Fruits of our labour.

I've really noticed these past few weeks how the evenings are drawing in. To think, this time last month, I would have still been pottering in the garden at this time. No chance of that now unless we get some floodlights.

At least it's gloriously warm at the moment, though we did have a few chilly nights towards the end of last week.
 I have now taken to zipping up the grow houses at night, one zip for a mild night and both zips when there's a chill in the air.

I've invested in a cheap thermometer (99p from Tescos) and popped that in the grow house so I have one eye on that and the other eye on the weather.

In this growhouse I am growing pea shoots for salads, a salad mix, a stir fry salad mix and some radishes. I am also playing nursemaid to 72 plug perennial plants for friends who I am trying to help with their garden. And finally, I'm trying to grow some bay from cuttings from our tree.

It is nice that even though things are winding down I've got a nice full growhouse.

Some of the tomato plants have been looking a tad shabby and showing signs of blight really taking hold. The blight has been slow to develop, mainly black patches on stems. Now the odd tomato are showing signs of blight.

I've stripped a few plants of tomatoes, whether ripe or not, and cut back a fair bit. There are still 4 plants that are showing warning signs and somehow the two plants in one of the beds by the back wall have no sign of blight whatsoever. I count myself lucky.

So tonight, there is a large pot of green tomato chutney bubbling away down stairs and we are well stocked for chutney for the foreseeable future.

I must also mention that I haven't needed to buy any tomatoes for about a month now and if the blight doesn't take hold I could have another 2-3 weeks of tomaotes from what I think of as my outdoor larder.

Yesterday Leah picked one of her corn.

Her face says it all really.

I let her pick it and strip it. She loved it!

Okay, so it could have probably done with a few days more but we cooked it and it was the sweetest, tastiest corn I've ever had (and we all had a taste). Sweetcorn is a must for growing next year!

I'm learning that a sense of humour is essential for gardening.

This morning, Squirrel had been back. With avengence.

When I saw this I just laughed, thankfully it was the sweetcorn that was mini. It made me laugh because it looked like he really went ballistic over it. 

We have now netted up Leah's corn. We are taking no risks there.

My chutney is almost done and I need to sterilise my jam jar lids so I'll finish up here.

Good night.

x

 

In my happy place.

It has been a busy couple of weeks and moments in the garden have been few and far between.

We just had a lovely week with my nephew staying with us and I had little time and no energy left at the end of the day.

Yesterday I was feeling a great need to detach from everyone and just be in the garden. Sometimes I'm not so good with people.

Today I was so thankful to finally get a few hours on my own to potter and catch up on some areas that needed my attention.

My second year of trying to grow a pumpkins and another fail.

I finally made the decision to cut it back and pull it up which meant I could prepare that small area to plant up some strawberry plants in a few weeks.

I topped up the soil with compost and organic manure and covered it with wire mesh to make sure the cat doesn't use it as a toilet.

There was a nice surprise, despite the plant seemingly putting out male and female flowers at completely different times the squash has two apparently viable fruit!

How and when it happened, I couldn't tell you but I'm not knocking it!

My one good aubergine is still hanging in there.

The two plants I have keep putting out flowers. I gave one long enough to see what would happen.

This seems to have rotted on the plant, as some of you have warned me of.

I'm now chopping back leaves to give this precious aubergine all the help I can give it.

I'm getting to the point where plants that have passed their best or done their job are being composted so I can allocate their space to something else, no room for sentimentality in this garden!

Big banana pepper

My peppers have really started to give me lots of fruits, at this late stage, I'd be very surprise is we get anywhere beyond green. Fortunately, they are all in pots so I can bring them inside if necessary and try and ripen them on a sunny windowsill.

There will be plenty more to do over the coming days and weeks and I'm rubbing my soil ingrained hands with glee at the thought of it.

x

A happy ending.

Coming back off our holiday, I had never imagined that the garden wouldn't get watered.

The whys and wherefores don't matter, it just didn't get watered.

When we got home and I saw the state of the plants I just felt gutted.

Instead of a lovely bulbed fennel, it's tall and flowering.

I think the romanescu broccoli has bolted, either way it doesn't look good. The other broccoli looks terrible only the kale is passable.

My poor strawberries!

I think the rudbeckia affected me the most, it was just so sad to see it all dried out and the flowers all withered.

Everything in the garden was drooping or looked like it was barely clinging to life.

Not to be dramatic but I saw it and just wanted to cry.

Today was a new day.

This morning, we passed by the post office to collect a parcel that couldn't be delivered while we were away.

I had no idea what it was going to be.

This is what it was.

You could have knocked me down with a feather.

I had entered a competition on Waterstones website back in February and I won second prize.

I waited  for weeks and then months and nothing came. I sent an email  reminder 6 weeks ago with little hope.

So it came and though they don't send out the plug plants until April, it made me feel a whole lot better.

Great timing!

I doubt very much that I will use this many plants, I will find homes for many by sharing them around.

I like growing from seed myself and I have plenty of seeds.

Still, it's something to look forward to.

We did have a nice harvest of tomatoes after such a hot week.

