26th September

I harvested 3 more courgettes today but they are getting small. They could have grown bigger but if I pick them now, there is a greater chance of any others developing to a half decent size. Back at home I folded down the swing that had become filthy with green mould and put that behind the shed. Both boys have grown out of it so it is semi-retired, on standby should we ever have another child and if we do, I hope they come armed with some good cleaning products.

 

I’ve had a few thoughts about the front garden, just planning for next year. I’m sure the transplanted fuchsias grew well and looked lovely, it’s just that we couldn’t see them for the huge saucepan lid leaves of the pumpkins. I’m thinking of a raised bed against the dividing wall with next doors’ garden and growing sweet peas, an acer in a tub, like the wooden one I’ve grown the salad leaves in this year, and some spring and maybe summer bulbs – maybe rings of different colours around the central fuchsia, with a line around the bay window wall. Perhaps some climbing plant in the far corner behind where I would put the acer in a tub. Just thoughts at the moment.

 

More than just thoughts are my thoughts for the back garden. Past the holly tree and sand pit is the lilac tree which needs continual pruning and is quite a congested area, although it does provide a dollop of shade in the summer once the sun has swung round past the holly, meaning we can still eat out without wilting. I was thinking that I could clear the ground of the lilac and plant a few young silver birch trees, and the area around can be sown with grass and under planted with bluebells. I see on ebay there is a private nursery offering 6ft birch trees for £7.99 each, or 3 for £14.99, sold as bare rooted tress, shipped out in early October. I wouldn’t want just one as it would be too bare, and the experts always say go with odd numbers when you are repeating features along a line of sight, so I would go for the 3. It would bring more light onto the lawn and help the grass to fare better where it gets the most trampling, give a feeling of more space as at person height there would just be trunks, and basically look great as I love birch trees. The only downside is the lack of shade for a year or 2 or maybe more depending on how fast they grow. Given the fact that should I buy them, they will be delivered soon, and I will have to do some major grounds clearance before that, I’ll have to make a decision fast.

 

27^th September
It was a beautifully hot day and we went to our 4 year old’s pre-school fete, although he is now at ‘big school’. After coming home mid afternoon, we had no further plans to be out and about, so it was on with the clear-up of the garden. I got a good deal of weeding done but a lot of the time was me playing with the boys and making a pretend fire with a contraption we made to dangle a cooking pot over said fire and the eldest boy cooking me an imaginary delightful and varied menu, all from one pot!

 

29^th September
The sweet peas were, I thought, trailing off in their rate of production but today I picked a good bunch for 2 vases for us, plus some for a small vase for my parents as part of a welcome home gift as they come back from nearly a month in the USA. So much for the impending autumn chill killing off the blooms. The bedding petunias have stopped, but the ones in the hanging baskets are still producing well, and not anywhere near a point where I am thinking whether to just get on and clear them. I have discovered there are actually 3 pumpkins in the front garden – it just gets better!

Next post: 3rd Oct

21st September

Well, I have done something the last week – picked a few courgettes and 2 batches of spinach, but admittedly, not a great deal. Yesterday was going to be different. I had great plans for tidying up the back garden. During the week I have been working on the concrete base for the play house and I finished it on Wednesday. Spurred on by the thought of future tidiness once the house is up and the toys are inside, I wanted to spruce up the garden and yesterday was going to be the day. My plans were a jolly good lawn mow as it has had none since we came back from holiday, a good weeding session all along the borders, a washing of the large containers, especially the ones that have had blight-ridden tomatoes growing in them, a washing of the toys that have laid out through a wet summer and are now sporting a slight green tinge of mould, a folding up and putting away (hidden behind the shed) of the children’s swing that both boys have now grown out of and various other tidy and clean-up jobs.

