peas - an experimental late planting in the ground where some potatoes were lifted.  They are doing surprisingly well and producing some lovely, pest-free peas, though not more than a spoonful for each of us. Lots of flowers still. Next year I'll plant a whole lot more. They are frost-resistant.
• A broad-bean sprouted in the compost - so I thought I'd give it 11 more for company. I don't usually do autumn-sowing because they come up quickly and early in the spring anyway. But we'll see. Another way of using the space after the potatoes have been lifted.
• Rhubarb - is already sprouting, so covered with a good mulch of garden compost to protect from the frost and give them a boost.

In the greenhouse:

• 5 pointy cabbages in the soil where the tomatoes were earlier - 1 Dutchman and 4 "Tinty" red ones. These have been great outside all year and these late sowings into small pots seem to love their new home.
• Two little gem lettuces remaining from two troughs sown earlier. They have been doing well all summer (outside during the warm months) with successive sowings.
  
• Two troughs of mixed lettuce seedlings
• Trough of spring onions
• Trough of Charentay carrots - small but tasty.
  
• 2 large pots each with 3 Pentland Javelin potatoes saved from this year's harvest. Planted these yesterday. I usually plant up a couple of pots just after Christmas, but the weather has been so warm (except for frost last night!) I thought I'd jump the gun and try to get some earlier spuds (especially since we've finished all the store).

In the conservatory:

We have a large, very light conservatory which isn't heated, but is warmer that the greenhouse during the cold winter months. Good for starting off seeds.

• Pot of parsley seeds. The summer outdoor sowing didn't take at all, they were rather old seeds, so hopefully these will come along better. But they are very slow-growing.
• Tray of Ailsa Craig onion seedlings.
  
• Radishes - haven't grown these for a while. All the seeds germinated and are looking happy so maybe Christmas radishes?
  

Spare bedroom:

• 7 tomato plants on the window sill! I really don't enjoy shop-bought tomatoes so would love to find a way of growing them through the winter. Last year I made (at The Shed) a planter with a trellis for growing a clematis and flowering plants and in June replenished it with garden compost. In addition to the flowers up came 7 tomato seedlings. They looked pretty healthy so I potted them up and had them in the greenhouse for a while. A couple had flowers and one had two tiny fruits.
  As the weather got colder I brought them into the conservatory, but it was too cold. So I took them upstairs where it's warm and gets more sun in the mornings. I also draped some LED Christmas lights around to give more light. Initially they produced a lot of flowers which I dutifully tickled up with my Mum's paintbrush, but they didn't take. The two tomatoes are growing steadily though! There are a few more tiny buds, so maybe.....
  
  

 

 

Potatoes

Desiree potatoes harvested August

2020 has been a pretty good year for potatoes. As usual in Jan and Feb I started several pots in large containers in the conservatory and then several more in big pots and compost bags in the greenhouse. They provide a tasty early crop before the outside potatoes are ready. Santes, Desitees, Robintas saved from last year and some shop-bought organics that had started sprouting.

The rather wet spring meant the potatoes went in late March and end of April, not quite as early as I'd have liked. But even then we had a light frost in May which knocked back the early growth a bit.

First plantings were Orla and Pentland Javelin - both white earlies - followed  a couple of weeks later by the Desirees. I bought fresh seed potatoes for the Orlas and Pentland Javelins and some Desirees, but I also used some Desiree tubers saved from last year. 

As well as these deliberate plantings a reasonable number of what we call "feral" potatoes emerge from the vegetable beds where potatoes or bits even have been missed when we harvested last year. These actually provide some useful additions to the crop.

After harvesting I let them dry off for a couple of days, well covered with thick cardboard to prevent them going green. Then I sort into small or damaged ones - which go into the kitchen cupboard to be used right away - and good, medium and large ones which I store in sealed cardboard boxed in the garage (nice and cool). Wine boxes are great because the inside cardboard bottle spacers keep the potatoes apart and prevent any mould or rot spreading.

Very little by way of underground damage, worms ir slugs. There are some decent-sized Desirees that I'm looking forward to baking.

Carrots

Royal Chantenay carrots

I've never had much success growing carrots. I've tried sowing them direct in the veg plots and I've tried in large pots. This year I sowed some Royal Chantenay carrot seeds in the green plastic troughs that we used to use as window boxes with geraniums in the summer. They are just the right size and the Chantenays don't need a great depth because they are small conical-shaped carrots. I raised the trough up on a double row of bricks to get them above carrot-fly range (so far so good!).

