Confused garden?!

Just what season does my garden think it is?  If you thought I was mad when I said before that my garden shows little regard for the time of year and how is ought to be behaving, then read on.

Bit late for Gladioli isn't it?  Only bloomed this week.  And in my bedroom my extraordinary hibiscus burst into one solitary bloom this morning - usually a good omen.  Let's hope so as I could certainly do with it this month.

Should I tell this Aster that November is a bit late to consider blooming?

I rarely get to my strawberries before the creature features do, maybe this will be even harder in winter months?

And I am still doubtful that I'll harvest much sprouts from this poor half eaten alive creature!

Does your garden display any oddities or stubbornness?  Is it perhaps a sign of the changes in climate that only my garden is willing to show - none of my neighbours gardens are so bonkers!

Blogging in a storm

CONDITOR HORTI FELICITATIS AVCTOR
Or more simply put - "Those who plant a garden, plant happiness".

Isn't that grand! I love it.  I think I'm going to inscribe it across the arch of my shed, since I doubt I'll have anything grander to display it for a while yet!

This month I've started planning what improvements I'd like to make for next year's garden, and started choosing what plants I shall move around in the coming weeks.  The most important thing to remember I find, is the fact that I have learnt so much in the past few months, and therefore not to be saddened by plants that haven't worked for me, or sowings that were badly timed, or crops that I couldn't keep up with. 

The main thing is to keep notes and these photos, and remember that this time a year ago, never mind two years ago, I was so much more clueless!  It was my choice after all to try to learn and enjoy learning as I went along, picking up bits of advice and wisdom here and therefore, but mostly through trial and error.  I must stand by that idea, and appreciate the mistakes to learn from as well as the successes, as I'll learn better this way.

Not that I've managed to do much last weekend with the end of Hurricane Katrine that is whipping Scotland at present.  I'll be very grateful if I manage to keep a hold of my Eucalyptus, which is mostly horizontal in the wind but for the post we have tied it to as support.  Some of my hardy herbs that I planted out last week having grown from seed, such as Russian Tarragon to rejuvenate the herb garden, have been clean blown out of the soil roots and all.  Daddy Native's flimsy plastic PVC greenhouse thing was annihilated, and all his lovely tomatoes that were threatening to fruit any day now are in a pile waiting to meet the compost heap.  Never mind, once the storm is over we'll hopefully get a chance to build the proper greenhouse, and make sure it's secure enough to stick with us on top of the hill here throughout the wild winter.

And next year, it'll be even better, and the garden shall be stronger and more organised as I continue to learn a bit more each month.

On a foraging note - I had hoped to collect mushrooms this weekend as it's been so wet yet mild. But the severe weather put pay to that idea. Hopefully I'll have a hoard to show you soon though, I'm not giving up hope!

Garden progress - August

 

 My garden has really come into itself this month.  Most flowers are in full bloom, making me realise that I need to do some research into what I can grow to fill the gap between my spring bulbs and mid summer when my garden was so bare!  All my herbs are in bloom too, making the front garden gloriously fragranced.

 It's also a little wild though!  I am regretting growing so many nasturtiums.  They are drowning out my opium poppies which have decided to flower for a second time this summer, as well as the more delicate but no less prolific Californian poppies.

The veg patch is doing a great job of keeping the food bills down (and we all need that right now!!) as we have been living off salads and snacking on the peas on mangetout, which are still fruiting happily.  I'm still throwing bags of lettuce over the fence to neighbours, and made a huge batch of lovely lettuce, apple mint and pea soup to deal with the remaining surplus.  I've also been experimenting with thinnings, as I'm so reluctant to throw any thinned seedlings away I've been replanting them elsewhere and giving them to friends.  We've decided that salisfy does not appreciate being moved, so in future the weaker seedlings shall be resigned to the compost heap.

I have new seedlings sprouting up to see how they fare being sown mid summer.  To be honest I also wanted to use up some of the packets of seeds.  That's another lesson learnt this year - stop buying so many seeds!

The flowers a the end of the patch in this photo are the radishes that I let go to seed.  I remember Alys Fowler doing this in her programme The Edible Garden, recommending that they go rather well with beer, sounds good to me!

You can just see two scrawny courgette plants at the bottom of this photo - I managed to rescue these after being almost decimated by slugs a few months ago.  One of them is thanking me by starting to fruit at last!

The asparagus pea plants are still tiny, and took an age to germinate but what pretty flowers!  I'm really looking forward to tasting these.  It has been hard work keeping the slugs away from these guys and munching on my beautiful curly lettuces edging the pot.  The effect is somewhat ruined by the smattering of bright blue slug pellets I ended up having to buy in bulk.

I've started planning a winter veg patch too... but we'll go into that at a later date.  Right now I need to go pull up some greedy nasturtiums!