With so many and more almost ripe,  I decided to turn them into sauce.
The question was, which recipe do I use?
A year or two ago, I tried a Jamie Oliver recipe which turned out strong on vinegar or maybe I just didn't cook it down enough.
I don't want to replicate Heinz ketchup. Homemade is good.  I'm happy to go rustic.
I just want to use the tomatoes in a tasty way and not waste them.

I went for a recipe from Tomasina Meier's book.

It seems tasty enough but will leave it a week or so to mature a bit.

Gardening can be about highs and lows but it sure isn't dull.

x

A week is a long time in gardening...

We've just got back from a wonderful week in Cornwall.

We left the cat and the garden in someone's care and things just didn't work out as I'd hoped.

Things aren't great in the garden, but I'm sure they could be worse.

I'm not going to go over my losses now, I'm going to sleep on it and give it a day or two. You never know, a few days of TLC, plenty of rain and things may not be as bad as they seem at the moment (fingers and toes crossed!).

I'll let you know in a day or two.

I do feel very lucky to have spent the past week in a lovely place, with my lovely family.

We stayed in the most stunning cottage near Liskeard, in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by farmland.

A little house with a stable door!

 I could barely contain myself when I saw this and this was the view from our back door.

Lavender Cottage was the name of ours.

I really do feel blessed to have spent time pretending to own this amazing garden. To me, it was the stuff of dreams.

I also managed to persuade everyone we should go to the Eden Project.

Their veg is an inspiration.



And what I loved the most was just before we sat down to have our picnic, I was admiring some veg and herbs and one of the staff said "please, help yourself. Have anything you like to go with your lunch"

Even Dave was bowled over by the idea of being free to just help yourself.

Such an amazing place.

This was something that struck me.

A wonderful week but great to be back to my garden, just hoping it is forgiving.

x

Gathering seeds.

I absolutely love alliums. I am smitten.

I left them to go to seed and they really are the gift that keeps on giving.

Gardening really has turned my head. I wouldn't consider myself a wasteful person but since I'm taking my garden a bit more seriously, I don't like to waste anything.

Yes I have allium bulbs on order and to grow alliums from seed takes a good while from what I understand but still I found myself popping a brown paper bag on the seed head (like I've seen Carol Klein do on Gardeners World).

I cut the stem and then shook out as many seeds as I could.

I gathered the seeds in a small envelope for future use and I've sown three seeds for a start and popped them in the cold frame.

I shall just wait and see.

I've also got some coriander that has gone to seed and I'm thinking I will gather it either for sowing or cooking, either way they will be put to good use.

Six months ago I would not have even considered doing this, yes gardening does change you.

And finally, just wanted to share a couple of pictures. I went with the kids to visit family in Ruislip. A trip to the park and we came across several areas where they were growing wild flowers.

Just lovely.

x

Ups and downs

Things have been ticking along nicely on the whole.

The blight that has been threatening for weeks has not taken hold and we are enjoying a slow but steady and very tasty supply of tomatoes.

We've had not a lot of luck with the radishes, after our first harvest we've only had one or two that have actually swelled up. On the whole they have just stayed thin.

My last sewing of peas has developed mildew.

As there was only one pod and no flowers I pulled it up, I have some mangetout seedlings in the same bed so I wanted to avoid it spreading.

Leah's corn has been one of this year's success stories.

These are mine.

They are mini! They're not meant to be. They are doing everything that Leah's corn has done, just on a much smaller scale!

Still, if they produce and it's tasty then that is all that matters really.

After the disaster of mistakenly chopping off my two viable pumpkins I've been waiting and hoping.

There have been male and female flowers just not at the same time.

It's so disappointing to watch a female pumpkin or squash whither and drop off because it never had the chance to get pollinated.

I've decided to give them a couple of weeks and if nothing happens I shall pull them up.

This bed, I plan to sow with green manure. It needs a rest as it had broccoli and kale previously so in the interest of crop rotation to prevent any nasties lingering in the soil I'm going to let this bed rest over the autumn/winter.

And here is the promise of some broccoli romanescu.

The cosmos and my trusty perennials have been wonderful this year.

When I'm standing at my kitchen sink washing up, it really is a joy to look out the window and know that I played a part in making this happen.

x

Caterpillars!

Maybe once a week, I have to rescue butterflies from the grow house who have been after my young cavolo de nero plants. I had left them unchecked for a few weeks, which of course is a big mistake.

Yes, the result of my neglect. Leaves with great holes and others stripped bear. Your basic caterpillar attack. Decisive action needed. I used this as an opportunity to re pot the plants as they clearly needed it so took out all the plants and brushed off the eggs and because I'm not completely heartless, I re homed the caterpillars to leaves on the tree.

This was a relatively small one. I picked a massive one off my broccoli, popped it on a leaf, watched it for a little while and then it did a poo which I was quite impressed by.

Next on the agenda was to make the grow house butterfly proof.

It's surprising how useful clothes pegs are in gardening. Two layers of netting, if any butterflies get in I will be mightily impressed.

Have an immense sense of pride over my aubergine.

I hope I haven't jinxed it by saying that.

And finally my lilllies are looking amazing....

in the rain.

x