Tag Archives: GYO

Runner and climbing beans, Soft fruit, success

Successful Sunny Saturday

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There are weeds cropping up all over the plot. There are also harvests to made too. I will be hoeing the weeds down soon. The harvests, though, have been good so far. Firstly, we have spuds. Potatoes/ Over the last four years I have variable harvests. From sinking into open ground to raised beds. I finally have a spud that I am proud of. Today, I have harvested probably about a couple of pounds of kestrel second early potatoes. The foliage had started to keel over, so I took this as a sign to harvest. I wasn’t so quietly impressed when digging over. I may have blasphemed a little bit; my mother who was in ear shot, exclaimed my name. Not at my blaspheming, but at the fact that I was handing over fairly nice looking potatoes.

A plot neighbour kindly donated some redcurrants that she was harvesting. These with the pounds of frozen strawberries already harvested went into a jam alongside some purple haze and cayenne chillies.

It does taste rather nice, and I don’t actually like strawberries that much.

I have been further monitoring the raspberry situation. To be honest, I am not in the least bit happy. Yes, these were planted in Autumn. A full season collection, I had thirty canes. Not all of these have foliage, and they are all very much still brown and sticky. Those that are leafy, have so far produced the grand sum of six-maybe-raspberries. All of the canes have rooted, I have done the tug test. They have definitely rooted.

On the other hand, I have ten fall gold yellow raspberry canes and two pink autumn bliss raspberries. The two autumn bliss ones are happy, having been cut back, and now fairly leafy and about to bear fruit. The yellow ones, have provided three yellow raspberries so far. This I can deal with.

With the distinct lack of pink summer raspberries, I am feeling a bit dejected. A lot like England crashing out on penalties. Penalties, can be practised.

Runner beans are shooting up their supports, and rapidly. So much so, I have spotted a cluster of red flowers. The climbing french beans however, don’t look so good and are still very small.

tomatoes

The Accidental Tomato

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All of my tomatoes are accounted for. The one’s that I planted in the poly tunnel, the one’s that have found good homes with friends and colleagues.

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And then this one shows it’s face from between two courgettes. I had dismissed it a few days ago, as a possible weed in the compost. But no, with the warmth and light; this is officially a tomato. That is evident from the leaves, and I know not what variety. I guess it must have been in one of the would be dud jiffy pellets that was thrown into the compost degrade. Will keep an eye on it, and see what this turns out to be. It’s smaller than it’s relatives in the poly tunnel, but an interesting control participant as I didn’t expect to have any tomatoes outside.

It’s always nice to have pleasant surprises.

Soft fruit

Home grown, home made: Pudding

All that would be soft fruit on the allotment, you can eat it, infuse spirits, make it into smoothies. I rather wanted to make ice-creams. After much researching, and I did do a fair bit, I found one and bought it. Today was the first time I have used it, and luckily my mum had harvested some strawberries this morning. (I was asleep this morning when she did, so she came home and told me about it, loudly.) If the rest of the fruit on the plot works, that may make for more experiments.

The machine came with some simple recipes, so I have used one of them today. An eggless recipe as well, which is useful; as there are some family members who don’t eat ice cream made with eggs.

The bowl for the machine, had to be froze and for a while. The ingredients were then chilled to help the process. A ripe banana was added to the strawberries and both were mashed up to a smooth paste and then added to the ice cream mix.

I was fully expecting to be pacing for a good half an hour whilst the machine did it’s thing. It took twelve minutes to get a lovely softy whippy ice cream. And it tasted lovely, it passed the Pop’s taste test.  The quantity made is small, I didn’t want to make more than we can eat. A very small scale study! The inner bucket of the machine is back in the freezer to make the ice cream a bit more solid.

Just in time for tea time.

In a bit of pickle, overwintering alliums

Garlic and gooseberries

No, no together, I assure you. At least not yet, not until I make a gooseberry pickle type thing. Two harvests in fact. The first, was of the garlic bulb. Purely as it had fallen over. I hoiked out the purple and and green bulb,not expecting the bulb to have split into cloves. Lo and behold, it had! There were quite a few cloves actually, and all very potent. These are the over wintering ones from the garlic farm, and  I do have say that at the moment I am rather impressed. Have yet to harvest any more, I usually wait til the foliage has gone all pale and raffia like. This went into an aubergine, tomato and pepper chutney.

