Six on Saturday

We have had a minor disaster this week in that strong winds (not even a storm, but a gust of strong wind during some heavy rain) felled one of my favourite apple trees. Both in 2017 and in 2018 it was also our most productive tree so a big loss.

Annie Elizabeth apple tree

Here in the west of Ireland we have had a very wet spell with what feels like constant rain. So while there are good blackberries and autumn raspberries, many are going rotten because of the rain.

Blackberries

We have a reasonable crop of cob nuts, but each year we loose a lot to nut weevil grubs. We wait to see what this year brings.

Cob nut

It’s all a bit negative isn’t it – so here is some positive news. The chicks are growing. They have been moved out to the polytunnel during the day, and are enjoying consuming chickweed which tends to seed itself in the poly and greenhouse!!

Growing chicks

While in County Clare I really saw the value of scabious as a pollinator plant. We do have a small patch of wild devils-bit scabious but it is one thing I will try and grow more of next year. I also hope to try out some of the cultivated forms too.

Devils bit scabious with pollnantors

Devils bit scabious with hoverfly

 

Finally for this weeks six, Osteospermum. In one of my previous gardens, this plant did really well, but it has failed to thrive here in the west. This time I bought a potted plant and just re-potted it in a larger pot. And this is its second flowering. I will over winter in the greenhouse or polytunnel and maybe keep it as a pot plant for next year.

Osteospermum

Thank you to The Propagator for hosting Six on Saturday.

 

Autumn fruit

We have had a great crop of apples this year but early autumn storms mean that we have also a lot of windfalls. We are using apples in everything ; apple and blackberry jam, apple crumble and cakes, apple puree/sauce, dried apples.  Last weekend, I was going to try and make plum (again windfalls) and apple jam, but the resulting puree was too nice, so we’ve just added a tiny bit of honey and are using fresh. It went really well with pancakes!

Apples

Apples

Apples

Apples

Apples

The storm also broken my favourite Victoria plum tree which always produced the nicest plus in the garden , so we will have to get replacement (Apologies for quality of photos, my camera is currently out of action so having to use my phone camera!).

November Apples

We enjoyed our first apples in late August, and we’ve recently been harvesting our late apple varieties .

There are three varieties – Annie Elizabeth*, Pixie and Katja. We (my children, husband and I), did a taste comparison of each. All four of us voted the Annie Elizabeth as our favourite.  It being the sweetest of the three; our vote may just indicate we all have a sweet tooth! In fact, the Pixie apples were very similar in flavour but were very firm.  So we’ve put these into store. The Pixie is also a smaller apple. An ideal size of a children’s lunchbox.

The Katja apples have a good sweet flavour too. The flesh shows some pink flushes, and is softer than either the Annie Elizabeth or Pixie.

In terms of cropping, both the Katja and Pixie have given a reasonable crop for the size of tree. In fact, it is the best crop we have had from the Pixie. The Annie Elizabeth however had a much heavier crop last year, compared to this year. So we will savoured the few apples we did have and hope that next year it will return to it’s bounty of the 2016 season.

It always pays to grow a couple of varieties of fruit tree, as we have certainly found they all have good, and bad years.

*Interestingly Annie Elizabeth is listed as a cooking apple on many websites. The Victorian Nursery website (UK) does say it is so sweet it doesn’t require sugar. So I am not sure we have it properly labeled. I double checked in my garden notebook and it is definitely listed as Annie Elizabeth and was planted in 2006, but it could be the original label was incorrect.

Apple tree – Annie Elizabeth in 2016

 

 

 

 

 

 

Forest Garden – pros and cons

One of my reader’s, Helen from Silverbells, asked if I would do an update on our forest garden as I describe on Murtagh’s Meadow about page. Really the forest gardening I leave to my husband, while I concentrate on the vegetable patch, and the flower garden, though it doesn’t stop me using the produce.

