Vegetable Garden Update July

I have accidentally let two months pass without writing about my vegetable garden. I am busy picking raspberries, loganberries and strawberries every day, and my one small gooseberry bush is fully laden. Somebody told me gooseberries and strawberries combine to make a nice jam, so they are being popped into the freezer until I have enough. The trees in the orchard are also looking good, and I am hopeful that this year we may even get some plums - there are lots of green ones on the tree.

I will start with the positives, which this is year is my broadbeans. I followed advice and picked out the tops of the plants, and not a sign of any blackfly. Also the sweetcorn seemed slow to start, but I can now see the corns husks forming.  

But I have a lot of trouble with pests this year. Despite the chickwire fence around the garden I have caught the odd rabbit inside, but even mending the holes is not going to stop squirrels, whom I have also seen. My peas were doing fairly well, and I had picked for one meal, but then found that the plants and pods had been completely eaten. The rabbits, combined with slugs and snails, mean I am on my third attempt at runnerbeans. I think the first ones were eated by a rabbit, as the stems were biten through. I now have a combination of netting, tubes with copper at the bottom, beer traps, coffee and eggshells. Throwing everything at protecting this lot!

My first courgette plants also got eaten, so I have them under a cover and with sheep fleece around. It does not make the garden look great, but it is all I can think to do. 

Seeing the seedlings that you have nurtured get eaten up is quite sad, and has made me a bit reluctant to plant things out. I have hung onto my butternut squash plants in the polytunnel, just potting them on, but decided a few days ago that it was time for them to face the big outdoors. My sunflowers are also still in the polytunnel. I must be brave, but because I lost them all last year, I am still waiting for them to get a bit bigger.

I am trying a few new things in the garden. I have two purple sweet potato plants from the village. Apparently they need a lot of water. Also growing some pak choi seedlings, which are coming along. Some lovely cosmos flowers are making the garden look pretty.

Sweet potato plant, pak choi seedling, and some of the cosmos

Other things in the polytunnel are going fairly well. I have a new friend at Oxfam whom I am swapping seedlings with, and the exchange of plants in the village continues. My friend gave me two cucumber plants, and we have just eaten our first cucumber, which was delicious. 

The tomato plants that I grew from seed seemed very slow, so I bought two plants from a garden centre. They are a little ahead, but my seed grown ones seem to be catching up. 

White onions are looking good, but my red ones have not grown very well, and seem to have had the tops nibbled off now. I had always thought of onions as a fairly safe bet. Yesterday I planted out some of the leeks. It has been so dry it was quite difficult to dib into the dug soil. I have another pot of seedlings in reserve.

Vegetable Garden Diary May

I have realised that I perhaps should have started my sporadic garden diary.  Seedlings are under way in the polytunnel, and I have a new friend at the Oxfam bookshop, who is doing swaps with me. So thanks to her for the two cucumbers above, and she also gave me some peas and spinach for outside.

Someone (a rabbit I think) has been nibbling things in the polytunnel, so I have had to put some of the seedlings on the table and cover the troughs with netting, and need to reinspect the fence. I am turning into Mr McGregor.

The indoor strawberries are looking good, all grown from my outside strawberries last year. And we are already eating some American land cress leaves.

Outside things are coming along. Below shows the outside strawberries, and potatoes and raspberries behind. My husband's loganberry has even more berries coming than last year, so hopefully we may get more than the one jar of jam. It has also produced another bush a little way off.

Other things planted outdoors are runnerbeans, peas, sweetcorn, broadbeans, onions and carrots (which I planted near the onions as I had heard this might help, but as usual the carrots came up, and the nearly all disappeared over night).

And below is my "scarestork". Chris Packham was on the radio talking about the reintroduction of storks to Cornwall, and I thought this year rather than the scarecrow man we usually make (which the birds sit on) I would try and made something a bit more frightening - with light and noise. We will have to see how this works out.

Vegetable Garden Diary Update

I have just realised that unlike other years, I have not been keeping my vegetable garden monthly diary. I did try doing a little video, which seemed like a good idea, as it was me showing the garden warts and all. But I did not seem able to upload it, so am doing my usual photo catchup.

