Flu and what-have-you

Posted by louisa on Tuesday 27 September 2011 in growing | 3 comments

So I got myself all stoked up to do stuff and blog about it to get myself back into the swing of things then I got the flu. The only thing that’s been productive around here in the last two weeks or so has been my phlegmy chest. I’m still not running at full steam but I thought I should try to hop back aboard the blogging train before all the carriages race away from me and this metaphor goes off the completely off the tracks ;)

These last few weeks have mostly been spent slumped on one sofa or another, watching a whole lot of films and eating a whole lot of soup. But in my slightly-better moments, I’ve done some sewing after getting a new embroidery book out of the library just before the virus hit (book review coming soon) and wandered down to see the chickens, lamenting about the sorry state of the garden and wondering if things will fruit/ripen before the frost hits.

The latter put me in a bit of a “I’m a bad gardener” slump until I realised that even with all the dead things, the things that won’t quite get there this year, the things that didn’t stand a chance and the lack of any summer sowing whatsoever, we’ve still got at least ten edible things growing in the garden that we can/will eat: achocha (outdoor – will pick soon), tomatoes (greenhouse & outdoor), courgettes, marrows (ok, so they’re essentially the same thing but we used them differently), cucumbers, peppers, chillis (all greenhouse), leeks, pumpkin and swiss chard.

And that’s before we get onto the wild greens/fruit (predominantly nettles but there are also some bullet-like blackberries at the end of the garden and the dregs of elderberries on the trees near the kitchen), the technically-edible-but-I-probably-won’t-eat-them-now things (like the new leaves/shoots on the squashes & the achocha, or the marigold leaves & heads) and herbs (rosemary, lavender & mint still going strong outside, basil & chives inside, and things gone to seed both outside & in that are still usable just not as good as before they flowered, like dill & oregano).

And it’s also not including eggs – the six girls are still kicking out on average five a day, which is nice.

When I’ve got a bit more energy/less mucus, I’ll write more about our growing year here – lots more lessons learnt and things to definitely not do next year – but this has made me feel a little better about things, that there have been some successes as well as the many failures.

What’s still on the go in your garden?

Overexcited about baby fruit & vegetables again

Posted by louisa on Friday 10 June 2011 in growing | 6 comments

Buff aside, things are going well in the garden at the moment. I had a nearly full day out there yesterday – digging, potting on, planting out, sowing more successional stuff and staring into space under the pretext of “planning”. I also spent a lot of time checking out how things are progressing…

Weeee! our first pinkening strawberry!

We’ve got quite a lot of fruit but this one is the first to go red. They’re Flamenco strawberries – starting a little late but should fruit right through until the autumn — a few at a time for a longer season will be better for us this year, although I think I might add an early crop/June-July cropping one for a jam-making glut :)

I also spotted my first set of to-be-courgettes this week – they’re only about 15mm by 5mm at the moment so we might need quite a few to make a ratatouille…!

They don’t need pollination so should just grow now – and knowing courgettes, by tomorrow they’ll be marrows ;)

In the winter squash department, I also spotted some round-bottomed female flowers on a few of the pumpkins – I think they will need pollinating when the flowers open up. There are plenty of male flowers open but I’ve not seen many bees around over the last week, so I might get in there with a little paintbrush, just to be on the safe side.

There are little tiny bumpy baby cucumbers appearing up too.

We’ve also got a few apples starting – it’s the trees’ first year here so we shouldn’t really let them grow apples (they should concentrate on growing up and out first) but we’re going to let each tree grow a couple, just to see what they’re like.

I think I’m especially excited about all these things because, aside from the courgettes, they’re all first for our garden – never grown strawberries, pumpkins or cucumbers before, and there is always the “what if they don’t grow?” worry.

How’s your fruiting going? Any suggestions for an early/summer glut strawberry type?

Baby broad beans, busy bees, not red currants, and other stories

Posted by louisa on Friday 27 May 2011 in growing | 4 comments

Last night, when I got back from my almost-dusk walk with Lily-dog, I spent a good 15 minutes tying broad bean plants to their bean poles. I did the same job a few weeks ago but the broad bean plants had decided to have a bit of a grow since then. Somehow though, when I was busy with the beans last night, I failed to spot an array of these bad boys almost the flowers:

I’m not alone in getting overly-excited about the first spotting of each different type of fruit/veg, am I?

I turned around from taking that photo to spot a bee getting busy on my not-red-currants:

I got the not-red-currants in a batch of super cheap soft fruit from Aldi in January, along with some raspberries and black currants. I’m guessing they were mislabelled and I’ve got raspberries where I thought I’d have red currants and vice versa. The not-red-currants:

Raspberries? Could be blackberries as blackberry canes were in other sets – but seems a bit earlier for blackberry fruit. I’d prefer it not to be blackberries as we’ve loads of wild ones nearby but whatever, I’m easy. I’m surprised to see these fruiting this year though, whatever they are.

Growing faster, growing slower

Posted by louisa on Tuesday 24 May 2011 in growing | 3 comments

As I mentioned in my camping post earlier today, I spent the whole day before we went away playing in the garden so my plants would hopefully be ok home alone for four days and to catch up on everything I hadn’t done the previous weekend.

It was a good day – I weeded, I dug, I potted on, I planted out and even though I told myself I wouldn’t, I sowed more stuff (more salad/lettuce and some beans). I was a bit nervous about the stuff I planted out (a few courgettes, a few achocha and pumpkins – one of which is pictured above) because I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep an eye on them over the weekend but I desperately needed the space in the greenhouse. Everything seems to be doing ok today. I also planted out the hop seedlings Su sent me (thanks Su!) – they’re settling in well too and I’m hoping they’ll be a climbing layer for my mini-forest garden.

In the greenhouse, I also potted on a good number of tomatoes into their final pots – and realised quite how many more tomato pots I’ll need (although I do hope to plant some outside too). I think tomatoes are the only thing I’ve over sown – I’ve got too many of them really but not too-many too-many so it’s manageable, and there is really no such thing as surplus tomatoes, is there? I can almost see the tomato plants growing and they surprise me every time I see them because they look so sturdy, healthy and tall enough to block out the sun… ;)

Along with the tomatoes, some of our crops are going much better than I expected: our potatoes have shot up and I’ve had to earth them up twice already – I’m near at the top of some of the bags/pots. Our squash (summer squash – courgettes/zucchini – and winter squash, butternut and pumpkins) are looking very healthy indeed, hence planting some of them out the other day. The cucumbers (particularly the first batch) are flowering, the buds forming on our rapini/broccoli raab and the achocha (achocha! *jazz hands*) are climbing their way up everything around them (again, hence planting some of those out before they ensnared the whole greenhouse).

But other things though are taking a lot longer to do anything. I’m genuinely shocked that we haven’t had any lettuce or salad leaves from the garden yet* – at this rate we might have potatoes before a head of lettuce – and as I lamented on Jono’s blog the other day, our radishes are pathetic (this isn’t a new thing, they always seem to stagnate for some reason). Our leeks shot up but don’t seem to have done anything for the last fortnight (I know they’re slow growing but they seem like they’ve stopped growing…). Everything’s growing in decent compost and I don’t think it’s a case of overcrowding/too small growing space for any of those things but I’m going to pot on the leeks just in case and I’ve started more salad in new pots, sown incredibly thinly, just in case that is the problem.

How does your garden grow? Is your growing on track for this year?

* We did buy some growing salad trays from the supermarket a month or so ago, and have been regularly pillaging them for cut-and-come-again leaves but we’ve really just been keeping them alive rather than growing-growing them.