I thought I'd share a bit of our progress in the veggie garden today. I've already posted up some pics of our colourful, tangled flower borders, so now for the 'business end' of the garden. It's not nearly as pretty, but is quite productive if we keep at it.
This area provides the main veggie-growing space, with a long bed which we divide into sections, 2 large raised beds built from recycled railway sleepers & a lorry tyre, which was left behind by the previous owners with plenty more of their detritus, but which we pressed into service for courgettes & squash. We like to grow food, so we later extended the veg space into another bed just in front of the clematis arch, & of course, we also use our greenhouse for tender crops. I think we've probably got just under half an allotment in size, as well as 3 mature fruit trees, which we inherited. So here's what we're growing this summer, so far:
Autumn sown broad beans have done well. They did object to the Boxing Day snow, but recovered quickly, & we've been picking these for a week or so.
The lightly cooked beans are lovely tossed with pasta, lots of garlic & a splodge of olive oil. Surprisingly the New Model Army of local slugs & snails seem to have left this crop well alone, so all the more for us!
This bed has courgettes (Gold rush & Black beauty) in the front, a couple of tomatoes, then potatoes (Winston). The courgettes were sulking when I took this pic - they'd sat in pots for too long because of the cold nights, but fruits are starting to set now.
Runner bean - 'Snowstorm'. Supposed to be a good variety for damp, cool, iffy weather because they self-pollinate. Sounded ideal for East Nottinghamshire, & doing fine so far. The recycled muslin curtain from that well-known Swedish purveyor of household goods is to deter our large population of sparrows. I love supporting them, as they are a sadly declining species, but they are incredibly destructive, so barriers are needed here. They don't eat bean leaves, but peck them & spit out the pieces.
Newly transplanted leeks. Tried Monty Don's method last year & it didn't really work for me, so have reverted back to the old fashioned dibbing. 1 leek per hole, then puddle them in with the hose. I will have to micro-net these later, as we have sadly been hit hard by the allium leaf miner pest this year. It's quite a new pest, but is spreading north. My good friend Helen was only telling me at the weekend about the problems of this pest on her allotment & I said we were lucky not to have it. The very next day, the Big Hairy Half of the Relationship went out to harvest the garlic & we discovered that we not only have it, but that it's had a bit of a rampant spring. The garlic was mostly ok - big cloves & a decent crop........
....but the shallots were badly affected & had to be lifted as a damage limitation exercise. We've hung up the best ones to dry, but several had already rotted due to the activity of this pest. It's now sadly in the red onion crop too. The plants still look ok & they're not all affected, but we will still have to lift them before they are ready. That's the thing with growing food crops.....you win some, you lose some. It's soul-destroying with the effort put in, but that's nature.
The greenhouse crops seem to be off to a good start.
I've got chillies ('Heatwave'), peppers ('Thor'), as well as cucumbers & aubergines on this side, & 6 tomatoes ('Ferline') on the other.
This is one of the 3 Jalopeno chilli plants I overwintered on a bedroom windowsill. They all survived, so it will be interesting to see what sort of crop they produce.
I always like to see the first cucumber appearing, as it reassures me that I haven't raised dodgy plants. Cucumbers can be so moody - there's no end to things they don't like - too cold, too dry, too wet, not enough humidity, if there's an 'r' in the month, if you look at them funny, etc, but if you get good plants, then homegrown cucumbers are so lovely & juicy compared to shop-bought, plastic shrink-wrapped ones.
The rest of my tomatoes are grown outdoors - a row of 'Ferline' grown in large pots.......
........always companion planted with a row of Calendula to attract pollinating insects (& because I like making marigold scones).
At this time of year, I always take it as a personal failure if I have to buy a lettuce, so I grow loads of salad - currently lollo rosso & 'Lettony'. We've a bit of a glut at the moment, but it's not a problem, as we do eat a lot of salad & when they start to bolt, I'll make them into pea, lettuce & mint soup for the freezer.
Other edibles? Well, I've got the beetroot planted out, a few cabbages, 2 troughs of spring onions, 1 of radishes & a carrot box, also watercress, a thriving strawberry tub & a fussy butternut squash plant. The herb garden is also nicely productive at the moment. The main crop rhubarb is doing well, even though I've forced it 3 years running, & fruits have set on our apple, pear & grapevine. As we had to lift the shallots early, we now have a decent sized raised bed to get something else in this month. I'm thinking maybe a couple of pumpkins, so as not to waste valuable potential food-growing space. No time to grow from seed, but will pay our village garden centre a visit & buy a couple of plants to grow on. I hope fellow veggie growers are having a good year so far. My sympathies to anyone else afflicted by crappy allium leaf miner. I'm not aware of any natural control methods for it.......or any chemical ones for that matter........I think enviromesh will have to be purchased to ensure future crops here at the People & Cats Republic. Grrr.
Till next time, which will be a celebration (?) of 1 whole year of Albert Whiskers, the worst behaved cat we've ever had..........
C x
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