Growbags and Greenhouses -The WB Garden Blog

I know it’s been a while since I’ve posted but frankly not much has been happening in the garden. Meanwhile the weather has swung from cool to hot to cold (3degC the other night) and back to warm again – very confusing.

I’ve dug a bit of the garden, and removed all the climbing beans plus the netting (no easy task removing the bean remains from the netting) and the supporting canes

Meanwhile, the tomatoes are still producing – mostly small ‘cherry’ types now, but still worth having. In the greenhouse there are also some sweet peppers left still ripening (we ate the big one last weekend) and the other variety of pepper (can’t remember the variety, they look like v large chilli peppers so I suspect they are sweet rather than hot but we’ll see). The aubergines are now dying off  a complete waste of time and space this year.

Sweet peppers harvested (& eaten alrady)

The most astounding thing though was the ‘great grape theft’ – I had been leaving the grapes on the vine in the greenhouse until they were as sweet as possible and set off last weekend to harvest them – only to find every last one had gone! birds I suspect a week or so ago through the opening vents on the sunny days. So all that was left were the ‘skeletons’ of the bunches and no grapes.

Sport the Grape....

Not much to report on the wildlife area either, two blackbirds were having a really vicious fight near the greenhouse the other day so the battle for territories must be well under way. The birds are going through food fairly quickly now, stocking up for winter I guess.

And that’s about it for now….

The harvesting is now well under way of the tomatoes and one lot of potatoes has been dug up and eaten already (as have many of the toms). The harvest from only a couple of roots of potato in the ground by the greenhouse was satisfactory, although pretty scabby (see pic below).

The tomatoes pictured below are a mixture of ailsa craig and a couple of the small tomato varieties, the ailsa craig came in handy for a baked potato & mince dish the other day.

Also being harvested are brambles and raspberries – although the brambles are noticeably poorer than last year, a result of the dryer period earlier in the year I guess. The rasps are from just one cane, which is very prolific, I wish I had room for more really – this one is just in the border by the hedge and I do nothing to it other than prune it. However, the brambles, plus some from last year from the freezer and a bramley apple, went towards a pie tonight.

I collected a few more climbing beans and pretty much the last of the mangetout peas the other day, and there are a few courgettes still being produced The cucumber has now been consigned to the compost bin after producing one tiny cucumber. Even worse, the aubergine plants in the greenhouse have been flowering so nicely they would qualify as decorative plants in the house – but not one flower has set, so no aubergines – yet.

As for wildlife – rather annoyingly, a squirrel appeared in the garden the other day, so the trap is out…. Birdwise it’s been very active with the long tailed tits appearing in number – I counted ten the other day – with six on the fat feeder at once – see below.

First potato harvest - with scabs!

One of the first tomato harvests

Six long tailed tits, and more waiting!

Well, here we are a the middle of August, past halfway into the school hols, and summer hasn’t really been here – well not the ideal anyway. It’s been a typical British summer, a couple of days fine then rain then a day of sun then rain etc.

Which is more or less the story of our holiday, hence the break in posts. Before going away I had set up the ‘drip feed’ system I have used before and it mostly worked while we were away, so no big disasters in the greenhouse or other critical plants in pots and growbags. The plants in the garden, however, have suffered as there had been a spell of several days without rain I would guess. Three of the climbing bean plants are dead, and the courgettes are looking pretty,  as is the remaining cucumber plant (see below).

On the plus side, the tomatoes are just starting to ripen so we haven’t come back into an instant glut. Mind, it took a fair time to remove all the side shoots and so on from the plants – it’s amazing how fast they can grow. So the toms are just starting to ripen and I’ve harvested haalf-a-dozen or so today, some Ailsa Craig and some of the small varieties.

In the greenhouse, the pepper plants are ok and have produced a few peppers as well, but the aubergines although flowering like made show no signs of setting any fruit – don’t know why.

Apart from the courgettes and beans, the lettuce have survived ok, though obviously would have been bigger with more watering and the potato plants in the ground outside the greenhouse have died right back so I think will need digging up soon. The potatoes in the containers are still showing green stems so may be able to be left (they were kept watered by the drips but the ones in the ground weren’t).

Of course the weeds showed no desire to stop growing and I’ve ripped up loads around the courgettes, with lots more to go round the bean plants. The broad bean plants were completely dead and dry and so I’ve pulled them up now. The mangetout peas are looking to be on the way out – I harvested a container full yesterday and they have mostly been eaten now. There were loads of climbing beans to harvest, most of them rather bigger than they should be, but still no problem to eat – runner beans at the same stage would have been stringy.

