Growing My Own 2012

It hasn't really been gardening weather for most of April but I have been busy sowing more veggie seeds in pots - the sunroom is an ideal greenhouse substitute.

Yesterday I did a third sowing of peas and mangetout, a month after the first lot which are now having to take their chances in the veggie plot. The second batch are just about ready to go out, but frosts are forecast for the weekend so I am holding off.

I have leeks in the small container on the right.

 And lettuces growing away on the utility room windowsill.

Beans (runner, dwarf purple and French climbing) were also sown yesterday


The tomatoes and cucumbers have been potted on. So far only partial success with the cabbages, 5 out of 9. The seeds I collected from an unknown variety seem to be doing best!

In the garden itself the rhubarb is really taking off. It is doing so well that I picked some and had it stewed with some yoghurt for lunch today!

The fruit garden appears to be thriving.

I was a little concerned at how advanced the gooseberry bushes were when I eventually got around to pruning them last month, but they look very healthy at the moment, with a large number of flowers. I am inspecting them regularly as last year they were really badly infected with powdery mildew and I didn't bother to try to pick any fruit. The blackcurrants were already flowering so I decided against pruning them.

The new apple and pear trees are in blossom. I think I am supposed to remove the apple blossom this year but I can't quite bring myself to do it. I will just remove the majority of fruits if they get successfully pollinated to relieve the stress on the young trees.




On the ornamental side of the garden I am now reaping the benefits of all the work I got done in February/March of this year on the long bank extension. It is now a joy to walk past it every day with the dogs. And I have spotted a lot of other people taking a good look too :)

It'll Be Chickens Next

Paul had wanted me to throw out my mum's old jam pan. Okay, it has sat in the cupboard unused for years but I really didn't want to throw it out. And now I have found it a perfect use...


I did a 'double' batch - 6 pints of water. And I was right - this produced about one gallon of elderflower cordial. I really hope the campden tablets work. It has had the thumbs up from Anne. I still need Penny to try it - I have tried hers which is a lot sweeter than mine.

My diet survived the visit of Gerry, Jane, Charlotte and Charlie intact. I have now lost half a stone - over half my target with 5 weeks to go.

The veggies are continuing to grow and I picked my first Purple teepee dwarf beans yesterday - about 40 pence worth I reckon. Went very nicely with some more of my 'free' rogue potatoes and a salmon fillet. I have been given a scientific explanation of why they turn green when they are cooked...

I have now dug out all of the rogue potatoes from the tomato bed in the veggie patch - but more plants still keep popping up in various places. Have now harvested over 12 lbs and haven't started on the ones I actually planted...

I thought I may have had the odd carrot ready for pulling. But unfortunately the size of the carrot didn't live up to its promise or my expectations. About an inch and a half of tasty goodness.

Similarly with the pea pod I popped a few days ago. They are getting there but not quite yet...

I did pick a pound and a half of the rhubarb and make a large crumble last week for our visitors. It all went in the one sitting.

26 radishes picked so far, including a few whoppers. It seems to be the case that two or three are ready every few days.

Yesterday I picked the gooseberries. Not a good year compared with the last couple - only 5.75 lbs and way down on quality. They had been badly hit with mildew and took forever to clean, top and tail. Next year they are going to be sprayed! I am thinking of trying to make gooseberry chutney with some of them. Quite inspired with my new books...

Now that we are well into summer the weather has decided it doesn't like it. Absolutely peeing down again. I know we wanted rain a few weeks back but I am getting bored of this now. My seed sowing regime has broken down. The curly kale needs transplanting.

The violas I ordered arrived last week - and there I was getting drenched as I potted them up. The long bank extension really needs weeding and the potted-on hostas are waiting to get planted in there. And all the time the rabbits are trying to make burrows and undoing a lot of what I do get done.

On a positive note I have almost convinced myself that some of my leeks may be large enough to transplant by the time we get a day of good weather...

Home Alone

Paul is in Washington playing bridge for the next week or so.

I am now settling into my routine.

Dogs have been walked.

Dogs have been fed.

Cardbox has been cleared.

