The Frantic Gardeners’ Blog

half onions harvested, nust do the rest!

the plum/cherry things are indeed cherry plums, and what we got of them was very nice - luckilly put some inf reezer for chutney making, as came back after a week away to find tre stripped bare!

blackberries being harvested at the moment, figs hopefully nearly ready.

on the veg front, some of the sweetcorn, but not popcorn, courgettes, french beans, toms. Must look and see what’s happening to potatoes.

brassica’s not too decimated, but if still here next year, will invest in netting.

Have been doing both really. the thoughts of being made redundant seem to have frozen me in many ways at the moment, so thought a bit of gardening therapy might be in order.

So, whilst i drink my medicinal glass of red wine, I’ll blog.

My elder girl and I planted out the remaining brassicas and florence fennel - at 5 she is getting the hang of planting out, though I usually say a brief prayer to Demeter that the plants aren’t too gentle minded. We also planted out 2 extremely tall sunflowers.

We took this opportunity to do a fair bit of weeding and hoeing - another prayer to Demeter that the onions will have some roots left!

finally we came in and gave all the aubergines and most of the peppers their last potting on. No prayers needed here as she is most skillful. they both have flowers, so will hopefully fruit at sometime. chris can do the final tomatoes.
Our cucurbits still all have male fowers only - sigh. Hopefully they will catch up soon. Some peas have germinated in the trench of doom - so will hopefully do better than their dessicated predecessors, and we may have a late pea harvest after all. The broad beans continue to be harvestable.
When we’ve weeded the other onion/garlic bed enough so they are visible, I am hoping that the garlic will nearly be ready to harvest.

This weekend we will try and do some more weeding etc. If time, I will look at packets to see if anything apart from salads worth sowing at this time - ? leeks??

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!

Where is that work life balance when you need it?

The weeds have romped away, and today we have both made huge inroads in them.

The strawberry plants all got planted asap! and the brassicas are all in - however, haven’t made any later sowings. [well, wehn you’re not getting your planting done, you do have t break until thats sorted!]

plan tomorrow to finally put potatoes in [arrgh, yes I know!] and also the sweetcorn and squashes, beans and peas that are all leggy, and hope they do OK. well, the sweetcorn and squash should be fine.

toms, peppers and aubergines all need to go into final pots.

when this is done, will finally sow some of the ’sequential sowings’ that I’m not too late for.

So far, harvested asparagus [yum!] and radishes. The broad beans are tall and handsome, with lovely flowers, but nary a pod ready yet.