Harvest Festival

'Discovery' apples

I did promise a blog on the fruit harvest, but have been too busy in the face of party conferences writing ranting posts on my other blogs to settle down to something calm and happy.  It is now time to take a break from shouting 'spineless b*****ds!', 'nutters!', 'selfish b*****ds!' and 'hypocrites!' at the TV and look back at what has been a fantastic year for fruit.

We missed a lot of it.  The best of the summer raspberries came and went (down the throats of grateful blackbirds) while we were on an epic narrowboat journey along the waterways of North West England and many of the earlier red, white and blackcurrants went the same way.  

Currant jams - and other uses!

Not all - there were still enough about when we came home on shore leave mid cruise to make copious amounts of jam and the freezer has still a substantial stock of 'summer pudding mix'.  And grateful colleagues tucked in to freshly picked strawberries while we watched an open air production of 'Much Ado about Nothing' while being strafed by housemartins at Little Moreton Hall. 

Plums and Damsons

It was the 'top fruit' that really did us proud - with the exception of the pears.  Other people have reported problems with pears this year - ours are fairly sparce and cracked.  Never mind - everything else was frankly amazing and mercifully free of wasps.  We collected plums by the bucket load, made industrial quantities of jam and invited the neighbours to help themselves; a stunning crop from just three dwarf trees - a 'Merryweather' damson, 'Oolins Orange' and 'Victoria' plum.

The apples have done well too.  'Discovery' never fails to deliver a crop of rosy eating apples but was absolutely loaded this year and, thanks to some determined pruning over the last couple of years, the 'Cox's Orange Pippin' also cropped well. 

'James Grieve' has also given us a generous number of nice clean apples this year, having been scabby in the past and there are some big 'Bramleys' to gather - in fact, now the weather has turned properly autumnal, I should check that the best of those haven't come down on the lawn and been reduced to slug fodder.  We also got a good crop of hazel nuts and, although the tree will need to be cut back hard this year to stop it overshadowing the greenhouse, that should also ensure I have a good supply of bean poles for next year.

It's now time to start tidying up and planning for next year, so while the rain batters the windows, I'll be curled up by the fire with my plant a seed catalogues wondering what 2015 will bring.  As well as a General Election, that is.

Spuds we like!

At last, fellow potato enthusiasts, a proper spud-focused blog post! 

Following what can only be described as monsoon conditions yesterday, today we managed to lift the second bed of 'Kestrel' second early taters.  As ever, we have an excellent crop.  With the exception of the 'asteroid' I'm holding in the picture below left, they are clean, largely undamaged, regular kidney-shaped tubers of a good size, with a few large enough to set aside for baking. 

I'm sure they will be better than either of the maincrop cultivars, as usual.  I lifted one root of 'Cara' and although these are also nice regular potatoes (with pink eyes rather than the purple ones the 'Kestrels' have), three of the ten had been slug damaged and invaded by millipedes, so I have some misgivings about what to expect from the remainder of the bed.  With such an unpredictable climate, there is something to be said for sticking to the variety I know likes our site, copes well with our pests with minimal protection and cooks well.  I'll lift some 'Sarpo Mira' and 'Pink Fir Apple' shortly, and it will be interesting to see how they have fared this year - both are usually reliable and the PFAs usually both tasty and amusing, so should make next season's team too.  

I did get new potatoes in time for my birthday (mid June) this year, thanks to a warm spring and a cloche.  I grew 'Foremost' again on account of their excellent taste and slightly better slug-resistence than 'Rocket', my previous first choice of first early.  Although I might try a different cultivar for comparison next year, I'll definitely be growing 'Foremost' again. 

I could do with tying up less of the allotment and garden with spuds next spring, unless we're long-distance boating again and need to grow something that thrives on neglect, so there may be fewer trials.  Certainly one experimental crop was a complete failure.  I planted some 'Salad Blue' in the garden (a variety I had never grown before), alongside a row of 'Highland Burgundy Red' (usually reliable, but a little slug-prone).  I got a decent crop of reds - but took fewer blues out than I put in!  Of course it's always tricky finding dark-skinned taters as they tend to match the soil rather well, but clods of Talke Pits earth are fairly angular while taters are rounded, and even after repeated digging and turning over, there were no more than a handful to be found.

I'd like to have space for more squashes - these are 'Sunshine' and 'Harrier', cut today - and to erect a proper cage around the brassicas as the calabrese and cabbages are looking seriously lacy!  It would also be good to grow the runner beans over several frames started at different times to give a better succession of crops; we have lots of delicious tender beans (despite the near front last night) and more on the way, but the frame is a tangled mass of tendrils and finding ripe beans among the greenery is more of a challenge than it should be.