July notes

It appears I am still not learning how to be patient with my garden.  I have sown to much and now having a bit of a time taming sections, fixing broken supports, giving away gluts of lettuce to neighbours to make way for the next batch and eating bolted veg!  On the plus side the front garden is really starting to come together and needed taming following the hot weather we've been relishing. So my house is full of flowers all from my garden. Swoon.

SO next year, I promise to-

• Grow more veg in the front garden with the flowers.  Chard, spinach, rocket & radishes grow pretty much anywhere so they'll be fine there and also have pretty flowers when they bolt.
• Give up on carrots, my soil is too heavy and they are taking up valuable space needed for more expensive veggies.
• Build bigger and stronger supports for the peas and climbing beans - do not underestimate the size they can grow too!
• I'm also going to introduce mint to the ugly patches to cover them!
• Start a small raised bed near the house for lettuce and sow less of it! My problem is that I can't bring myself to throw out thinned seedlings and end up growing them all. Daft.  This raised bed can also be the new home for the twisted hazel tree which is growing fast and will make an attractive feature in the winter months.
• Grow more crops for autumn and winter months.  The sprouts and broccoli plants are doing well, although less than half of what I planted.  I'm going to try and sow some cabbage & onions to join the salsify, celariac and brassicas for winter.  I've also got seeds for pak choi, mibuna & celtuce from Simply Seeds.  Not sure about the celtice - a new one on me.  Actually, I think I'll try and grow all of these winter crops!

Besides all that we have grand plans taking shape for landscaping the garden which I'm really excited about!

How June faired....

June faired well, it was a mixed bucket load of weathers, which overall seemed to please the garden.  My moods seemed to match this, swinging from happily pottering and weeding to full on panic gardening and sowing of seeds all over the place scared that I'll never have anything to harvest!

 So there was quite a lot to record here this month, in the hope that eventually I shall make more sense of what works for us and what to leave behind in future.  I'll start with the veggie patch, my favourite piece.  It's really starting to kick off now.  We are eating mangetout daily, the pea pods are huge and starting to swell now. 

 It's a bit mad looking, sure, but I know where everything is, it's not that big after all.  To me I see order, a soft ordered chaos of little future meals all at different stages.  Some things have bolted in the hotter days, but I've decided that's no bad thing - the flowers are wonderful brightening up the back garden. 

I'm probably most excited about how happily the salsify is growing.  The sharp looking spires or bright green contrast nicely against the chaos of the rest of the patch!  Although the broccoli I planted in the rows to the right of the salsify are not fairing so well. I'm not sure whether they are being eaten by beasties or not liking their patch for another reason.  There's a few babies there so I'll keep an eye on what survives and do my best by them and see how it goes.

The long patch has been a battle ground with weeds, but is throwing up lots to eat regularly all the same.  I'm leaving some of the radishes that are growing in between the celeriac to mature and go to seed so that we can eat the seeds later in the year.  Alice Fowler reckons they make a great beer snack - sounds like a plan to me!  And there is a patch of wee beetroots, which I hope to make my chocolate birthday cakes with later in the year.

Things are also looking up in the much less established front garden.  Everything is still quite young and needing another year to properly fill space etc, but I'm slowly starting to understand my soil a bit better I feel.  Although am still at a complete loss as why my best poppies all committed suicide, whilst others grow nearby.  I still worry why the peonies won't flower - too much nitrogen apparently?? It still looks a little granny-ish, but it's a huge improvement from when we moved in!

I've been steadily making regular sowings of rocket, beans, beetroot and salad leaves. It still makes me so

excited to watch them all sprout!

I'm not quite sure about my curly sprouts, and whether we'll have enough for Christmas dinner or not as they too are disappearing mysteriously.  I think I'm gonna need to net the brassicas tomorrow to stop the attacks!

And finally, June ended with a lot of insects.... We've been cursing the midges lots of late, it seems they are LOVING this summer.  They are sure loving me.  I am being eaten alive some days, and am running out of Skin So Soft.  Anyway, that was nothing compared to finding this baby in the shed after a week away in Ireland.....

The white stuff is the remaining wasp & ant powder/poison.  We killed the nest ourselves as I decided I wasn't forking out 50 bangers for the council to come remove it when browsing the Internet would tell me all I needed to instruct Daddy Wild with!

And while it had to go, and was a major pain in the ass, especially keeping Baby Wild indoors until we were sure there were no gangs of seriously pissed off wasps waiting for us out the back, I must admit that there's an odd beauty to it don't you think?  I felt rather mean disposing of such a clever and painstaking creation.

Strawberry Moon Harvest

We've been munching our way through all the baby radish thinnings, leaves and all

and rocket, and all the spicy leaves - can't get enough of them

and started hanging up come of the herbs to dry for use later in year when not so abundant

Sow a lot, reap a little?