The carrots are delicious! Excellent steamed or gently microwaved. So two days ago I sowed another batch. Jo Hashman (Dirty Nails) suggested a late sowing was worthwhile, especially in a container that could be taken into the greenhouse when the weather gets wintery. I'll let you know how it goes!

On-the Plot - a week-by-week journal wandering through his garden with hints and tips and philosophical musings.

Around the vegetable plots

After the frantic Spring digging, sowing, planting out, the vegetable garden is producing the goods.

Everything seems to be coming along nicely, even the runner beans are catching up after suffering from frost, slugs and rabbits. This year I've been careful to protect the sprouts and cabbages from butterflies and pigeons, using frames made from plastic cable ducting and fine-guage netting. The cable-ducting was an idea picked up from the garden at the Men & Women in Sheds at Loughborough.
 

Middle bed has peas, broad-beans, celery, cabbages, brussels sprouts
- and poppies

Through the poppies - view of broad beans, coming to the end now,
and across to the walnut trees and up to the old school.

Celery doing really well - and tasty!
First time we've tried growing celery, but the shop-bought stuff is full of chemicals.

RH bed with rhubarb, horseradish, potatoes and runner beans on the frame at the top

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!

French beans

We're having a really good crop of climbing French beans this year. After a couple of disappointing years (last year we had none, despite two sowings of beans from different suppliers) this year has been outstanding.

I have always planted Blue Lake before, but this year I bought "Fasold". These are climbing French beans with rather lovely mauve flowers. Every bean I planted in pots germinated and nearly all survived after planting out. Immediately after planting out they got chopped, as did the Runner Beans. I suspect slugs but could have been rabbits that had taken up residence in our Rhubarb patch.

But after that initial set-back they've all climbed up the bamboo supports and produced loads of beans - quite a bit longer pods than the Blue Lake - and very tasty. Here's some I harvested earlier...

"Fasold" climbing French beans

Garden Gallery

Very warm, proper summer but with occasional downpours - June was a great month for the garden. See this collage of shots around the garden, mostly in the vegetable area with brilliant, self-sown poppies sneaking in.The Desiree( large reds) potatoes had masses of pretty mauve flowers. Now in July they've turned into tiny fruits. I've started lifting them and they are looking pretty good so far.

The Sante (white) potatoes are much better than last year, when they mostly drowned, but some have been chewed by slugs so I'm going to lift them as fast as I can and store the best ones in cardboard boxes in the garage to use over the winter. I've also tipped out one of the big pots with potatoes (pots pots?) and they are fine. No slugs or worms and I'm wondering if it's a better method than planting in the ground, but probably harder work filling the pots and then keeping them watered. At least the garden-grown potatoes can send roots down if there's a dry spell.

Start of Sowing

Start of the sowing season:

At the weekend I planted 73 Broad bean seeds in pots (4 or 5 to a pot) in the greenhouse. I usually try to save some from the previous year's harvest, but for some reason (possibly such wet conditions) the pods went rotten rather than nicely dry as the Runner Beans did. So this year I had to buy new beans. Previous variety was Masterpiece Green Longpod which are prolific and tasty, but couldn't get those so bought Imperial Green Longpod. We'll see how they are.

The first few years here I planted the beans straight in the ground and they did fine. Broad beans are faily hardy so it doesn't matter if there is a late frost. But then we had a couple of years with beans rotting or being eaten. So back to planting in pots so at least they will get a good start before going out.

Yesterday I planted 40 Beetroot seeds (Boltardy) in modules in the greenhouse. Beetroots are OK to plant straight in the soil, but then you have to thin them out. Starting them off in modules means they can be spaced out nicely from the start.

I have a couple of tubs of Sante potatoes (saved from last year) in the big conservatory. I planted 4 tubers in each of 2 large pots about 5 weeks ago and the shoots are just poking up now. They should provide a couple of meals before the ones in the garden are ready. I've tried a couple of times planting in pots before Christmas, but they never seem to come up until March anyway and in the greenhouse they tend to completely disappear from the pots (eaten by mice?).
 
The last few years have not been good for potatoes so I've restricted the planting to 2 varieties which usually do OK here - Sante (white) and Desiree (red).  I have them chitting in the conservatory. There's about 20 Santes saved from last year in a cardboard box which are nearly ready for planting. But I have to get the beds prepared first. Lots more compost in them and some nutrients. I normally throw a few chicken manure pellets around and this year I have some Seaweed Extract from the Organic Seed Company where I bought this year's spuds and seeds.  Maybe some interesting perfumes!