 But all-in-all, the allotment and garden haven't done too badly this year, considering they have been left to their own devices for months on end.  And as for the fruit harvest - that deserves a post of its own, so watch this space.

Southern and Severn summer gardens

We've just got home from catching up with our family and friends in Hampshire and Sussex.  Returning to North Staffordshire in the drizzle of an unseasonably cold August night, I was delighted to find a hedgehog hiding just inside the front gate, hopefully hoovering up the slugs.  I'm glad now that I didn't bring the slug pellets home from the allotment and give the front garden a dose before we went away, though whether our prickly pal will return and do a good enough job that I can manage without them when we get to next spring and bulb time remains to be seen.

Our garden isn't doing too badly (in fact I owe it a blogsworth of praise for how well it coped with serious neglect while we were away on the narrowboat), but this post looks at a couple of gardens we discovered on our travels.

The first is the Human Nature garden in Horsham Park, a clever space which includes an amphitheatre performance area, medicinal flower, herb and vegetable beds, educational information boards and a fun sculpture of a shepherd and his flock.  

 

Usually open to the public and free to access, it can also be hired for private events and, as we discovered, makes a great venue for children's parties as the gentle slope of the amphitheatre area is safe for games and rolling and the wooden sheep don't object to be ridden on by small people.

It is a very good example of what can be done to make gardens fun for children and young people while still being tranquil spaces for grown-ups.

We came across our other garden 'find' quite by chance while searching for an evening meal.  Stopping at the Hundred House on the road from Bridgnorth to Telford a little too early for dinner (having decided to get well away from the M6 after some grim traffic news), we were invited to take a stroll in the gardens while we waited.  There was, we were told, a herb garden and a flower garden on opposite sides of a little path marked 'Lovers Walk'.  Drinks in hand, we set off to explore.

The 'herb garden' is actually a far more diverse productive garden with a great variety of apple cultivars grown as standard trees, pillars and step-overs, raised beds full of salad leaves and squashes, pergolas of runner beans and ornamental gourds, though the huge hornet hanging around the fruit trees was an unwelcome addition to this particular little paradise.

On the other side of the house was a deliciously eccentric, romantic garden full of ferny, mossy corners, reclaimed statues and elegant formal planting, all created on what had once been a bare stretch of lawn by the former owner of the inn, Sylvia Philips (sadly now deceased). 

All manner of quirky little compositions made from odds and ends of salvaged masonry hide in nooks and glades, overgrown in an artistically managed fashion.  Had it not been getting rather late and quite cool, and close to dinner time, we could have spent hours out there, even though it isn't a huge site.

The gate made from horseshoes is a particularly clever little feature.

After a scrumptious dinner, had it not been a work day in the morning it would have been very tempting to stop the night in one of the inn's pretty guest rooms, but we've promised ourselves a proper break exploring the Ironbridge Gorge and Wrekin area, so there may very well be a September visit to this fascinating garden.  I bet the autumn leaf colours are glorious.

Hopefully the hornet will have buzzed off by then!

Summertime



Jon's napping chair, plus reading matter.

We haven't seem much of the garden for the last month or so, as we've been taking the narrowboat on an epic journey across the north of England.  I've been home a few times for work, but my good intentions to spend the long summer evenings pottering outdoors have come to nought.

Luckily, just as the garden reached the point where it would have made the perfect set for any of the new Star Wars movies requiring a return to Yoda's place of exile in the Dagoba System, we had a couple of weeks of enforced 'shore leave' while we await a date for our assisted passage into Liverpool.  So, blessed with a dry and sunny weekend, it's been out with the strimmer and shears.

Pot plants - geraniums in big pots are unlikely to dry out too much in North Staffs!

My plans to deal ruthlessly with the Clematis Montana were partially thwarted by this spectacular display from the Jackmanii and also the 'moss roses' which have straggled up through it, as I don't have the heart to hack bits off of either.  As a result, the pergola on the left side of the garden is still thoroughly blanketed with Montana and I've been unable to reach through this to train a lanky tendril of Kiwi Fruit growth horizontal rather than vertical, though the roses will finish in the next few weeks, leaving time for the clematis to put on some new growth before the winter and flower next spring.

Clematis 'Jackmanii' in the late summer sunshine

My old-fashioned roses would all be happier with more light and the odd treatment for blackspot, but have managed to do their romantically fragrant thing without either.  In fact, the neglected 'Secret Garden' look of the plants around them - faded aquilegias, floppy alchemilla, a mixture of allium pom-poms and the first new flowers of Verbena Bonariensis rather suits them, as they can look scruffy in overly neat borders. 

'Lady of Megginch'

 I have some lilies in pots in the greenhouse - in an attempt to keep them clear of lily beetle - to add to the borders or to the 'herb garden' - I haven't decided which yet, but they will have to go out soon as I won't be able to keep them adequately watered when we're on the next stage of the boat trip, and I need the greenhouse space (and watering trays) for tomatoes.