A thought occurred to me today - maybe having the slowest growing garden in the west of Scotland is a good thing? Whilst all the neighbouring gardens around me start to fade, mine is only just beginning!
Finally, the poppys I sowed at the end of spring are starting to grow, and those I cheated and bought are actually in bloom! My peonies have grown, but I suspect have no intention to flower this year what so ever. Gutted. However the climbing rose is in it's element and has lots of little buds, the curry plant is threatening to stink out the entire street, and the herbs are running riot.

Ever the impatient gardener however, I spent this afternoon making yet more sowings. Flower-wise, I sowed Blue Mink Ageratum, yet MORE Californian Poppies, yet MORE Cornflowers, and Cosmos amongst the front beds. I live in hope that at least some will germinate & grow. I also sowed some Honesty in a corner to contrast with the Golden Fennel. In theory this should bloom summer 2012.

Amongst the still-too-bare-for-my-liking front garden, I stuck in some more Rhubarb Chard, a small Brussels Sprout 'Petit Posy' starting bed; and surrounded the daisy patch with Dwarf French Beans as I expect their red flowers to look well amongst the giant daisies.

Daddy Native is most perplexed by the Asparagus Peas I sowed in a planter out the back, having run out of veg patch space for legumes. I can't wait to get round to harvesting and trying those out!

And finally I filled in the last remaining spaces in the veg patch with 2 rows each of Salsify & Rudolf Broccoli! Phew.

I'm not finished there either, indoors I sowed seed trays with a whole batch of new herbs, both for my own herb garden as well as gifts for new homes I'll be visiting next month. Am most excited to see how the Cumin does.

SO here's my entire crop this year.... get ready... take a deep breath.....

Peas, Runner Beans, Mangetout, 3 different types of Dwarf/French Beans, 1 Artichoke, 2 beds of various Radishes, Broccoli, Salsify, Swiss Chard, Rhubarb Chard, Spinach, Carrots, Beetroot, Celeriac, Pumpkins, Courgette, Gourds, Cherry Tomatoes, Gardeners Delight Tomatoes, Chilli Peppers, Cucumbers, Aubergine, Rocket, Asparagus Peas, Brussels Sprouts, Fennel, Strawberries, White Currants, endless varieties of lettuces and a whole host of herbs...

Should find something to eat out of that lot, what do you think?

If only everything were as easy to grow as herbs....

May in my Garden. A record for me to look back on.

Bear with my poor photos for a while.  I'm afraid I am between cameras at the moment and am making do with my Sony Ericsson Satio. My photography degree is rather wasted on me at the moment.  But I really want to have record here of what is growing, where and how so I can refer back to it this time next year.

My babies - peas, mangetout, mixed leaves, pumpkins, beetroot - honest I swear they're there!



 My main veggie patch looks so tiny in this picture. And now you can see why I am so frustrated by feeling as though we are an entire season behind the rest of the UK here on the west of Scotland!  Everything is still so small!



Ha ha! Check out how badly our grass needs a trim

This is the smaller veggie patch.  From the bottom there are 3 rows of Celariac, interspersed with scarlet red radishes (sown today); then 3 rows of beetroot & 3 rows of rocket (also sown today).  At the top are 3 small but happy courgettes, a few rows of spinach with lettuce planted between.

Some things are doing fantastically, for instance this planter with spicy leaves and pea shoots by the front door.  I didn't have high expectations for this spot as it doesn't get as much sun as other areas and yet these babies are far stronger than any others in sunnier spots in the garden!

 The pot grown lettuce is much happier than it's siblings in the veggie patches.

 And then some others are sadder stories.  Only 2 out of the 4 fruit trees I planted last Autumn have survived.  Both the cherry trees seem to have died, but the apple trees are starting to shoot a few tentative leaves and buds.

Today I had grand plans to thin and transplant my carrot seedlings into their proper homes in the larger veggie patch.  I have been saving toilet roll tubes to grow them in to see if they grow longer since I think my soil is quite heavy.  I'm also going to grow a few in a large planter to see which is more successful.  If I ever get the time to do so!  I hate thinning so keep putting it off....

 And then there are the surprises!

Despite trying  (and failing) to stick to my plans and sketches I keep fnding random seedlings in places I don't expect them.  Now either I am sowing things under the influence of the vino blanco on Saturday nights and not remembering or something else is afoot here.

Then today I had an idea.... the compost heap.  I had thrown a pumpkin into the compost heap last winter that we never got to eat and had started to decay.  I reckon this is where some of the seedlings are coming from. As you can see these babies rather dwarf my wee beetroot seedlings (still to be thinned also!) so I knew that I hadn't intended for them to be bed buddies.  So I have moved them to the furthest corner of my patch so they can spread out over the grass if they wish to mature and stick around.