November catch-up

Here we are nearly at the end of November and counting the days till Christmas.

It's been a strange month, starting off quite mild and then a few odd mornings of frost and fog and this week torrential downpours. The trees are now bare, except for the magnolia which hangs on to its heavy leaves for another few weeks. Two Saturdays ago we spent all day sweeping up leaves. Paul used the leaf blower which then sucks up and mulches the leaves, Chas got busy with the rake and I just used my hands to sweep up great bunches of leaves into the wheelbarrow. We have two black "Dalek" composters into which we put the leaves to rot down. Next year it will be lovely leaf mould. Some leaves go onto the compost heap, but they do take a long time to break down so just mix a few at a time into the general mix of grass cuttings, plant trimmings and veg stuff from the kitchen. This year there has been an amazing apple harvest and inevitably a lot of fallers, rotten ones and apples eaten by birds, squirrels etc. A lot of those get recycled in the compost too.

Just a few buckets of apples from the amazing apple harvest this year.

The garden looks a bit bedraggled with herbaceous plants in various stages of die-back. Some tall, brown sunflowers and hostas just flopped and soggy. It's not been very inviting weather to go out and tidy up. But I guess it doesn't matter too much. Sometime during the winter we'll tidy away the leaves so that the spring bulbs can come through.

The vegetable harvest is pretty much finished. There are a few Leeks (unfortunately they seem to have got the alllium leaf miner again but just slightly so the leeks are useable) and a bit of Rainbow Chard. Unfortunately the second sowing of chard didn't come up. The main crop we have to look forward to is Brussel Sprouts. After previous years when they have succumbed to caterpillars, pigeons and pheasants we built a cage with fine mesh netting and so far they are doing well. We've had a couple of meals of sprout tops and the little sprouts are growing nicely. Maybe a few will be ready for Sunday.

Potato black-heart disease

I'm a bit disappointed with the potatoes this year. Despite being assiduous with the weeding, and thereby depriving ourselves of the lovely poppy show,  the potatoes didn't produce a lot. We ate some straight from the ground that had a bit of visible damage, like worm-holes, and stored the good-looking ones. Now we've come to use those I've discovered nasty, holes in the middle with greyish edges. I think this is "black-heart" disease.

Potato black-heart disease -
our poor specimens

 
The disease is apparently caused by either poor ventilation in storage or water-logging whilst growing. See this description of potato black heart >>.

It is possible, that I packed them up a bit too tightly for storage. I usually use cardboard wine boxes lightly sealed with parcel tape to keep out the mice. But certainly we had a lot of water-logged soil this year with some potato plants going soggy and rotten.

So far we haven't tried the stored Santes and Kestrels. Need to get into them next week.

It doesn't look like our potato stores are going to take us through to Christmas, so I've planted up some in big pots. When the weather gets cold I'll drag them into the greenhouse to protect from the frost.

Thankfully we have an abundance of squashes to help out with meals.

Summer Summary

I've been too busy in the garden to blog this month. August has seen mixed weather - but mostly quite sunny and hot. In between some showers, often quite heavy, so in general things have been growing OK. We had a spell a couple of weeks ago when we had to get the hose out to the veg and the fruit trees each evening.

The raspberries are between harvests at the moment. We had a good harvest during July and I put some in the freezer and made lots of raspberry jam as well as eating raspberries with cream, yoghurt, in trifles or just off the bush. All the other soft fruit has finished but the raspberries are just starting to set for the second flush.

The fruit trees are starting to produce. A few plums are ready. The Bramley apple is absolutely loaded. Surprising, because last year it gave a good harvest and Bramleys are notorious for "one year on - one year off". With the strong winds there are a lot of fallers, so blackberry and apple crumble was on the menu on Sunday. (Blackberries from the hedge).

The runner beans are nearly finished but have done well. This year we put the brussel sprouts in a cage to keep out the cabbage white butterflies and the pigeons. So far they are doing well and hopeful for sprouts for Christmas. A first for us this year is sweetcorn. Again, we caged these to keep off the rabbits and squirrels. The cobs are beginning to form nicely and should be ready in a couple of weeks I should think.

We've had a couple of meals from the chard which is going very well and on Sunday I planted a second row. The beetroot in the veg plot are really good and I popped half a dozen in the oven alongside the roast beef yesterday. The beetroots in the "leek bed" are rather poor. It's quite shaded under the ever-expanding cherry tree and also very dry. Planted another row of beetroot in the veg plot, because you can never have too much beetroot.

