Autumn update

It's been a long time since I last posted. Not sure why - I guess I just harvested everything and now I'm letting the garden do it's own thing. I think I had a successful harvest on the whole. I got a bit fed up with the potato plants taking over the garden so I cut them down last month. This meant I had to sacrifice having large maincrop potatoes, but I was sick of the site of the things in my garden. Potatoes are most definitely not on my list of things to grow next year. They are too cheap in the shops to be worth the hassle quite frankly and I want the space for some more unusual veggies.

I've been making a list of things to grow next year so will post it up here once I've finalised things a bit. I want to try some more unusual root vegetables like scorzonera and salsify. There's something called hamburg parsley too that I may have a go at. Anyway, I've already started things off for next year by planting some garlic bulbs. They are showing through already as are some iris bulbs I planted at the same time (a few weeks back). I'm wondering if I planted my spring bulbs a bit too early as it's still pretty mild here. If they start showing through now I'm a bit worried that the early frosts, whenever they come, will kill things off and they won't come back in the spring. Anyway, I've planted a shed load of bulbs and only one or two are starting to show through so I'm not worrying yet. Again I'll post a list of my spring bulbs soon.

So I've done pretty much all my harvesting. My biggest failure was probably my squash, which is unfortunate as I love the stuff. Nevermind, they take over the garden anyway so I'll be pulling up the remains of the plants this weekend and tidying up a bit. I've had a couple of squashes from my plants but that's it really and none of my butternut squash survived. All the small squashes went rotten on me.

Had a better luck with my sweet peppers which were a dream. I still have a few left and I've certainly got plenty of parsnips, the first of which I picked last weekend for the Sunday roast. Unfortunately, I was on the phone for ages on Sunday night and overcooked them a bit so they were pretty chewy. Oh well, better luck next Sunday!

So it's time to start prepping for next year now. I need to tidy up the beds and pull out any remaining plants and roots then it's time for a good dig, if it stops raining for long enough. On the flower front, I've still got lots of plants in bloom. My geraniums are still going mad and I've got chrysanths and passiflora going strong. My virginia creeper is starting to turn a gorgeous shade of red, which I know will look stunning in a couple of week's time. The passiflora is taking over though and spreading into next door so it'll be out with the secateurs on Saturday.

So, expect to see some plans for next year over the coming weeks. I'm off to read my Gardener's World to find some inspiration. Happy digging...

Christine's column

Something that Christine wrote for the site back in July:

By Christine:

Now that the veggies have started harvesting I have fervently embarked on the quality control part of the project. Melanie has gone to a lot of trouble preparing wonderful dishes from the fruits (and veggies) of her labours. Here are some of her tasty offerings - some of them I make too!

The plump yellow courgettes work best slightly grilled, then marinated in orange zest, oil and pepper. This was delicious, surprisingly, as courgette can be quite bland, a little hit and miss. And we did get rather a lot of the things with our veggie order this year. But these fabulous yellow courgettes are sweeter than the green ones and make any dish look quite dramatic. Perfect with pine nuts, citrus juices, even served with other roast vegetables and pasta especially tagliatelle and chicken. Yum!

I have been raving about the sugar snaps for a while now and taking them in my lunchbox, sometimes on their own, or with nuts, cheese or even slices of ham. They are really sweet and moist, absolutely perfect as a healthy snack. I much prefer them raw to cooked, but if we cook them we just lightly steam them. They will go with anything really, but perfect in salads. Maybe serve with some pancetta and new potatoes too.

The tatties have real flavour but Mel did complain that some of them were a bit on the bitter side. I didnt agree, they are perfect with a little butter and parsley, or tossed in some grainy mustard with black pepper. We have eaten them with meat, fish or in salads. Or bacon. Or one of my faves - on their own with butter and black pepper!!

The lettuce is really tasty and delicate, not too chewy, stringy or peppery - nothing worse than overpowering lettuce! They have worked perfectly with different salads of cheese, bacon, even Mel's speciality of poached egg and trout on a bed of lettuce is delicious with this garden lettuce.

Im keen to try the gooseberries next especially in a crumble. I must admit at first I didnt think they tasted of very much but now they are picked, a box of them are soaking up the sunshine to "bring them on". Hope that wont take too long, and we can put some recipes up here soon!

More courgettes, sugar snaps and French beans

On the harvesting front, I've had a couple more courgettes. The most recent one was huge and is sitting in the fridge ready to be eaten tonight. Unfortunately, one of the plants appears to be dying off now, although there's one more courgette that's getting bigger. The other plant has two courgettes on but something has tried to eat them so not sure if they will survive.