The birds had pretty much scoffed all the food in the feeders I’d filled before going away so they had to be all refilled. It was very noticeable today that the long-tailed tits were back in numbers (finished breeding?) and I counted five on a fat feeder with two waiting to join in. The goldfinches were happy I’d refilled the nyjer seed container and the sparrows were soon back at the seed feeder as well.  Saw a dark coloured cat in the garden today, but switching the electronic repeller (it had been off while we were away) seemed to encourage it to vacate pretty quickly.

Well at least one plant is fairly healthy.....

Tomatoes by the kitchen starting to ripen

The cucumber - struggling to survive!

Well almost all of them now anyway, just a few pods left. Although the first harvest had only small beans, the last couple have been ok. One good point this year – no blackfly! must be a first that, I guess again because of the weather conditions early on. Almost on cue the climbing beans are about to produce, rather annoyingly the one I gave to my next-door neighbour already has beans…

The mangetout peas true to form are producing faster than we can eat them, and as usual some pods seem to hide until they are more like regular pea pods.

Courgettes are producing well, in fact I harvested four smallish ones today to go into a ‘mince and courgette bake’. Meanwhile, the sickly looking cucumber plant in the container has finally popped its clogs so I’m left with one plant, still struggling but has at least produced a flower.

Tomatoes (the ‘fruit’ rather than the plants) are expanding fast – so a glut will no doubt happen when they all ripen at once. Also in the greenhouse the peppers and aubergines are flowering and at least one pepper has set, though I notice that one aubergine flower has dropped off the plant without setting. I hope there isn’t a repeat of last year when only one aubergine was produced – but the omens aren’t good.

We harvested all the blackcurrants (and around 4 whitecurrants the birds missed) last weekend, a total of over a kilo (around 2.5lbs), all being converted into coulis. The gooseberries finally were baked into a pie with added brambles from the freezer as none of the local shops had any more gooseberries – the combination worked quite well though.

I was fairly cross when a third squirrel turned up raiding the bird foo after the previous evictions – but I had it in the trap within a couple of hours, so we are currently squirrel free. I heard on the radio today that there is a ‘butterfly watch’ taking place to map the current distribution and decline. It did make me aware how few I have seen this year. Apart from the usual cabbage whites and small blues there have been very few other species around, even though our three buddleia bushes are in full flower – in fact I saw one red admiral today and that is the first butterfly on the buddleia I’ve seen so far.

The Blackcurrant Harvest

The weather is still in spring mode with showers and sun – and of course it is a bank holiday weekend this weekend so the weather is bound to be crummy.

Still it is ‘good growing weather’ so not bad from the gardening point of view. However, I have been cutting hedges over the last week, so the rain interruptions weren’t all that welcome or the wind when it wasn’t raining..

Outside I’ve now got 3 courgette plants growing nicely and one of the cucumber is now in a container outside. I have another waiting in the greenhouse to go out. The beans and peas are all coming on nicely with broad bean pods already set and growing. Some of the peas are ready to flower, and all but one of the climbing french beans are climbing now. I planted second batch of peas the other day to make up the second row.

All the potato plants are now huge and I noticed today that there are flower buds on one of the plants in the row planted in the garden near the greenhouse.

I now have 3 tomato plants in the planter near the house, plus 4 in growbags in the greenhouse – 2 more need to go in yet. After the initial worry about germination I’ve now got several more seedlings than I’m going to need of course. I’ve still to plant up a growbag outside the greenhouse so I’ll need 3 there but I’ll still have spares.

The other seedlings in the greenhouse are coming on – mind the flat-leaved parsley produced only one seedling initially, but after a couple of weeks it looks as if another one has struggled up. I’ve another pot of salad leaves just about ready to harvest in the greenhouse, which is just as well since the plants in the container near the kitchen (originally in the greenhouse) are now in flower.

The rows of carrots, parsnip, radishes etc. are growing but still not as well as I would like.

A sort of wildlife aspect – I’ve had a cold water aquarium tank inside this year and have raised a number of frog and toad eggs up to froglet and toadlet stage – they’ve all gone back to the canal where the eggs cam from now apart from one ‘toadpole’ that seems a bit reluctant to develop. Of course with the weed etc. added as food for the tadpoles have been lots of other aquatic wildlife such as caddis fly and stone fly larvae, small leeches, and snails of course – all fascinating to watch – see below for some of the returnees.

Also, we’ve had some baby thrushes coming up to the house, unlike the adults and I managed to snap on – see below.

Baby frogs ready to return to the canal

Baby Thrush