In the greenhouse the tomatoes continue to amaze. I pick them as soon as they start turning and ripen them off on the kitchen window sill. Plenty for us and for the neighbours too. There's also 5 pepper plants with some small fruit just forming.

So everything is doing well on the produce front.  After last year's neglect the shrubs and flower beds are pretty desperate and we've all been out there digging and chopping to try to get the jungle under control. Good exercise! Oh, and while clearing weeds and overgrown bamboo fromt the top of the rockery I stood on a wasps nest - OOUUCCH! They got inside my trainers and stung both ankles. Decided to leave the rockery until the wasps move on.

Do slugs drink beer?

I'm not a big beer drinker, I usually prefer a glass of red wine. However, last weekend I partook of a can of John Smith's - but didn't finish it.

While inspecting the sorry butternut squash plants with munched leaves and buds I remembered someone telling me about using a dish of beer to catch slugs. Waste-not-want-not as they say - so I Googled "slug beer traps" and came up with a few suggestions. I found one website Garden Myths www.gardenmyths.com/how-to-get-rid-slugs-with-beer/ run by Robert Pavlis, who lives in southern Ontario. He's been gardening for many years and dedicates his website to exploring the validity of various gardening myths. In the case of SLUGS he set up various beer traps and videoed the night-time goings on. (Take a look - it's a hoot!). Bottom line - slugs like beer, take a sip and carry on with their nightly munching, occasionally one has a sip too many and falls in and dies happy. But as a serious strategy for getting rid of slugs beer is a failure. Robert recommends enjoying your beer yourself (perhaps to drown your sorrows over the depredations of your precious plants by garden pests).

Two other myths he investigated which caught my eye:

• Removing the bottom leaves of tomato plants and 
• The benefits of weed barrier membranes

My Mum used to cut off leaves of the tomatoes on the basis that they take the goodness from the fruit. And I've read accounts of tomato growers who cut ALL the leaves off once the fruit has set. My feeling is that leaves are where the plant generates it's energy - using photosynthesis - and removing them just reduces the amount of sugar available to the fruit. Only reason for cutting off leaves is so you can actually see the fruit to harvest them. (My 9 tomato plants are a small jungle!).

Alicante tomatoes in the greenhouse

As for weed barriers - well we've tried them and they fail in similar ways to what Robert found. Weed seeds blow in and settle on the top and get established quickly, couch grass, bindweed and ground elder just run underneath and come up several feet further along. Same applies, only worse, to gravel paths and beds.

I think a lot of perceived wisdom (or myths) about gardening are perpetuated by people just following what other people say, what there hear on the TV or read in books. Those experts don't know your garden and your environment. And a lot of them are professionals. Creating an instant garden at Chelsea or landscaping for a newly built house is different from managing a productive garden yourself year in year out. Also some of the rules that farmers or commercial growers use are bound to be different. For example, cutting raspberries right down each year - it makes it easier to harvest so they don't mind losing the early crop, which this year has been amazing for us. One of the delights of gardening is working with your own patch and finding your own balance. 

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.

Beans - and gone!

Yesterday we had our first meal of 2016 Broad Beans.

We had some broad bean tops a week or so ago, which are lovely - a bit like spinach but not so watery. Picking the growing shoots once sufficient flowers and beanlets are forming below, deters black-fly (though not many aphids this year, probably don't like all the rain), keeps the plants from getting too leggy and provides a nice meal for us humans. Yesterday I picked a dozen or so biggish pods and we had them with our roast chicken, accompanied by home-grown spuds. The potatoes are Kestrels which I planted up in big tubs back in February. They've done very well, completely bug and worm-free and very welcome before the ones in the veg bed are ready.

First Broad beans of 2016

The bad news is the climbing French beans. This year I tried a different variety - Cobra. They germinated well in their pots in the greenhouse and I was full of expectation planting them out in their wigwams - about 36 nice plants. But they just wouldn't climb. Only one threw a shoot that wound around the pole, the rest just stood there and sulked. I gave them some extra feed - chicken pellets - but no joy. I could see one or two had been eaten, the stems were bitten right through and the leaves just lay there. I came to the conclusion that slugs were the culprit. So I spread a bit of sandy ash from the bonfire, on the basis slugs don't like sharp bits on their feet. No joy - no beans, although a few mauvish flowers right down at ground level. Maybe pigeons or pheasants were to blame.