I've now harvested all my sugar snaps and frozen the ones I couldn't eat. I had a pretty big crop and hoping that the frozen ones will keep okay. I pulled up the plants so that I can get to my dwarf French beans more easily. Have harvested some of the beans already and they were yummy but hopefully plenty more to come yet.

It's nearly time to pull up my Charlotte potatoes (will prob do it on Wed night) and harvest the first of my tomato crop. I noticed that a few toms were ripening nicely over the weekend. Both my Gardener's Delight and Brandywine are thriving and I've had no problems so far with bugs, touch wood. Have been feeding every few days with New Horizon organic tomato feed and spraying intermittently with Growing Success bug killer (also organic). Will definitely be trying some more mediterranean varieties of tom next year as even the indoor variety I've grown has been thriving outside in my thriving garden.

My squash plants are coming on a treat but are taking over the garden. In an attempt to get them under control yesterday, I wound the stalks around each other, but I don't think it will last. On the plus side, I already have two buttercup squashes coming on strong, with some more female flowers just waiting to be pollinated. They look amazing so am hoping all goes according to plan and they survive.

July photos Part 4: Kitties

Finally, here are a few kitty pics:

July photos Part 3: Veggie update

Here are some piccies of veggies that I have growing at the moment. Lots of courgettes, lettuce, rocket, peas and tomatoes, but also the first signs of squash - my favourite.

July photos Part 2: Flowers

These ones are of plants that are now in bloom.

July photos Part 1: Harvest

Here are my July photos. First up are some piccies of my first harvest! How proud am I?

Summer and autumn colour

The non-veg side of things in the garden needs a bit of attention as there isn't a huge amount of colour at the moment. I'm currently scouring the August edition of Gardener's World to get some ideas for new plants but in the meantime, I've found this thread on the Grapevine forum too. Here's a list of recommended plants for summer and autumn colour:

Rudbeckia (an orange one would be good; long lasting)
Love Lies Bleeding (long red tassles; long lasting)
Dahlia (flower until first frosts)
Crocosmia (flowers late summer)
Sidalcea (flowers late and lasts a long time)
Asters (come really late)

Summer into autumn colour - perennials:

Achillea
Echinacea
Helenium
Salvia
Cosmos
Sedum
Lavender
Penstemon
Scabious

Looks like it's off to the garden centre this weekend to see what they've got!

Harvest Time

Finally, I get to make a post about harvesting! Had my first pickings this weekend - the fun part begins.

I harvested my first early potatoes and have been trying those. They taste pretty good although slightly bitter. Not sure if it's the potatoes or the mint, which wasn't in the best condition. Anyway, I'm going to do some more tonight so hopefully they will be better. I didn't get a huge crop, but it was big enough and hey, who needs heaps of potatoes in the middle of a heatwave anyway. The first lot I did with creme fraiche and mint, but will be trying some tonight with bacon and oil; hopefully they'll be a bit sweeter in that combination. It was a proud moment when I came in with my bowl of spuds to show Christine that all the months of old compost bags and straggly growth had been worth it. Still not sure she's convinced to be honest ;-).

Next, I pulled up a carrot or two. As expected, they had forked badly because the soil is much too rich. Must add sand next year. Anyway, the carrot I pulled up was about an inch long and was quite rounded. It tasted delicious and I think they'll be perfect for salads so I'm not really bothered about the forking. It was the sweetest carrot I'd ever tasted and that's all that matters. I've also got lots of sugar snaps, which taste fab when eaten straight from the plant. Like the carrots, they are very sweet and crunchy and I'll have enough for plenty of salads. The peas and beans are by far the most attractive veg plants I have - pretty flowers and lovely leaf growth, definitely worth doing.

Having dug up my first earlies, I had room to move my tomato plants to the side so you can actually walk but the steps without being attacked now. I have little green tomatoes on most of my plants now with one or two producing Brandywine beefsteak tomatoes. The Brandywine were supposed to be grown in the greenhouse but due to mislabelling I ended up putting them outside. Nevertheless, they seem to be fruiting okay and of course, I can tell them apart now they have tomatoes on!

Elsewhere, I have gooseberries that are just starting to turn red so waiting to pick them for a pie. My apple tree now only has two apples left on it as Mother Nature has seen to the rest. Anyway, you aren't supposed to grow more than six in the first year so hopefully it'll do the tree good. In the squash patch, the plants are going beserk. After I'd planted I read that they grow really big and it wasn't a joke - they are huge. Bit worrying really but as I love squash, I'll stick with it.