At the productive end, we've had some good pickings of strawberries over the weekend - and eaten the lot! - and put the first two pickings of redcurrants in the freezer.  The fruit bushes are loaded and although I'm sure the blackbirds will have their fill while we're away they crop over several weeks, so the jam-making should begin in earnest on our return.

Sunshine on the herb garden

Having tamed the worst of the tangled growth and removed the weeds, it would have been lovely to come home from work this evening to dinner on the patio and an evening's pottering but - you guessed it - it's raining again.  So much for summertime!

Improvisation

Squash defences in position

Even the keenest veg grower takes time off from eating their own produce occasionally, and if J and I decide to treat ourselves to a no-hassle dinner, we tend to go for a Sainsbury's 'Bistro Meal'.  With a main course and pud for two, plus a bottle of wine for £10, it's not a bad deal. 

And, depending on what you choose, your meal comes with usefully recyclable packaging.  Two of the desserts come in neat little plastic pots that make great saucers for the small pots I sell my scented geraniums in, the creme brulee has even nicer little ceramic containers (also smart plant saucers) and the small foil dishes for fruit tarts are excellent bird-scarers.  We've always expected the big foil dishes for the main courses to come in handy too, but until today I hadn't quite worked out how.  That didn't stop us saving some, just in case, and today I was inspired. 

As usual, necessity was the mother of invention: I am trying to get my squashes and pumpkins planted out before they outgrow their current pots and ahead of a few days away, but couldn't find the defensive rings I have to protect them - there are six green plastic things somewhere, but not where they are readily accessible.  So I had to improvise...

The big foil dishes definitely had potential, and after getting to work with the scissors, something quite scary appeared.  The edges are very sharp and, hopefully, an effective slug/snail deterrent.

Position in the garden, on level ground, and excavate a hole large enough for your squash plant.  Fold down the centre flaps into the hole to secure the ring.

Position the plant in the centre and back-fill with soil.

Unfortunately we haven't tucked into enough Bistro Meals recently to have rings for all the squashes and marrows I have to plant out, so those going on the allotment will have to take their chances - but the garden is more hazardous for plants regarding slugs and snails as there is little bare soil by way of defence around them.  I've managed to protect a couple of each variety and they should grow well outdoors with the sunny days we've been promised. 

Now, I just have to hope it doesn't get too cold overnight...

Back to work!



My favourite front garden - but not my front garden!

 After the wet winter, and with lots of other demands on my time earlier in the spring, I wondered if I would ever manage to find time to get back to work on my customers' gardens, bearing in mind that getting to grips with my own was proving problematic. 

Yesterday, at long last, I managed to do so, and was very glad that I did.  Not only was it a great pleasure to see how two of 'my' gardens were growing, but I was able to work with one of my occasional employers, which is always enjoyable in her case.  While I appreciate the peace and solitude of gardening alone a lot of the time, it is also good to swap ideas - and swap plants!  And in fact I'm never alone here - if the humans are out, there's always a little robin hopping about at my feet on the lookout for worms.

Herbaceous border

I can't take too much credit for this lovely garden, as its owners had it planted long before I appeared, but I have pruning and weed-control duties, and get to advise and assist on a few new projects - such as the shady border below.

If all goes to plan, there are some Mahonias to disguise the fence and give a little winter colour and structure, though some foxgloves will be adding height before that, and if the slugs don't do too much damage, there are some lovely hostas hiding amongst the forget-me-nots.

Nearby, a project that is very much my design has come through the winter weedy but otherwise well, and a couple of hours' work despatched the worst of the weeds.  I think I will have to clear right back to the hedge - my original plan was to leave a path and just mulch or trample that clear, but it will make more sense to clear and plant with ground cover that can be stood on for hedge-pruning (more geranium macrorrhizum and alchemilla, then!) and will come back fighting, and add another line of shrubs.  The next border along, where the fence has been replaced, also needs planning. 

What will make all the difference to the look of this border is a proper sharp edge to the lawn, but I have yet to find a lawn edging tool with a nice long handle.  I could use a spade, but you never get as clean a line with a curved blade, and I could do with a proper edger for other projects - but the long handle is a must.

Sarah's tools - and college 'hobbit tools'.

I put in no more than a dozen potatoes last weekend using the spare fork and spade of standard length that we keep in the allotment shed, and I could certainly feel the difference, at least until a hot, deep bath sorted out the ache in my back.  At college last year I started taking in my own tools since there wasn't a single set with longer handles available, and with a plot of our own to dig over and cultivate, I wasn't going to injure myself using the 'Hobbit tools' from the store!

