The Gardening Adventures of Firsty McStub

so this is the first year I’ve *ever* managed to harvest anything from the garden.  I’m well chuffed.  We’ve had quite a few strawberries.  The plants from Homebase (Hapil in case I forget/lose the marker thing) have done much better than the ones from the local garden centre.  Must have had a couple of dozen and they’re not finished yet. 

I picked some peas for dinner tonight and they were yum!  I love peas.  Will definitely grow much much more of them next year.  They keep falling over, so I think I’ll try and fashion a chicken wire trellis thing for them to scramble up next time.

picked a couple of dwarf french beans and had them for dinner tonight.  very nice. 

Courgettes (surprise surprise!) are coming along too.  Had a few already, but not overwhelmes as we’ve only one plant.  The summer squash plants aren’t doing so good though

The wild harvest has been the best though.  We keep getting lots of raspberries, although by the time I get them back to the house the kids have scoffed most of them.  I’m freezing little bits at a time and hope to make jam with it.  Will be nice to have a freezer bag of  them too to add to smoothies and stuff for the kids.

Today we found *loads* of cherry trees out of the back of the farm and so headed out with punnets to pick them.  I expected them to be really sour but the kids insisted on trying them and declared them delicious!  They’re really dark cherries too.  Have made cherry choc chunk ice cream tonight with them.  Going out to get more tomorrow hopefully to make some pies and maybe some jam. 

The tom plants are flowering.  My blueberries are very nearly ready I think (although only a handful there), onions doing well, most of the potatoes are ok.  French beans (normal sized ones) are growing well, but yet to flower.  Pumpkin plants are huge!  Only just pinched them out as I forgot and kept marvelling at their size!!  Sweetcorn still plodding along.  Not sure there is enough time for them to grow though.  We’ll see!

Brassica are being demolished by cabbage white catterpillars   Must net them next year.  They make me all squeamish trying to pick them off so I’m leaving them

Thinking ahead and wondering if I should get some purple sprouting broccoli plants of ebay or something.  Will feel all lost once this is over!  Well I do have the new plot to dig, greenhouse to acquire, coldframes to build and leaf mould bins to build too.  Not quite as exciting though I don’t think!

potatoes back on July 12th

 

 

potatoes now

 

 

 

 

About 4 or 5 plants have just started dying.  The only thing I can think of is that a neighbour has sprayed weedkiller and it’s blown along.  All the weeds next to the potatoes are dying too and my Calabrese that was doing so well is struggling.  All the successional sowings I did have died too.  Anyone any ideas as to what might have happened?  I dunno whether to leave them there, dig em up or what.  Don’t even know if they’ll be safe to eat now

 

just so I know where they are.  Must sort a links side bar soon.

Plastic Bottle Greenhouse Idea

(planning on trying to make a coldframe with this idea!) 

Homemade wormery

I just found a patch of wild raspberries (I think they are wild, much smaller than the ones we picked at a PYO the other day) growing round the back of one of the barns!  Food for free - my favourite!  I had a fleeting idea of raspberry jam but the kids have eaten all the ones I picked.  No bad thing though.  Pic to follow.

of the messy plot

 

Argh!  what a mess!
 

 

courgettes and squash

 

and on the other side of that bed we have

pumpkins and the sweetcorn growing.  Hope the sweetcorn gets a move on or it will be swamped by the pumpkins!

 

 lots of potatoes!!  All maris piper.

 

 

some calabrese.  Have sowed 2 more rows of 4 behind the first one.   They seem to be growing well, so I’m glad I squeezed them in.  We do like brocolli!

 

The bean and pea plot.  Needs weeding so much!!
 

 

brassicas and strawberries!  Swedes growing well as is one beetroot (bulls blood, you can see the red leaves).  One Early Jerser Wakefield cabbage growing in the background too.

 

Carrots and onions.

 

And the "greenhouse" which falls to bits everytime I look at it.  Grrr.  Have beefsteak toms, an aubergine plant and a bell pepper plant.  They seem awfully squashed together now but we’ll see how they do.  Tom plant getting huge!
 

Haven’t done much more recently.  Just a bit of watering and weeding when I get chance.  Since I’m going to move the veg over to the other bit I’m not thinking much about any winter sowings since this area will need to be prepared for making it into a fruit bed.   

I’ll take some pics tomorrow as it’s getting dark now, but the patch is looking soooo weedy.  I’m struggling to keep on top of it all.

 Let’s see, how’s it coming on.  Well the original strawberry plants we planted have given us about 1 strawberry each.  Really hope next year is better!  The 5 plants we got from Homebase seem to be faring a bit better and we have some fairly big ones growing there.

 The courgette plant is flowering and the first one is starting to grow, the summer squash flowered yesterday too.  Pumpkins are coming along nicely.  In between them the sweetcorn did grow, but not huge amounts of it.  I have about 8 plants and I’m not sure how many of them will survive  

 The beefsteak tomato plant is flowering too and I think the other tom plants will nto be too far behind.  Wish I knew what to do with tom plants.  I keep reading aboutpinching out and all that but am too scared to do anything!!  I need someone to hold my hand.  Aubergine and pepper plants are dong ok too I think.

 harvested a radish this morning and we realised no one likes them so that was good!!

 Peas are a mess!  They are just everywhere except where I want them to climb.  I’m sure they’ll be fine.  Saw the first flower on them today so that was exciting.  Really looking forward to peas

 And finally the potatoes are huge!  Didn’t realise the plants grew so big!  When I left before my hols there was no sign of them and 2 weeks later they were about a foot and a half tall.  Have been earthing them up.  Should be a good crop I think.

 Pics tomorrow if I remember and I must do some more weeding then!