Growbags and Greenhouses -The WB Garden Blog

We are now in a period of low pressure systems coming over one after another – just like spring or autumn and very untypical of summer. So we have showers, wind and occasional sun. The only positive is I don’t have to go round watering the garden. On the other hand, the weeds especially are growing like mad, not to mention the lettuce (see below).

Lettuce gone mad almost hiding courgette

 So we are still harvesting, the broad beans are just about over, a few pods left. I’ve started cutting them down and this year I’m going to experiment with leaving some stumps to see if they will sprout and flower, which apparently works sometimes. The broad beans in the picture below were podded and then the outer cases taken off and used in two dishes – a sort of risotto dish with chicken and rice, and in a kind of stew with chicken – both very nice

The dwarf and climbing french beans are still producing, and the runners are in full production. The mangetout peas are coming to an end – wish I’d planted some more now.

Harvest of beans, peas & courgettes

The courgettes are staring to produce the usual surfeit problem, I picked two large ones the other night but we’ve only managed to dispose of one (almost) in an omelette. A couple of  the cucumbers are now just about ready to be harvested so we’ll see how they are in a salad.

Broccoli is in full production, in fact some has already flowered,  but the guinea pig seems to like them so they aren’t wasted. Also, we had some of the spinach beet leaves the other night – they tasted fine. We need to try some of the curly kale soon…

Butterfly eggs under broccoli leaf

The tomatoes in the green house are in full production now (olive type) and the aubergine plant has one aubergine growing now plus other flowers. The peppers aren’t even flowering yet, so I don’t hold out much hope for them producing much.

Olive tomatoes in greenhouse

The harvesting of blackcurrants has started, and is about half-way through but weather has rather interrupted that process. Even so we have several pounds – enough to make coulis at least.

Blackcurrants

Elsewhere the buddleia is in full flower. We have 4 bushes, white, dark purple and the ‘normal’ purple type. They are of course the place to see butterflies, but as a sign of the decline I have only seen two or three species this year. Mostly cabbage white, and almost all the rest peacocks with one other brown and yellow type that I haven’t identified yet. Not a single tortoiseshell or red admiral, both of which have been frequent visitors on previous years.

Picture to be added…..

We also saw the amazing sight of ‘our’ hedgehog in the middle of the lawn during the day last week pushing the squirrel trap bodily around in order to get at the peanuts underneath it – it must really like peanuts. It’s going to be difficult to know where to put the trap to avoid getting the hedgehog if it is going to be that keen to get at peanuts.

Meanwhile, I’ve had to cut hedges at the front and lawn at the back – and still hedge at the back in real need of cutting, it’s just finding the time.

Yes it’s that time again when everything seems to be available all at once. The weather has also turned a bit like spring with showers and sun so no need to water the garden. The jet stream is too far south so we are getting the atlantic lows passing over us rather than to the north so we’re told.

The broad beans are almost all ready for picking and we’ve had several lots now – so the cookery books are being scoured for suitable recipes to make a change from just having them steamed. It’s noticeable that the ‘drarf’ variety (whichever that was) is far less productive than the much taller row – which I think are ‘the Sutton’.

The mangetout peas are also in full production with the usual problems of finding the pods in the mass of leaves, they are much the same colour making it quite tricky. Every time I search for more I find a few that have obviously been there for a while as the peas inside are getting big, and yet I hadn’t found them on previous visits I think they hide deliberately - still they are all edible. We have them both steamed (with hot meals) and raw (in salads).

The dwarf beans are also producing – with about 8 plants the are just producing enough for a decent portion every few days. fortunately the climbing beans (runner & french) are not producing yet but are in full flower.

The courgettes are doing fine – we’ve had two and there are 3 or 4 ready for picking now. The cucumbers virtually all have ‘mini’ cucumber on them, so we’ll see if they develop into decent sized ones.

The lettuce has gone completely mad – they are almost all huge plants, and as I’m only harvesting a few leaves each day it isn’t having much effect. Still plenty of leaves for the guinea pig. Some of the broccoli plants have heads big enough to harvest already. Also the spinach beet is ready to have leaves harvested.

On top of all that , the first tomato to turn reddish has just appeared in the greenhouse so they won’t be long.

Speaking of the greenhouse, as with last year something is eating holes in the leaves of the tomatoes and the peppers (no flowers yet) – I suspect caterpillars of something but haven’t caught them out yet – they are also too high I suspect for the resident toads to get at them.

Speaking of damage to leaves, I have a clematis by the kitchen window which has had great chunks taken out of a lot of the leaves, I’ve never seen that before and I’ve no idea what is doing it.

Lastly, I finally got round to planting out the rather large celery plants (they are too big to call seedlings now) in a trench near the sweetcorn plants – I did grow a few last year (seedlings from my neighbour) but they didn’t produce much we could eat (but the guinea pig liked what there was) – I’ll try to look after these a bit better.

More blackbird fledglings have appeared on the lawn recently, so I guess they had a second brood. I spotted a squirrel in the hedge the other day – looks like anther eviction will have to happen soon.