 

So what went wrong? Diarrhoea and vomiting. Oh wonderful. The eldest boy had it on Tuesday and went back to school on Friday just a few hours after my wife had it which in turn was 24 hours before it hit me. Saturday was spent remaining very still and lifeless with a throbbing headache and muscular aches and stiffness, adding to the ache of wanting to be out in the garden on a lovely warm, sunny and dry September day. So today, incidentally after the youngest was up 4 times in the night, not with the expected D&V but with a raging fever, I was bursting to do something outside so as said youngest got some fresh air. I cut down the Ailsa Craig tomato plant which has blight and counted 33 tomatoes that I had to throw away. Then I cut down the even more blighted cherry tomato plant with 249 tomatoes, again, all destined for the bin. On the plus side, I potted up 3 of the 4 fuchsia cuttings I took a few months ago that have rooted very well (the fourth one died), gave the pepper plants a good feed of the last of my home made nettle tea and then was able to put the nettles on the compost. I also cut a handful of sweet peas. They are still doing well, but you can tell by the amount I bring in that they are declining. I picked 3 more red peppers, but 2 of the yellow ones had rotted on the stem before ripening – perhaps I should have picked them much earlier and allowed them to ripen on the window sill.

 

 

In the front garden, the rogue tomatoes also have blight so that is absolutely nil fruit on the tomato front this year (the 1 saved from the last gathering became blighted), but I have found 2 decent sized pumpkins to add to the 6 growing at the allotment.

22^nd September

I gave the lawn a well overdue mow and a decent rake which produced a huge clump of dead grass and moss, and so I have begun the major tidy-up of the back garden.

 

23^rd September

I took the 4 year old to the allotment to harvest the pumpkins. He was quite excited by it all, especially when a train rolled past with lots of wagons. We also picked a cucumber which looks like being the last and 4 courgettes, likewise, probably the last although I live in hope. Of the pumpkins, the largest 2 were from the rogue plant from the compost whereas the others were shop bought seeds of the F1 type which should mean better yield. The 2 rogue pumpkins were 3.5 and 2 kg in weight, the rest being 1.3, 1.15, 0.8 and 0.65 kg so in all a 9.4 kg harvest, although still awaiting the 2 from the front garden. A lot of that weight will be rind and seeds though, but still, a good amount of pumpkin for roasting, pie and soup.

 

25^th September
I painted the concrete base for the playhouse with a sealant that will make it waterproof. I wouldn’t have bothered but my neighbour passed a huge can of sealant over the fence for me to use (well, as much as I needed anyway). Most of the concrete will be under cover once the house goes up.

Next post: 26th Sept

13th Sept

Well, I haven’t recorded much lately, because not much has happened, but also I have been waiting and watching the tomato plants. It became obvious a few days ago that all the turbo tomato plants had blight and the speed of withering has been surprising. Due to other things and heavy rain, it was not until this morning that I went out to fully assess the damage. One fruit was not blighted so I have put that to one side to see if it comes out. Today I counted 134 blighted tomatoes, most of them a really good size too, so that is 145 in total. Think what I could have done with 145 decent tomatoes (apart from eating them!). It is most disheartening. This is now 2 years running that I have suffered this – well, the plants suffered the blight, not me, but I trust my meaning is clear.

 
I put last year down to a one off bad summer, but the so-called climate experts say that we should expect warm wet summers as more of the norm, and shelling out £10 for 3 plants and seeing their complete harvest literally rot away on the vine is not my idea of time and money well spent. I have been thinking about the possibility of blight and what I would do in the future for a while now and have come to the conclusion that I will not bother with tomatoes next year. Without a greenhouse to protect them, it is not worth the risk. I may grow a cherry tomato plant in a hanging basket as my wife likes them, and I could just buy 1 plant from a nursery. If the summers do get drier again, and these last 2 years turn out to be a wet blip, then I will go for it again.

 
It is hardly horticulture, but I will mention that I spent a fair bit of time beginning to prepare the ground for putting a base down for a play house that the boys’ cousins have handed down to them. Although it will be a big lump in the garden, it will be a place where all their toys can be thrown into thus keeping the garden itself clear and tidy!

 
Later on I weeded the rockery and planted 2 of my lavender plants. I planted out Lavender ‘Blue Star’ towards the back on the right, and Lavender Augustifolia near the front. These two give the usual bush appearance that you see in Provence (or postcards from it in my case).

 
The sweet peas are still providing fantastic flowers. The lower leaves look worse for wear and have powdery mildew, but you wouldn’t believe that looking upwards (7 feet high in some instances), and looking at the higher leaves and the blooms you would not think that it is mid September and time to wind down. The rest of the garden is doing just that. The phlox is more powdery mildew than bloom and is ready to say ‘blow this for a game of soldiers’, the bedding petunias just look tired though not ill, and for some reason the chard which should over-winter with ease, look like annuals. The sweet peppers are still doing fine – I harvested another 3 the other day and 1 a few days before that.

