Six on Saturday

One advantage with being in lock-down is there is no where to go but the garden, so work begun today clearing vegetable beds of weeds. The weather is still pretty cool so I am struggling getting things germinated. I was trying to be optimistic today and planted some radishes and mustard greens outside in one of the newly prepared beds.

1. Meanwhile we enjoyed some purple sprouting broccoli for dinner.

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  Purple sprouting broc

2. The false quince has some flowers but not many – I hope more will appear.

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  Quince

3. Meanwhile in the greenhouse, the comfrey plant that grows there is just starting to flower.

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  Comfrey

4. In the garden the crab apple is leafing up and it is still one of our friendly robin’s favourite trees.

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  Robin

5. Under the willow tree, the wild garlic is coming on nicely and we should have flowers soon.

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  Wild garlic

6. And finally the drumstick primrose is doing it’s thing too.

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  Drumstick primrose

Thank you to The Propagator for hosting Six on Saturday.

Six on Saturday

In my own garden again this week. I definitely need more flowers for this time of year as the delphiniums and lupins have pretty much gone over.

1. The day lily is doing well, but I never did divide it last year so must try this year. I saw some lovely day lilies at the National Botanic Garden of Wales which I will post about soon.

Day Lily

2. This is an old heritage climbing rose (sorry did not keep the name). It has a lovely smell. It was slow to start but has a good few blooms now.

Climbing rose

3. This poppy seeds itself all over the vegetable plot, adding extra colour and food for the bees. I have scattered seed in the flower bed but for some reason they never germinate there.

poppy

4. The yellow loosestrife is getting crowded out by the day lily – another reason to divide the latter!

Yellow Loosestrife

5. In the vegetable garden the potatoes are coming on nicely despite being set late. I have always liked potato flowers.

potato

6. And the runner beans are doing their thing too.

Runner bean

You can read more Six on Saturday here. 

 

August: Garden update

We are definitely having an early autumn this year. Leaves are already beginning to turn and blackberries are ripening. While the summer seems warmer than last year, these last few weeks have been showery with very few dry or really warm days. In the garden, we’re enjoying the first plums and apples but like last year the pears have a very bad case of scab and are splitting and seem inedible. Not sure if this has been exasperated by the damp and often humid weather.

Apples

Plums

Splitting pear

The weather has definitely brought on the potato blight, which we get each year. But this year the potatoes did go in on time and those we have harvested are a good size. Cabbages too are appreciating the plentiful rain and where not ravaged by slugs, snails and caterpillars are getting big.

Red cabbage protected by netting

Cabbage protected by netting

Runner beans have done much better than last year too. Not sure if it is because I got them in early and they had a couple of warm, dry weeks in May to get well established.

 

Runner beans

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Interestingly the courgettes outside are doing better than the one in the polytunnel or greenhouse. The older plants have established much better.

Bumblebee pollinating courgette

Carrots again failed to germinated well and / or were eaten by slugs! The same with beetroot, which last year I grew in modules before planting out. I must remember this for next year!  Squash, are small and will probably not come to much. I feel that each year you need to grow a variety of vegetables and then hopefully something will do well!

Mini squash!

So is growing your own vegetables and fruit a sign of “thrift” – defined by the Oxford dictionary as “the quality of using money and other resources carefully and not wastefully”?

Vegetable cache

There is nothing better than retrieving  little cache of vegetables from the garden!

Runner beans are doing really well this year and this is the biggest kohlrabi I have yet grown at 1.5Ibs!

Inspired by this week’s – one a week photo challenge – cache

Jack Frost

We have had an exceptionally mild October. It has had it’s advantages as we were still harvesting a few beans and courgettes in the last couple of weeks, but on the other side some of the leeks have started to go to seed! This morning we woke to our first proper frost; plants were transformed into sugar-coated candy!

Runner bean

Poppy

Comprey

crab apple

Astilbe leaves

Echinacea

daisy and pot marigold

Silent Sunday – School Garden Harvest

 

School garden harvest

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

Garden Update – July

July is fast coming to an end so I thought it was time for another garden update. It is not proving to be the best of summers. There has been lots (too much) of rain but thankfully temperatures are not as low as last summer, but it is not looking like we will have bumper harvests.