So I decided to pot up some more bean seeds in the greenhouse. After 2 weeks of warm weather nothing but one very tiny bean shoot emerged. I turned out the pots and found NO BEANS! So probably slugs, maybe mice.

On Sunday morning I woke up and decided to get rid of the French beans outside and plant Chard. Went up the garden to find - NO BEANS AT ALL. Every one of the remaining plants were cropped off at an inch high. So no French beans this year - but Chard is very nice. (Maybe with roast pigeon or pheasant - I'm watching you!)

The runner beans are climbing well and have started putting out bright red flowers, so there's hope there!

Rhubarb de-weeding and re-location

Another busy weekend. 

The rhubarb de-weeding and re-location project moved forward significantly. We completely cleared one of the original two rows, putting rooted rhubarb plants in buckets of water and pots hopefully to survive re-planting. There is room for 3 more in the new row (which used to be the asparagus bed and lately used for sweet peas). Now we have to clear the soil of weeds, especially the dreaded couch grass, add lots of compost and then we can plant back 6 good rhubarb roots in the middle row. We still have some plants in the top row which are producing good and tasty stems for rhubarb pie, crumble or just on its own.

The trouble with couch grass (and bindweed and ground elder) is the roots which can go as much as 12 ins below ground. If you leave even a tiny bit in the soil they start up and invade the patch you've broken your back over clearing.  So we've put in some barriers beween the cleared bits and the still-infested. We had some panels of old polycarbonate conservatory roofing which were just the right length and depth. (Never throw anything away!)

Clearinf the rhubarb patch - polycarbonate conservatory roof panels divide the clear soil from the still-infested.

View across the veg beds - young marrows, squashes, potatoes and broad beans in the near bed.

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.

Sowing seeds

It the sowing season.  It's still quite cold, but we've had some sunshine and the rain has held off for a couple of weeks. So the ground is drier and easy to dig.

The broad beans I sowed in pots in the greenhouse 5 weeks ago have finally germinated. They'll probably be ready to plant out after Easter,

I've sowed beetroot (Boltardy) in modules, and onions (Aisla Craig) and leeks in trays. Also a few seeds from a lovely plant that grows in the front garden with bright pink leaves and bluey-grey furry leaves.

This weekend I'll sow some more vegetables and salad - sprouts, chard, lettuce and maybe get the tomatoes started.

I've got potatoes chitting nicely and if weather over Easter is good I'll start digging them in. I've got quite a selection this year:

• Sante
• Orla
• Colleen
• Maris Peer
• Kestrels saved from last year
• Maybe some Desirees from last year - haven't yet checked the box in the garage. 

The Kestrels were a bit small but they have kept very well. They are still OK for boiling unpeeled.

Early harvest!

After all the rain we've had two dry days - and it's amazingly warm. Up in the garden, tidying up around the leek bed and cutting back the ivy round the "thunder box" it was sunny and very still. The buzzards were soaring overhead and woodpeckers were calling around the woods. Almost like summer!

The rhubarb is coming up and, without any frost to knock it back, there's enough for a little taste. I roasted it gently in the oven with a little water. Lovely with some custard.

First rhubarb of the year

Rainbow chard leaves

The rainbow chard sown last summer is still going strong. I have been cutting off the flower stems and any old raggedy leaves and now there are lots of new leaves. So tonight we had steamed chard, potatoes (our own Desirees) sliced with onions and cooked in the oven with milk to accompany some left-over roast lamb.

It's great to be harvesting again - and unexpectedly early in the year.
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Autumn harvest

Season of fruitfulness!

All the apple trees and the plums are overloaded with fruit. We haven't yet picked much but we've been busy processing the fallers:

• Marrow and apple chutney
• Plum and apple chutney
• Apple and blackcurrant jam
• Crab apple jelly

and all kinds blackberry and apple crumble, apple pie, apple meringue, Dorset apple cake and baked apples using the lovely sweet russets.

This year we planted a variety of squashes, marrows and courgettes. We've been harvesting and eating courgettes during the summer and now the squashes are maturing. Squash roast in oil or fat with a dusting of sage, salt and black pepper is always good, or with bacon and squares of brie (or dollops of no-fat quark if you're on a diet). This year we had a new addition to our squash family - a Turks Turban weighing 5lbs.  Last night we roasted this and ate it with a bacon risotto and French beans.

Squashes, marrows and courgettes from our garden
including a 5lbs Turks Turban squash