 
I’m not saying that the plants in general look as though they have had a few weeks of autumn, but it just seems to me that they are on the point of turning. Maybe it is my interpretation of what I see. I feel I have come to the end of the productive part of the year. Even though I had high hopes for a good September, the rain of August has just continued on – until today when it felt like June again, so part of me is feeling like it is time to clear the ground and put down a winter mulch. I’m not willing on autumn – particularly with the increased heating costs we’ll have this year – it is simply that after seeing cauliflowers come to nothing, calabrese bolting before harvest, rocket unable to clear the launch pad, and caterpillars faring far more sumptuously on my brassicas than I will, I feel it is time to say ‘enough’, stop fighting the pests that I never had the equipment for, and clear up ready to try again next year, forewarned from having been there and suffered that, and thus being forearmed. I would love to see a swift end to the growing season of weeds so that I can clear the allotment, find enough wood to make raised beds, find money for poles and decent netting as well as a good wire mesh against the rabbits, and spend the winter in unhurried preparation for greater things next year. Raised beds will stop the surrounding weeds encroaching onto the plot, and I have a small supply of top soil from digging out the playhouse foundation, as well as from my brother-in-law who has cleared some land for a summer house.

 

This is not to say all has been lost. I have a good number of crown prince squashes and pumpkins ripening up, I am still harvesting courgettes – another 7 this week, as well as spinach, and the onions, although few and small, have been a good quality, and our 4 year olds’ cucumber plants have done him proud, and the peppers at home have been encouraging. Next year I will concentrate more on peppers than tomatoes. I also have some winter harvests to look forward to. There will be some leeks, a few Brussels sprout plants are doing OK, and I’m hoping that the sprouting broccoli will fight back a bit. So still there is hope, and I remain optimistic and know that I have learnt so much from doing and failing somewhat. Yesterday a seed catalogue came through the post with promises of great produce to work towards next year, and all of a sudden, one is thrust into a time of dreaming and planning and aspiring to succeed. Winter for the gardener is such a time.

 

Next post: 21st Sept

30th Aug - 4th Sept

The Pond at Hilliers Gardens

We returned home from a great holiday where we had good weather all week, unlike the rain and misery that the garden and allotment apparently had to endure. In a way, that was good for my plants as I feared they would have wilted. The garden looks good, the grass has grown well while we’ve been away, but the sweet peas are still flourishing, more roses are out, and more red peppers have ripened. The front garden is still a mass of pumpkin leaves but I have not seen much fruit. There is a noticeable difference in the basil plants, some stems seem gearing up to set seed, and they look jaded.

 

1^st September

I went to the allotment and harvested 13 courgettes, and a batch of spinach and 2 good sized cucumbers. Unfortunately the sprouting broccoli was much the worse for wear, either from slug or caterpillar damage. It really has been a false economy to do without a decent netting system, although after all the other expenses, it would have been pushing finances to buy netting.

 

2^nd September

I thinned out the chardonnay carrots growing in the tub in the garden. Most are really small but I ended up with a double handful of carrots ideal for putting in a stew or casserole. In the time left, I doubt if I will get many large carrots, but there will be at least the same again, and almost definitely more.

I examined the turbo tomato plants, and sadly, one definitely has blight. To be honest, the 4-5 weeks of weather ranging from damp to wet told me that it was nigh-on impossible to resist it. Although there was a large degree of inevitability in it, it still is a kick in the teeth, especially considering these plants cost £10 for 3. I harvested the tomatoes, one vine being destined for the fire contained 11 fruits – of a good size too. Three other vines do not yet show signs of blight but you must allow time to see if it will develop so that you know if it is safe to eat. That is what I did last year and quite a few tomatoes came out blighted, but a good proportion ripened and showed no ill effects and we ate them without us developing any ill effects.

 

3^rd September
Two more courgettes from the allotment, plus some spinach and calabrese. Don’t get excited. The calabrese that a few weeks ago showed good promise, had bolted while we were away, and so I now had many, many small clumps of calabrese on the ends of many, many stalks. I set to with a pair of scissors and harvested a bowlful. Hardly the sort of thing to boil or steam and serve with a roast but at least it could be included in a stew or soup. I probably had about 3 clumps of it. At last I was able to pick some rocket. Only about a thick handful from all the plants combined, but a good taste.

