The Frantic Gardeners’ Blog

yes, this is our major harvest/glut. we are freezing some so that at some point i can pull out and make jam or smoothies! yes - the 4 of us can’t keep up. the peas are plumping up, by the end of next week we will be harvesting those! i spy baby courgettes as well.

i think this is the most organised this garden has been since we moved here. i must add some piccies into this blog. certainly the investment in mulch and clearing has worked, and i am trying to regularly hoe. i have also been pruning the bay and yews - well, starting anyway.

it is clear that we need to put bed structure in though, so that we don’t compact growing areas.

sadly, a plum minarette appears to be dying. it is dying back from the top and growing brown. no idea why?

must add some photos at some point to this blog.

today i have planted out into the veg bed the first sowing of celebration peas. [the endeavour have been composted] also the broc early red and cauli autumn giant. they are watered in nicely [waterbut] and environmeshed over, otherwise we have a plague of caterpillars. the peas also environmeshed as last time we had pea thrips. hopefully this will help.

to help me get to the veg, DH has been hacking away at one of the fabulous shaped yews. it feels sad and a bit of a desecration, but it is too big. they should shoot well from the woody bits, so we will have it as perhaps a simpler cylinder.

i am going to use the last of my compost now to pot on a few more toms.

we have some early cherries on the cherry minarette, and loads and loads of blossom on the apple minarettes, so hoping for a good crop. the strawbs are in full flower and looking v healthy, and all the bush fruit has settled. one of the raspberry canes appears to be doing nothing though.

But not been entirely idle on the gardening front!

Seeds - the artichoke, sunflowers, indoor broad beans [now being experimented upon!] have all germinated , also the yellow tomatoes ilidi. i have sown peas endeavour and celebration today, some sweet peas and yard long beans.

outside - the fruit bed is all nicely weeded, the minarette trees trained, fed and pruned. [as an aside, i am never getting minarettes again, it is a big fib that they don’t need pruning and training! should have just got a cordon and been done with it!, at least they were part of an offer, though as 4 out of 10 died, still not entirely impressed] . the beginings of the industrial raspberry support has been done. this was less than planned, as i was also goldilocks to the children’s improvised 3 bears story, plated hide and seek, chased all spiders out of their den…

outside - the veg bed is all safely under that permeable plastic mulch awaiting using time. All the winds blew it around, so now it is truly fixed down. the broad beans and carrots not germinated yet.

wildlife - the birds def liking the new birdfeeders! have seen goldfinches for the first time - yippee.

And what a rainy while it has been too. The sweetcorn not looking too happy as a bit waterlogged.

beans and peas done really well. we have been harvesting loads of broad beans and strawberries. the french and runner beans are flowering. Soon we will harvest the first potatoes - lovely.

Florence fennel is bulbing up wonderfully, carrot tops looking healthy.

The greenhouse is luxurient too, with flowers on peppers and aubergines, and toms ripening.

Pears and plums and cherries ripening, and loads of grapes on the vine. Our weird red leaved ?wild plum type trees are full of sharp but edible fruit. lots of chutneys to make!

Still sad for the sweetcorn though.

well, we have managed to get some of the weeding done. the sweetcorn are being a bit wierd. The pollen bit is ready way before the cobs tassles are there to be pollinated, so not holding out a great deal of hope. none of the french beans in the 3 sisters bit seem to have germinatd [luckilly we have some elsewhere!] SOme baby squashlets, which I hope have time to grow.

At the entrance to the veg bed is a fig, which is covered in fruits - yummy!!

well, the peas did bite the dust while we were away - pretty much all of them - sigh! Weeds rampant [hmm, could be a heraldic badge for us] anyway, a stab at weeding and tidying up a bit. the apple trees are also all totally infested with a number of different aphid varieties - hosed them all off. They each have a couple of fruitlets. Also, the minarettes have had a good soaking, as this years trees and been a bit dry. One strawberry plant has died, the rest going strong and fruitlets appearing.

We are harvesting broadbeans and some wok brok at the mo [though not much of that] and made my husband laugh with my excitement at one asparagus pea! I am amazed at how well the lettuces are doing, as in leeds the slugs decimated them overnight.

It seems to me that our biggest problem here is weeds. They really are hugely rampant. you hoe and every millimeter sprouts again. instantly. never seen anything quite like it. not helped by us being frantic rather than leisurely gardeners.