Another experiment, came courtesy of the maiden gooseberry crop. These are my first ever gooseberries. And they went into a jam. I did bite into gooseberry the other day. I didn’t like the gooseberry, the gooseberry didn’t like me. I did want to experiment though, so these were jammed with a scotch bonnet.

herbs

herbs on the plot @urban_herbs

A week ago, I went to BBC Gardeners World Live and I happened upon Urban Herbs you can find details here about them. My mum had sent me out to get some swiss mint for her. I didn’t find any, but I did find some Indian mint-to placate my mum-as well as some sweet basil, orange mint, bronze fennel and french tarrogan. The tarrogan and basi have been potted into the poly tunnel.

Ma has cooed over her Indian mint, so I think she has been mildly distracted by it.

Lost label roses, project othello

Roses on the plot

The roses have somewhat caught me off guard, in being early. Perhaps I had forgotten that we were in June already. In 21 days, I have harvested about three bouquets of blooms, and there may still be more all being well. There a few roses bushes that don’t seem to be doing anything, but the large proportion of them are burgeoning with blooms.

I have deliberately put up a picture of the arch. I was at Gardener’s world live last week, and over heard Joe Swift talking about garden planning. He was saying that people put these features in their gardens, but then don’t even walk through them. I definitely walk through mine! The arch is the gateway from one part of the plot to the other.

In the middle is william shakespeare 2000, leading away from the falstaff apple tree, something of a theme! The second half of the plot is called project othello. Either side of the arch are two climbing roses. These are golden showers and danse de feu. One yellow and one red.

The avenue of roses-and fruit trees-was a deliberate design. This year it has paid dividends. Walking passed the blooms, I am convinced that I was smelling lovely zingy lemons. Shakespeare definitely smells of lemons!

Dorset and Bengle Naga, Experimental Chillies and be;;s, superhots 2015

chillies and #DorsetNaga

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The chillies are rather happy in the poly tunnel at the moment. The vast majority are now starting to form flowers and fruit. As you can see, we have a handful of purple haze chillies. They are unripe in the picture, as they go red when they are ripe; however I used these to make a chutney. The Dorset Naga is now sending out the tiniest of buds and also the most delicate of white flowers. I have yet to successfully have a super hot, and this one was bought as a plant.

And then just as you are wanting to exit the poly, you see a fluffy bumble bee having a play in the apricot chilli pot.

Soft fruit

Strawberries are a-go!

I had thought that my plot was a little delayed. There were a number of green strawberries below the raspberry canes, and they didn’t seem to be ripening.

Then the sun came out.

In the space of 12 hours, the fruit has gone from being smudged with red, to a lovely shade of ruby garnet. We’ve not had punnets and punnets of fruit, but this is the first time we have ever had a mass of strawberries. And to think it’s not Wimbledon Fortnight yet. If we do get more, might experiment with making some ice cream.

aubergine analogue 2015, Dorset and Bengle Naga, Experimental Chillies and be;;s, project othello, tomatoes

Finally: Poly tunnel plugged in and potted up

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Today is something of a red-letter day. The polytunnel on the plot now has everything tucked into it. The Growing season is officially ready to rock and roll. Unless the weather or the world has a huge great big episode. If you have a look at the tags, you will see just how much is plugged in or potted up.

With exception of two plants-the Dorset Naga and Purple haze chillies-everything in that polytunnel has been sown and grown from seed. That tomatoes, chillies and aubergines. All of which have had some form of drama attached to it. The tomatoes got dehydrated, the chillies had aphids, the aubergines were and are somewhat developmentally delayed.

The chillies are now starting to flower, even the tiniest of the pots that contain the chocolate and orange habaneros have flower buds on. The Cayenne’s have a clutch of white flowers, and the purple haze is a spot purple.

The last of the chillies was potted up today, pettie belle, as were the four aubergine babies. The aubergines are a little smaller than I would have expected, but I did sow them later than I could have and on a whim.

Our challenge now, is to keep everything happy. Watered, fed, happy and not too hot. There is one vent open to help cool and offer some form of ventilation. Valuable lessons are incorporated into all of this. The chillies are in pots, and will stay that way, as will the aubergines. Previously both of these have been in the ground, and not a lot has happened. Tomatoes are plugged in, they have worked well outside in the ground. The added bonus of being under cover might help them this year. Copper tape is around most of the pots, as well as little blue pellets of doom.

Tomatoes are now looking happy, and they are sending out little yellow flowers. So this with the white chilli flowers is a sign of some positive things. I am not too sure about the Aubergines, they might catch up, they might not.

With everything plugged in, let’s keep our fingers crossed.