Yesterday was a first. I actually got picked as the lucky respondent to a freecycle offer. Assorted Kilner jars. They are actually Le Parfait 'super' jars and I need to get some new seals, which I have found are available from a few sites on the net. And the very large one is broken in as much as the metal clip is missing from the lid but I will find a way of using it. Maybe try to grow and pickle onions next year. All in all I am very pleased with them.

I swapped a jar of alpine strawberry and a jar of wild gooseberry jam (in photo) for Margaret's redcurrants yesterday, which she then helped me pick whilst we had a good natter. They need processing today. Maybe freeze some rather than use them all for jelly.

And I'm waiting for the rain to stop (hopefully this afternoon) as the raspberries up the road need picking sooner rather than later.

I don't know if it is just the very strange weather we have had this year but everything seems to need harvesting at the same time this year and I am failing to keep up with it all.

Spring Cleaning the Garden

I have been making the most of the good weather.

Tuesday saw me out clearing the crud and autumn debris LB5-7. The three different pulmonarias from Edrom nursery that I split and planted last autumn were discovered to be alive and well after I cleared all the leaf-litter. Also the half a dozen that I got from dividing my own large one have pulled through and are flowering - just had to remove a lot of dead leaves to get to the healthy new ones. I have also noticed lots of little pulmonaria seedlings growing in the trellis bed. Hmm - I guess they will be a staple of the long bank extension...

There was a short break early afternoon - Jean had invited us over to walk the dogs with hers. We had pre-muzzled them and Poncho had his harness on - but we needn't have bothered. See another dog around here or at the park and Poncho goes haywire...but at Jean's nothing...perfect little angel.

Yesterday I pruned the fruit bushes. It took all day. This is because it also involved lopping a dead conifer, a stand of something else that I have no idea what it was but I didn't want, and quite a few branches of another unknown tree/shrub that was fighting for space with my overgrown redcurrant bush. I could then get around the back of the currants. Now that I can see where the stems are coming from there is only one bush that I am not sure of - red or black? I am guessing red...

I was quite vicious with the blackcurrants - a lot of branches growing horizontally through the gooseberry bushes were cut right out as I could see a lot of well-behaved vertical growth further back. A couple had rooted where they were touching the ground and I have cut them off as new plants. Need to find somewhere to plant them. 

Got scratched all over my hands and ankles pruning the gooseberry bushes. Vicious blighters. Discovered another couple at the back that were previously hidden by the blackcurrants.  Also found a small self-layered gooseberry plant which I rehomed today. Must be up to about twenty now...

Today I pruned the rose bushes. Well, I removed the dead wood and where I could see a bud cut back to it - but several of the bushes are still quite tall as I couldn't see any buds low down on the stems. I am not cut out for pruning - excuse the pun. It breaks my heart chopping off very healthy looking growth when I am not convinced anything new will take its place. I dug out two dead bushes and planted two new ones from Aldi's. I then did a tidy up and weeding of the fruit bush area and pulled out yet more brambles.

Tired but happy. And tomorrow is another (gardening) day :)

Departures and Arrivals

The bats departed the day before Paul got back from the States. Bliss - the first good night's sleep for a couple of weeks. Unfortunately Paul had picked up an air-conditioning cold which meant the bat's chirring was replaced by Paul's snoring.

Penny has returned from her European grand tour. It was strange not having her popping in and not being able to reciprocate on trips into Duns. But we have made up for it since. A couple of visits from her IT consultant (Paul) to try to sort out her laptop/internet connection that was playing up, and she came for lunch on Sunday. I had an appeal in the evening for redcurrants as Jean had cancelled their planned PYO trip the following day due to a lack thereof. I was a little surprised to find Margaret's bush still well stocked and we took a pound around yesterday - seems like a good deal as we will be getting half of them back in a chocolate cake at the weekend :)

I went gooseberry picking again yesterday afternoon - this time in the hedgerows. Two pounds of red gooseberries - I was a little late with these as many were very ripe and falling off the bush as I was picking and I was having to be careful to avoid wasps. Another pound and a quarter of largish green ones, very small 'white' ones and reddish ones which became a pound after topping/tailing and discarding the scabbier ones. All now squeezed into the freezer.

We are expecting visitors for a long weekend. Gerry and his two kids are over again from Bangkok and should be arriving in Berwick on the overnight coach at 6.30 a.m. on Friday. Paul has volunteered me to fetch them...