To quote the Agroforestry Trust in the UK , forest gardening is a designed agronomic system based on trees, shrubs and perennial plants. The idea being that you try and re-create a sustainable natural forest with all it’s complex product producing layers. So food products may include fruits, nuts, leaves, and possibly medicinal plants and spices. In addition, you may have plants that produce fodder for animals or resources such as bean poles, wood for fuel and so on.

From our point of view it has been a bit of a struggle. To start with you are constantly battling with weeds and in our case grass, and until we get some kind of canopy cover this will continue. So any low growing shrubs have really struggled to get a foot hold. And  even plants such as raspberries, which are naturally a woodland edge plant, struggle to keep going. Perhaps, if we had more time (this is supposed to be a low maintenance form of gardening) it would be better, because in reality you’d need to be out every few days cutting the grass back from spring right into late autumn.

Somethings have done well, such as the chokeberries. But then the birds come along and eat them all before they are even ripe!!! We have Nepalese raspberries which are good ground cover. They certainly are, and they try to take over. What is more I have yet to find any fruit – though the carder bees do seem to appreciate the flowers.

The cobnut shrubs look good and are healthy but we have yet to get more than a handful of nuts. The nuts we did grow this year were nearly all empty and those that had fallen to the ground has been opened by mice (but I wonder if they found them empty too?). Though this coming year we should have some very decent bean poles.

Cob nut eaten by mouse

Empty cob nuts

The slugs loved the bark of the Szechuan pepper (a substitute for black pepper) and ring barked it a couple of times before we put it in a pot.

The autumn olive flowered but did not set fruit this year, but there were some fruit last year (see photo). We had a good crop of sea buckthorn which again are thriving (though last year did not crop so well). And this is the first year we have had quinces (a grand total of six!).

Autumn olive – Flower

Autumn olive berries

Chokeberries (Aronia)

Juneberry

Sea buckthorn

Japanese quince

In general, success has been better with the more traditional orchard trees, apples, plums and to lesser extent pears. Having a number of varieties seems to be the key, as not all well fruit well every year.

crab apple

Apple tree

Apple tree

Apple tree

In terms of work, you need to be prepared initially to do a lot of maintenance. And it is certainly trial and error with what will crop well in a given year.

Harvest Melody

September is here and the garden year is beginning to wind down. Despite our wet summer we have had reasonable crops – warmer temperatures than last summer probably helping.

We’ve been enjoying juicy Victoria plums and Beauty of Bath apples (an early variety).

Victoria plum

Many of the apple trees have cropped well and we are looking forward to tasting them all. I see each apple as having its own melody; smell, taste, texture are all different.

Apple

James Grieve apple

Annie Elizabeth

Annie Elizabeth apple

Bardsey apple

Pears have not done well this year – the few we have are covered in scab and are now beginning to crack. But it is the first year we have had Japanese Quince (only six though!).

pear

Japanese quince

In the vegetable plot, beans have done well. Garlic definitely benefited from being planted last October. Cabbages have thrived in the damp conditions. Squashes are few and far between and onions which I planted late are understandably small! All and all not too bad a harvest though.

Runner bean

Garlic

Greyhound cabbage

Late November Garden Surprises

We are still experiencing a mild winter, with plenty rain and hardly any frost. While walking around a rather sodden garden the other evening there appeared to be an unseasonable amount of colour, though admittedly it only occurs in little splashes.

Snapdragon

Borage

Pot marigold

nasturtium

nasturtium

Borage

Borage

Pot marigold

Snapdragon

There are good things to eat too. The white sprouting broccoli, is just coming. It is the first year I have tried this as I usually only grow purple sprouting. I suspect that if it was colder it wouldn’t be sprouting yet but it’s a nice addition to Brussel sprouts and red cabbage, and the odd bit of calabrase from the tunnel.

Red cabbage

Brussel sprouts

White sprouting broccoli

And there are still some Katie Apples – yum.

Katie Apple