Like most years some things have gone well, and other not so good. I think for a lot of things the large amount of rain that we have had has been good, and we are now having a bit of sunshine as well. Also we have had the benefit of chicken poo, and four big sacks of free horse manure from a local stable, which I think have really helped. 

After my rabbit invaders, I covered all of the peas and runner beans with netting or mesh, which seems to have worked. So despite the invaders we have had a fair crop of runnerbeans and peas, and the broad beans have been much better than any other year. For the broad beans I picked off the growing tips of the plants, something I saw on a TV programme, and this year no blackfly problem at all.

 

I also was pleased to try some new vegetables - parsnips and pak choi, both of which have been great. Beetroots as well have at least grown to a reasonable size this year.

 

For salad leaves the American land cress and rocket have kept us going all summer, and I have had better radishes by doing a few small plantings. My tomatoes are way behind, but the plants look good, so hopefully eventually we will get some.

The raspberries have perhaps not been as many as other years, but most evenings I pick a little bowl to have on cereal at breakfast. The one tayberry bush has produced a lot of berries, all of which have gone into the freezer and will be made into jam. We bought a new gooseberry bush and built a fruit cage, with the blackcurrants. These have not produced much, so I cannot blame the birds this year. I think perhaps they need a bit of love and attention. The outside strawberries have been good, and I have high hopes for next year for the plants I have put in a trough in the polytunnel.

 

I realise I am being a bit too positive, so here is the one sunflower that survived the rabbits. I also have some very tiny sweetcorn plants, which have always been successful in other years, but I am really not sure are going to catch up this year.

  

Here is a photo of one of my favourite bits of the garden. The courgettes seem unstoppable, and I also like the self-seeded nasturtiums. The pak choi is on the left, netted peas in the background, and as you can see I have been doing a bit of weeding.

 

I am not too great as a flower gardener, but here is a little collage of some flowers in the vegetable garden. My sister gave me two dahlia plants. This one has settled in and is a gorgeous colour. I also saved love-in-the-mist seeds from last year, as they are one of my favourites. I've also included some courgette and bean flowers - useful and beautiful.

Medlar Fruit Jelly

 

I have been busy making jelly again. Perhaps this is becoming more of a cookery blog than craft blog. We have a single medlar tree in the garden, and other years I have not picked the fruit. But maybe because we did not have as many apples and pears as other years, this year the medlar tree seemed full of fruit, so I decided to give them a go.

I had not heard of this fruit, but apparently they were very popular in medieval times, and because of its appearance had some quite rude names. As you can see they are rather a strange looking fruit, and really quite hard. You have to pick them, and leave them to blett, which means ripen until they look as if they are almost rotten. Some I left a bit too long, but I ended up with about a kilo of usable fruit, and used this recipe on the RHS site to make the jelly. It is a lovely colour, and tastes of apples.

 

My dog is the one who loves the medlars, and if I cannot find her she will often be under the tree snacking. 

Hawthorn Berry Jelly

 

There seem to be more than usual hawthorn berries around this year. Is that a sign it will be a cold winter? So I decided I would have a go at making some hawthorn jelly. I used this recipe from Practical Self Reliance.

I am not sure why my hawthorn berries were not particular juicy, but it took me three colanders before I thought I had enough juice to add the sugar. In the end I made this single jar of hawthorn jelly. Plenty of hawthorn berries were left for the birds.

And now I can hear the rose hips calling to me. Recipes say they will be juicier if you wait until you have had a light frost, which we haven't yet, so I am trying to be patient.

Garden Diary - Tidying Up For Winter

 

I have been busy tidying up the garden. Bean poles are down, potatoes have been dug, and all the sweetcorn have been harvested. Quite a lot of areas have been weeded and covered with sheeting until the spring. I thought I would do one last post. Above are two vegetables which came from the village plant exchange. The aubergine plants have been looking healthy with lovely flowers for ages, but I had thought that it was a bit late to develop into full veg, but then hiding under the leaves on one plant I found these lovelies. They are in the polytunnel so I am leaving them to grow and ripen a bit more.