I'm very fond of my big wooden-handled, stainless steel fork and spade.  I almost feel they deserve heroic names, like the swords of Dark Age warriors.  I haven't been inspired to name them yet, but don't rule it out.  Nor the possibility that one day many centuries henceforth, an archaeologist will exhume the skeleton of a large female from a supposedly 21st century burial, and wonder why there appear to be Saxon-style grave goods; the traces of long wooden handles to a large square blade and a strange pronged weapon. 

I'm going to need a new hand-trowel and fork soon too - ideally also with longer than average handles, as I tend to bend rather than squat or kneel to plant and weed, but also the strength to deal with being wielded by me in sometimes heavy or stoney ground.  If I had an unlimited budget, I could probably have something suitable made, but I dread to think what that would cost. 

So I shall be on the look-out for something this summer - unless I can devise a way to replace the splitting handles of my existing tools, perhaps adding a nice Staffordshire Hoard style pattern of interlinked dragons or sea-serpents?  The capacity to glow blue at the edges in the presence of slugs might come in handy too!

The 'F' Word

Plum blossom

After some warm and sunny days, the garden is looking glorious, with the mid-season daffodils nicely set off by fresh green foliage of perennials such as aquilegia and astrantia.  The plums and damson trees in the front garden are in full bloom, and whereas last year I had only just planted the first early potatoes, this year the first shoots are already through the ground.

And with impeccable timing, we are promised a sharp frost tonight.  Great!  Virtually no frost all winter, and just when it can cause maximum trouble, we have a still night and clear skies.

That's the risk with 'growing your own', and I was worried that some of the City's movers and shakers had missed that when a few weeks ago an item appeared in the local press suggesting that some of the people affected by food poverty could help their situation by adopting a 'dig for victory' approach.  It might well seem to an uninformed observer that with the big gardens traditional Council houses have, someone struggling to make ends meet thanks to the 'Bedroom Tax' could dig over their back garden and get some onions and taters on the go.

Fruit, veg, cut flowers and shrub cuttings in the back garden

Except that people in that situation are struggling to find the money for food to eat right now. If they had £4 for a bag of seed potatoes, they wouldn't be at the foodbank.  If they don't already have tools, there's no money for them either.  It's depressing enough when you aren't absolutely depending on it to find your crop of salad leaves has been wiped out by slugs, your carrots are full of root fly holes and your spuds and tomatoes are blackened with blight after some damp and thundery summer weather; if you had skipped a few meals to get the seeds back in the spring, you'd feel well and truly cheated.

So all credit for the Appetite4Change team for looking beyond individual effort and risk at options for collective action.  I'll be interested to see what comes of it and I'd be delighted to share some tips and tricks of the trade, especially the ones involving recycling food packaging to make propagators and seeds trays, though can't honestly promise them a lot of time with my other on-going projects both in and out of doors.  Ideally, the project will employ some proper, professional horticulturalists - that would create some much-needed employment - though who will put up the money is anybody's guess.

Meanwhile, with Easter almost upon us, let's enjoy a few of this year's spring flowers...

Back in the garden at last!

After the wet winter and soggy start to 2014, it's good to have something to say about the garden, and some photos to share of growing things and sunshine.  The scruffy detritis of last year's perennials has been cleared from the front garden, the willow herb and hairy bitter cress evicted from the herb garden and - best of all, an entire month ahead of last year's schedule - the first of the 'first early' potatoes are in the ground.

Having found them quite delicious last year, I'm growing 'Foremost' again, but with the ambition of lifting a root in time for my birthday in the second week of June - something that I haven't managed since moving up to Stoke, but which used to be a regular tradition when we lived in Southampton.  They're in a sheltered but sunny bed in the garden, covered with a cloche to protect them from frost and get them off to a quick start, and the ground seems good - crumbly after a light fork over and full of worms.  Exactly three months from now, I'll be hoping to lift some tasty baby new potatoes.

On the ornamental side, the glory of the garden right now are the hellebores which have thrived after I cut back all the old foliage about six weeks ago.  I need to check the best time to split and move them as some have now formed sizeable clumps and I would like to establish some on the slope of the front garden where their pendant flowers will be easier to admire - sitting the camera on the ground with the timer set seems a second-hand way to enjoy such beautiful flowers.  I cut a few for indoors last year, but they dropped masses of pollen and faded quickly, so ideally I need to find somewhere in the garden to show them off.

The mild winter seems to have suited the Red Army, my ladybird allies, who find the somewhat tatty purple sage bushes suitable hibernation sites and have emerged to enjoy the sunshine in the last few days.  Just as well I didn't uproot the old plants and consign them to the compost heap!

So it feels good to have dirt under my nails again, but with paid CAB work and a couple of books in progress, I don't know when I'm going to be back to work in any of my customers' gardens!