In the flower dept, my nasturtiums are huge and taking over the back of the garden - didn't realise climbing nasturtiums could be so huge. My parents have some lovely little ones in hanging baskets so think I'll steal some of their seeds for next year. My Clematis Niobe has flowered and gone unfortunately. It was stunning but the 30 degree+ heat of yesterday finished it off so it looks like that might be it for this year. Not to worry as I have a Grandiflora which should flower next month and my passion flower is just coming into flower to make up for it.

Will be posting again in the next day or two, mainly lists of things to do and buy and maybe some piccies of those giant nasturtiums and squash plants.

May pictures: part two

Some more piccies:

June update 1: Some May pictures

Can't believe it's been a month since my last post. Must get my act together. Anyway, I'll start with some old pictures I've been meaning to put up for ages. These were taken before our cat, Edsie was hit by a car. He's still with us but is now paraplegic so we are learning to live with all the difficulties that brings. It's a bit sad to be looking at piccies of him before the accident, but he looks so gorgeous on them that I have to put them up. There are also some house piccies too, although we've done a bit more work since then - painted the bedroom, hall/stairs/landing and the fireplace wall in the lounge.








More to come in next post...

Potting on and progress

Here's an end of month update on progress in the garden. Let's start with the spuds which seem to be taking over the garden. Christine keeps asking me when the garden will stop looking like a jungle and I must admit, it's hard to walk round without being attached by huge stems and leaves. I rooted out a few Duke of Yorks from one of the bags on Sunday but when I cooked them they were still quite raw and not at all fluffy. It's like they are a bit veiny and haven't properly developed yet. Having said that, they still need another five weeks so I was jumping the gun a bit and being impatient!

I've now potted on all my tomato plants. I had to throw a few in the compost bin as I have about 15 and don't have room for any more now. I was quite sad to see them go but it was getting a bit ridiculous and I've bought so many 12" tubs in the past month it's unreal. All the toms are now outside as I no longer had room in the mini greenhouse. They are coming on fine, although I'm a bit worried I put them out too early. Hopefully, it won't stunt their growth too much. I have now trained them all up bamboo sticks so there's nothing more to do with them now until I (hopefully) start to see the fruits of my labours.

In the greenhouse, all that's left are two pepper plants and some herbs that have just germinated. It looks quite bare in there now - will have to think of what else I can grow! On the herb front, I have three basil plants going well, which I've just put outside and another one on the windowsill that needs separating into three different plants - enough to keep me going until the end of the growing season I think :-).

Planted out my sweet peas, which I will be training up bamboo sticks alongside my peas and beans. Both peas and beans are doing well, despite the attempts by our cat, Margot, to use their plot as a toilet. I got some lovely surprises when I put my hand in the soil the other day to plant the sweet peas :-o. The peas and beans aren't quite big enough to train up the poles yet, but are getting there. In the next bed, I thinned out some squash plants, just leaving the strongest ones to grow on.

Purchases this weekend included a couple of lovely plants whose names I have forgotten (piccies to come though) and an Acer with gorgeous red leaves. Apparently, the leaves are bright red in spring, deep red in summer and crimson in autumn. It's only fairly small and cost £30 but the garden centre had a bigger on at £100 - wonder how long it will take to grow to that size. Anyway, we've put it out on the porch at the front along with my exciting new tree that I've been itching to get for the past few months...

I am now the proud owner of a 'James Grieve' Coronet apple tree. I was thrilled with this purchase as I've been eyeing them up ever since seeing them in a magazine a while back. It's the perfect size for the porch and already has some little apples coming on it. It crops in September and the apples will keep until December. They say you are only supposed to let it grow 6 apples in the first year, but don't know if I'll be able to stick to that - will have to read the instructions and see how vital that is. I wanted to get a self-fertile one but I've struggled to find one that was a Coronet (dwarf). Anyway, the 'James Grieve' has apples now on it so I'm guessing that it has been polinated ;-). Not sure what I'll do next year - buy another one I guess - maybe a Cox's Orange Pippin or Egremont Russet. Then I'll just have to decide where to put the thing.

A few more things I forgot to mention, I sewed some rocket and cress that I bought. Used some lettuce I'd grown in a salad last night and also some spinach in a salmon and spinach lasagne - the first fruits of my labours, which was very exciting. I know it's only salad leaves but hopefully there will be much more to come soon!