And above are some cucamelons, also from the plant exchange. I had not really known what to expect with these. They look like very tiny watermelon, but taste like a mouthful of cucumber. To show you the scale here is a cucamelon next to the only cucumber that I got this year. Fun to try out some new plants!

 

I am really pleased with the leeks, which I had not grown before. As you can see below they do look like proper leeks. They like the onions don't seem to be troubled by pests, which is a bonus. I lifted the onions fairly early, as it was raining so much they seemed to be going rotten, but as you can see below they have not turned out too bad.

The other plants that have done well, are these Heart of Gold squash, and the pumpkins not as well as last year, as I only have one large one. But perhaps that is enough.

Although my husband and I garden together, we tend to also have our own areas. I do most of the veg plot and polytunnel, while his area is the greenhouse. Tomatoes are still doing well in both places, in fact so well that we are getting a bit tired of tomato soup, and yesterday I made some passata for the freezer. He has also had success with a variety of chilli pepper, which you can see below.

His other special project are the six grape vines, which were planted at the edge of the veg garden. I notice that he always gives them extra attention when watering. This year we were not really expecting fruit, as they were just getting the plants established, but there have been a bunch or two of very tasty little grapes.

Apples have all been picked, and some of the best I have wrapped and stored for eating in the winter. Following the technique shown on my new favourite gardening programme The Beechgrove Garden. It has lots of very practical advice, and also reminds me of when I lived in Aberdeen for a year. The rest of the apples are destined to be pressed for apple juice and cider. So pretty soon there will be a day of chopping and pressing.

One vegetable which has again not gone well are my celeriac. The plants tops look really healthy, but I have dug one and just as last year it has not really developed the root underground. Last year I thought that perhaps I had not watered enough, so this year despite all the rain I have watered nearly every day. So my next thought is that perhaps there is not enough organic material in the soil. So despite saying I would not try again, I may give it one more go next year, with my new special weapon. I am still collecting the girls poops, and am hoping they will really help in the veg garden next year.

 

 

Garden Update June

The vegetable plot is looking pretty good, despite us having a little trip away during the very dry spell, which was a bit of a worry. But with some early morning watering before we left, nothing seems to have suffered too much. I have been very thankful for some of the heavy rain we have had recently.

As usual some things seem to be thriving, and others not. I am pretty pleased with the sweetcorns, and the runnerbeans, which are almost ready to pick. And we have been picking some stawberries, which are under the netting. Despite a combination of straw and fleece they are still getting eaten by slugs and snails, so some I am ripening on the kitchen windowsill. On the left, near a poppy that I just let grow because it looked pretty, you might be able to see the carrots, which have not been eaten at all as in other years. Are they just some more resistant type? No idea, but it has made me pretty happy, so I have planted a second row.

 

 

One thing I forgot to mention last time, is that my husband bought 6 grape vines. We thought quite hard about where to plant them, and in the end decided that in the vegetable garden was best, to keep them from the deer and rabbits in the field. There are three different types, and although we will not get grapes this year, they seem to be doing well. Arrived as little sticks in the mail.  

 

Although the veg garden and polytunnels seem to be my area, he is in charge of the tomatoes and peppers in the greenhouse nearer the house, but now he has a special reason to come over to the veg patch.

Other things are doing fine - potatoes, courgettes (only 3 plants this year), pumpkins and squash. But I have been worrying about my brassicas. There is a great plant exchange in the village, and as well as giving, I took three lovely cauliflower seedlings. They were doing really well, but now the leaves are being eaten. Is it the same little pests that completely ate the kale? My plan was to pick off any caterpillars from the underside of the leaves, but so far I have not seen any, and on some plants there is no underside because there is no leaf! Same thing started on the sprouts and broccoli, so I have covered these with fine mesh, but perhaps I have just made a nice breeding ground for butterflies.