In the greenhouse, tomatoes and cucumbers are producing but not in big quantities so there has not been surplus for pickling. My cucumbers (and also the courgettes and squashes) have all got this strange virus – it looks like mildew, but starts as perfect circles and increases and multiplies till the whole leaf is covered. I keep taking off the affected leaves and so far the plants are surviving. One variety of cucumber (marketmore), shows no sign of the virus so I may concentrate on growing that variety next year.

Green tomatoes

Cucumber

Virus??

In the polytunnel, the early broadbeans did well as did the Charlotte potatoes which we are about half way through. I have some beetroot to harvest and also started harvesting these purple kohlrabi. We all prefer them raw to cooked so will probably have the rest with salads. I just planted some more seed in the hope that I can get some to crop in late autumn or over winter for next spring.

Kohlrabi

Outside the first of the runner beans are appearing ( I put five plants in the poly on a wigwam and they are really not happy, and I don’t know why), and I am hoping for a better crop than last year. The dwarf beans are really suffering, probably because it is not warm enough. I did plant a couple in the greenhouse and it turns out this was a good idea because they are cropping well! Cabbages do seem to enjoy the wet and we’ve been enjoying the first (variety Greyhound), and I am hopeful that we will get a decent crop of red cabbage. Courgettes are small and slow.

Brocolli

Courgette

Veg plot

veg plot

Runner beans

We’ve had a few nice summer raspberries but the loganberries are proving very popular with the blackbirds!! We’ve picked over 2kg of blackcurrants and there are still some more. The kids are enjoying blackcurrant cordial and it’s a “bribe” to get them picking some of their own! Blackcurrants are always one of our best croppers.

Logan berries

Raspberries

Black currants

 

Garden – June Update

Well things are busy in the garden this month but at least we are reaping some of the benefits. We’ve been enjoying broccoli from the greenhouse from over wintered plants, which are being gradually cleared out and replaced by cucumbers and tomatoes, and also a few early beans. We’ve also had a few early strawberries, and the first courgette is just coming.

Strawberry

First Courgette

Dwarf french beans

Broccoli

In the polytunnel things are getting a bit overgrown, as the early potatoes need to start coming out. The broadbeans have cropped well and we are enjoying them for dinner. The mange tout seem to have suffered from our recent dry and sunny spell as I think they prefer cooler conditions, so leaves are looking a bit yellow but they are still producing peas.

Early potatoes

Mange tout

Broadbeans

Outside plums are forming as are some pears and apples – though I am a bit concerned that the pears are already looking a bit scabby.

Plums

Pears

In the vegetable garden things are a little slow. Cabbages though have benefited from the warm weather as there has been minimum slug damage. Beans and onions are just coming slowly. I am gradually catching up with weeding but they seem to continue to grow!!

Brassicas

Early onions

beans

After-schools gardening club

In the local primary school, we have started an after-schools gardening club as part of the school’s biodiversity green-school project.

With over 40 (about a third of the school) children attending it takes a bit of organising, but thankfully other parents have come on board to help out. It is wonderful to see the kids get so enthusiastic about not only gardening, but also making the school more wildlife friendly.

Our first task was to make some bird boxes, which have subsequently gone up in the hedgerow which surrounds the school.

bird and bat boxes

making bird boxes

There are a couple of existing flower beds which were weeded and planted with some primulas to brighten them up. Daffodils were already present. The kids have since set seeds of other flowers and these will be planted out in the coming weeks.

Flower beds

Flower beds

There is one quite small raised bed from a previous attempt to grow vegetables. The first part of this has been filled with compost and planted with onions, beetroot, radishes, peas and lettuce. People have been very generous and donated seeds, pots, tools and compost. The kids are keen to grow pumpkins so last week we started of some pumpkin seeds. They have also planted up strawberry plants into a large pot which the kids have to keep watered and hopefully they will be rewarded with some strawberries before the summer holidays come.

Raised bed

First of radishes germinating

We’ve also planted a selection of apple trees. The soil at the site is poor and water-logged but we hope that over the years the trees will produce some apples that the kids will be able to harvest. We’d also like to incorporate some other soft fruit bushes like raspberries and currants. It’s very much a work in progress. But even if we can inspire just a couple of children to become avid gardens I will feel rewarded.