For dinner, as a side dish, we had spinach, washed and torn up, cooked with butter and garlic in a covered saucepan for a few minutes – wonderful.

 

4^th September
No gardening work today but my wife made a beef casserole that included basil, onions, courgettes, carrots and red peppers, all home grown – great!

Next post: 13th Sept

25th August - Celebration of Summer

Time to sit back and enjoy the garden

(some pics from Hilliers Gardens)

 

 

Next post: 30th Aug

18th - 22nd August

Last week was a complete washout. On Monday I had a dizzy and fuzzy head all day that worsened through nausea and one of my trademark thumping headaches (I don’t get them a lot, but they tend to accompany any virus I have. By Tuesday I was in the throes of diarrhoea and feeling sure I would be vomiting. So that was 2 days in bed followed by not feeling great until yesterday. Bending over made my head go funny as did any exertion, so no gardening. I did harvest some courgettes on Thursday as well as some salad leaves, spinach and a large cucumber. Today I harvested 12 more courgettes and made recipe number one from my book ‘What Will I Do With All These Courgettes’ – a simple soup that only used up one courgette, albeit one that weighed a pound. It also called for an onion, chicken stock, pepper, rosemary and oregano and the ease of it is that you just put all the ingredients in a pan, heat to boiling then simmer for 20 minutes then blend and serve or store. I had a taste before freezing it and was very impressed. We also have 6 sweet peppers on the window sill in the final stages of ripening. I figured that if I pick them, then the plants can put energy into making more. We used one of them in our dinner tonight and it is the first home grown pepper I have ever had, and I could certainly taste the difference even in the overall flavour of the dish.

 As I was washing up I saw the sprouting broccoli on the garden table and remembered that I really must plant that out soon. We go on holiday for a week on Saturday and they will be better off in the ground. I had completely forgotten them over the last week. My sage and oregano still sits in pots on the table as well. I fear the slugs having a feast if I plant them out.

The flowers in the garden still look great and we have had 2 roses in bloom again the last 2 weeks. The tomatoes are doing well but all fruit are still green. We have had an almost total lack of hot sunny days this month (maybe the forecasters were right about August after all) and so ripening has not begun. A small dream of mine is to return from holiday to find the plants sparkling with juicy, red, ripe tomatoes. They’d better get a move on as after our holiday it becomes September very quickly.

 

 

19^th August

I had borrowed some electric hedge clippers from my Dad a few weeks ago and not yet got around to trimming the privet hedge with them due to time and the weather. Yesterday he called to ask for them back as he was borrowing them from someone else too. So after work I set about attacking our overgrown hedge. I was ably assisted by my 2 hedge clipping protégées and in between heavy showers we accomplished the task both on our side and our neighbours and made a huge sprawling pile of green waste.

 

 

20^th August

I made a visit to the allotment and weeded sections 2, 3 and 4 of all the milk thistles and whatever else was easy to grab in a hurry. I gave the last section a quick hoe then placed down the black weed suppressing membrane and held it down with a few thick wooden batons that I have been acquiring from the skip at work. I checked the rocket protected under fleece within the chipboard frames. I don’t recall rocket being an expensive item in restaurants but if it is, I’m not surprised due to the slow growing nature of mine. I found another crown prince squash growing under the rapidly advancing foliage. Maybe I should just be a squash grower as the cucumber, crown prince, pumpkins, courgettes and last year, the butternut squash, all grow well with me – maybe it is my love of manure that helps. I could barter the surplus for other types of vegetables.

 

21^st August

Finally, I have planted the purple sprouting broccoli. I even had a few left over to plug the gaps left by 3 failed Brussels sprouts plants. Mind you, the replacement broccoli doesn’t look too vigorous. I harvested 2 fairly large cucumbers, 9 courgettes and a batch load of spinach. We go on holiday on Saturday for a week so I cut as much as I could.

Looking at some other plots it seems they have nearly finished for the year. So many people were growing large quantities of onions and potatoes that now they are dug up their plots look pretty vacant.

 

22^nd August
I chopped up and froze some basil into ice cubes for recipes after the season finishes. I also chopped and froze 3 red peppers and boy, are they different from the ones you buy in shops! They are a vibrant red, with very noticeable scent and the dark red juice that is left on your hands really tells you they are home grown and brimming with goodness.

