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 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.

Garden Diary January

I have not been doing my monthly garden diary, as there is really not much going on, and it has been a bit wet to even get out. 

But today we went out to plant three blackcurrant roots which I had ordered online, and then had a bit of a chop at some of the brambles. I then noticed that there is still hope for the broccoli. Each plant now has the beginning of a purple head, so perhaps we will get a broccoli crop. 

Another of the plants that I had nearly given up on, as I could see the caterpillars chomping through the leaves, but somehow once they have got to a certain size, and left to their own devices they seem to have made it.

Not much on the knitting or crochet front, but I have some wool on order, so perhaps I will have something to show soon.

 

Just a reminder that you can still join in my Ginx Woolly Linx party for January. I would love to see what you have been working on.