I think over the winter we may bed down as it were, with manure and cardboard on top, only removing to plant. If we have the finances, i will plant through that gardening brown paper and mulch with whatever on top, to try and minimize things. if not, will just go for spaced row planting, as opposed to my equidistant, as will be FAR easier to hoe!

why is it that weeds grow so well and so fast???

well, yes, I know, its cos they are best adapted to our particular soil and microclimate, whereas our crops aren’t, and need some care and attention. And yes, i know that nettles are techniaclly edible, but TBH, I think I’ll wait until I have a food crisis to eat them, and instead use them to make feeds for the plants.

chris has done sterling work, and re-cleared half the veg patch [photos tomorrow] aidded by the fact that alot of it was under cardboard for most of this year, so nothing had too good a toehold. even so, it was a hard and long task - he deserves a beer!

into part of this I have nearly finished planting out the sweetcorn. All the pumpkins are out, most of the festival squash are out. Remeber the billion butternut squashes my daughter sowed? well they got left out at our party when I gave over half away, and ibetween floods and cold, are all dead - sigh! however, a few seem to have sprung up with the peppers, so i will tease some of those out and see if they catch up nicely. just the courgettes then. oh, these are being planted 3-sisters style - though will have to quickly sow some french beans to go with them
Well, all the peas and beans tomorrow and potatoes! Then, we will be planted out, and just the sowing of lots more peas and beans [particularly beans], whatever we have time for a second of and salad crops to do. Oh and the potting up.

Oh why oh why did I let us get so far behind???

All the plantings could do with a drench of foliar feed, but its dark now, so will do that first thing.

I should have managed to do more today really!

I did, however, get the mangetout into the ground, with a very Heath-Robinson affair for them to grow up! Also, we have the first 3 spears of asparagus appearing!

mostly I dod lots of weeding and hoeing outside. One of the Minarettes has done absolutely nothing, so I will be asking Ken Muir for refund/replacement . All but one of the others has flowers though.

In the greenhouse i did lots of watering, got some seeds ready to sow [but didn’t] and got some toms ready to pot up [but didn’t]. Must do better! i have done a lot of playing with the girls though. I have enjoyed playing with the mosaic tool on flickr tool this evening!

so not a lot of gardening. Work went crazy [and still is] and the little beans [our kids] weren’t so well, SB in particular.

Today though, I was sooooo stresdsed by the time i returned from work, only cuddles with the girls and contact with the soil [and soon a glass of red wine] would do.

So on the veg plot front, the planted broad beans seem to be doing well. the mangetout are pretty much acclimatised, but since we are expecting a cooler bit at the end of the week, perhaps I’ll plant them out at the weekend. the weeds have also got going. SO now I’m debating whether a quick weed as i can’t see any carrot seedlings, though may decimate the radishes [but they were only in the drill for it to show up more quickly…].

on the fruit plot, the buds are coming on nicely, but not all our minarettes are planted - we had better get our skates on!

So into the propagatory. I potted up the rest of the tomatoes today. The potted aubergines are coming on nicely, and the peppers [though they aren’t ready yet for potting on. Sweetcorn germination has been overall poor - roughly 1/4 only. Was older seed, and have some this years for sowing next. Maybe should try chitting it? but not sure - maybe do an ‘experiment’ with my daughter. Speaking of experiments, the sunflowers in the large home made propagator germinated more quickly and better than those in a cheap electric one. the sprink onions have germinated well, and the leeks are just starting. The second sowing of artichokes also not germinating well. HMM! The caulis all came up, and all the salad leaves have. soon think of pricking them out to grow on. I always grow sacrifical spares, but when the time comes, my heart isn’t hard enough to not just ‘let them have a go!’
Amazingly, some of the asparagus seeds collected from the garden are also germinating - I had thought that would be a dead loss.

Today I sowed the cucurbits - I know, a bit early, but the conservatory is doing such a good job as a propagatory that I think its worth a show. So I sowed courgette gold rush, Squash Festival, and pumpkin Mars. i also sowed a tray of rootrainers with sweetcorn minipop - you know the one you are supposed to microwave to get popcorn. Should be nice.

No camera on me today - wil try and remedy that!

i think we will definitely try the North American 3 sisters thing with beans, sweetcorn and squashes and see how it goes. Probably in what will be half of the fruit bed next year.