Next post: 25th August

1st - 7th August

Well, the hot month is upon us and therefore it has gone dull and a little wet with promise of more rain over the weekend and into next week. I saw a newspaper headline that said the country was in for a month long soaking. This was taken with a huge pinch of salt due to recent experience of this type of shock and scare weather reporting. Two years ago we had a really hot May, June and July. I remember coming home from work and being washed out simply due to the heat. When we had a dull day I recall coming home and getting so much done and having so much more energy as it wasn’t being sapped by the heat. As August approached the papers carried warnings of even hotter weather for the next month and into August, and it would cause lots of frail and elderly people to die of heat related problems. In actual fact we had a terribly wet month. In the run up to last summer we had a fantastically hot and sunny April and the reports were of more to follow throughout the summer – drought and death would ensue. We then proceeded to have the wettest 3 months for quite some time. During the heat wave 2 years' ago we were told that the unusually hot spell was due to global warming whereas the next year we were told that the usual wet summer was due to global warming. I wish global warming would make up its’ mind! So forgive me if I don’t take too much notice of a headline saying we are in for a near continually wet August. As gardeners, we just have to do what we do and leave the weather to do whatever it will do.

 4^th August
At the allotment I repaired the various holes in the fence which is a must to keep rabbits out before I plant out the leeks. I harvested 5 more courgettes, the equivalent of about 8 in the shops, also an Italian lettuce, as well as a good supermarket bags’ worth of spinach. We had the spinach and lettuce, together with home grown basil in a salad for tea. The evening was more sweet pea cutting and pruning as it is fairly obvious that the stalks are getting shorter. This is because there are too many side shoots that are producing flowers and so the lengths of the flowering stalks get shorter.

 

5^th August

No allotment visit today as it has rained quite a lot. When I got home, I did go out into the garden with the boys as they needed some fresh air, and I perused the sprouting broccoli plants and found a fair few caterpillar eggs and a few caterpillars themselves. The plants are better for them having been removed. The rocket plants in the pots have had a sizeable amount eaten from them, so too have some of the broccoli and the curly kale. Other broccoli plants are doing really well, with decent, well developed leaves.

Onion harvest

 

6^th August
Six more courgettes from the allotment, as well as seeing that 2 more cucumbers are coming along, and I’ve seen a few pumpkins too. Squashes seem to be my speciality. Today was the day I finally got round to planting out the leeks. I gave the ground one more raking, laid out and fastened down the weed suppressing membrane and then cut cross cuts into the fabric every 9 inches in rows 15 inches apart. I dug up the leek seedlings and after making a good, deep hole with the dibber, gently placed the leeks in. You don’t back fill earth into the hole when planting out leeks, you simply water and the water does the rest. Further to my previous estimate, there are, in fact, 36 leeks, better than 29 but not quite 160. I found another onion that I dug up last week but somehow missed. I also planted out 6 rocket plants. A while ago we decommissioned a white laminate covered chipboard bookcase and chest of drawers, and now 2 small drawers from the unit plus the overall rectangle of the bookcase reside in section 2. These are my protective frames for the rocket, and might be a raised bed for carrots next year. With horticultural fleece over them all, and pegged down, they should be safe from attack. Apart from that, it was a quick watering for the cucumbers and a liberal sprinkling of organic slug pellets, then home.

7^th August

Not much gardening today, only a well-overdue mowing of the lawn. There are large areas where the grass has not grown much, but there are some grass clumps that have bolted so we had lots of tall, thin stalks showing, as well as 3 large swathes of clover, so it was good to give it an army haircut – short and uniform all over. It looks so much neater now. It is also neater due to the fact that when I mow the lawn I have to remove and tidy up all manner of toys and scooters and ride on-diggers and the like. The 2 mower boxes full of clippings that were produced were put into the second compost bin and mixed in equal measure to some shredded paper I had from work. This now completes the bin and I will let that rot down whilst I go back to using the first bin. I put a few handfuls from the second bin into the first as this is good accelerator, as well as containing a large number of special tiger worms, who, unlike earth worms, are the sort that really love eating compost material and breaking it down for the bacteria to get a hold of. It is the bacteria that really do the composting. Most of the compost in the second bin was pretty well rotted anyway, but I put in this last load of grass to add a little more volume. I won’t be using it until autumn so there is no rush.

Next post: 18th August