The other thing that is usually really reliable are the raspberries around the edge of the veg plot. I did my usually pruning last year, but the plants are really sparse. I have just looked up that raspberries live about 10 years, so as we have no idea how long they have been there perhaps they have just come to their natural end. I am picking a little pot every evening, and adding it to the freezer, and perhaps will have enough in the end for one pot of jam. We may have to buy a few new canes. The other fruit that was abundant last year, were the cherries. But this year I think I may just get a cupful of fruit. No idea why, perhaps it was something in the weather when the blossom was out. No point worrying, perhaps next year will be better.

Cucumber Plants

 

In the polytunnel I have some tomatoes, lettuces, and tiny cumcumbers on the way. Also some aubergine (from the plant exchange), which have grown a lot, and a cucamelon! 

Aubergines

Garden Diary August

Time once again for my monthly garden diary. I do realise that I do this diary mainly for myself, as although I keep a note of where I planted each year, and the seeds, it is sometimes really useful to have a look back and see how things went.

Blackberries are what are filling my days (and freezer) at the moment

It's been a funny old year, with all the hot weather and no rain for a long time. Although it is raining now, we have recently dug two lots of potatoes. A much easier job than last year, as the soil just seemed to fall away to leave lovely clean potatoes, but really shows that we need a lot more rain to penetrate the soil.

The plants that looked like they were doing okay, but then really didn't flourish like last year were the runnerbeans, french beans, broad beans and peas. Yes we had some, but I have not put any in the new chest freezer as we just ate them as we went. This is a photo of my entry in the village show for longest runnerbean. I came third, but I guess I have to admit that there were only three beans entered!

 

But the freezer is coming into its own with berries. Raspberries did really well, and now we are filling it almost daily with blackberries and elderberries. Even I am starting to think that perhaps I should stop picking the blackberries, but they are just so lovely. We have one lot of blackberry wine bubbling away, and plan to make more throughout the winter. We have already bottled dandelion flower, elderflower and cherry wine. My husband was worried that if we picked the elderflowers, we might not have enough left for berries. Although some of the bushes have suffered a bit from the dry weather, there seem to be plenty of berries. I have just weighed all the elderberries in the freezer so far, and it is over 3kg. I am also planning to make some jellies and jams. My husband made some raspberry jam already, which was so much better than mine.  

Dandelion labels made by hand and elderflower on the computer

 

The other berries that look great are the sloes, but this year I am not going to be drawn into picking until we have a frost.

Things that did well in the veg garden were the courgettes, and patty pan squash. I managed to mainly pick the courgettes small, but must try to remember that even 6 plants was too many. The patty pans are still flowering and producing, but I seem to be the only one keen on these cute little vegetables. Also the onions did fairly well, despite me planting them too close to each other, and having to replant. We now have several strings of onions in the kitchen. 

 

 

There is now a plant and produce donation cabin in the village, which is a great way to share. I have given, and am excited to see how the watermelons, aubergine and broccoli that I received do.

The main problem for me seems to be that a lot of my plants seem behind. Sweetcorn are only just starting to swell, one baby butternut squash has appeared, melons and watermelons I am hopeful for, tomatoes are still very green, and the spinach just seems to have stopped growing. Hopefully we will have a mild and wet September, and some of these things will catch up. The celeriac is also still looking very healthy, and I see that should not be ready until October, so there is still time.

My one butternut squash

I nearly forgot to mention the apples and pears, which are looking so much better than last year. It will not be long before the cider press will have to be got out.

And finally the pumpkins - each plant seems to producing a good sized pumpkin, which are starting to turn orange. 

 

Although not strictly the garden, but we had a visit from the Woodland Trust to look at our growing woodland, which we planted in the spring of 2020. In the spring this year we looked down all the tubes (a mammoth task in which I had to keep reminding myself "this not as hard as actually planting trees"), and we replaced the 20 or so trees which had died. But out of 1400 trees this did not seem too bad. 

But my husband has been quite worried about the trees in the dry weather, but the tree people were very reassuring that they would survive. The photo below is not really a good comparison, as the first was in February just after the trees were planted, but you can see in the current photo below a lot of the trees are well out of their tubes.