Courgettes PLanted

At last the weather is warm  enough and looks like it’s going to more or less stay that way in the near future so I thought planting was safe…

So two, (‘golden zuchini’) which produce yellow courgettes are under the door and four others, two of them are ‘black beauty’ and the other two are ‘unkown’ – so we’llsee what they produce. There are still some squash plants waiting for a home as sell.

Golden zuchin ‘under the door’

Black beauty courgettes are the two on the right

I’ve also one more cucumber to plant out as I’ve given a couple of seedlings away. Th eplant under the door seems to be ok:

Cucumber ‘inya’

The broad beans have their first pods now, but that common problem with broad beans has arrived – the blackfly

So clearly I need to go round and nip off the plant tops – and I’ll use the hosepipe to knock some off, or spray with washing up liquid and water but only a few plants at one end of the bed are affected at the moment.

The tomatoes outside the kitchen are the first to produce flowers

Toamato flowers – these will turn into yellow small tomatoes – hopefully

I’ve added a few more mangetout seedlings to the mangetout bed and there are some more in the greenhouse just starting to appear.

The potatoes are all up now and – I must earth them up now.

The bad news is that one of the two ‘dwarf’ blueberry bushes in the new fruit butsh bed has died (no idea why), so I’ve ordered a new plant.

Finally all the climbing beans are in the bed now so there are four varieties in now – the last two were ‘blue lake’ and ‘vitalis’.

WIldlife

We have had a load of sparrows in the garden this year, which is good conisdering they disappeared for several years. Nowthey’ve been giving the bird food a real good bashing – in the hot weather we aare having at the moment they are making use of the water I’ve put out for baths.

Sparrows enjoying a bath

Climbing Beans Planted

At last, even though we’ve had warmer weather for a few days it has been very windy so I held off planting them until today. There were three ‘blauhilde’ and a couple of  ‘vitalis’ ready to plant out. The blauhilde separated ok but the two vitalis had to be planted together as their roots had become so intertwined.

CLimbin Beans in at last – vitalis on the left

There are mangetout ready to be planted as well, plus tomatoes outside in growbags along side the greenhouse. The growbags are ready, with holes cut out and watered and there are tomatoes ready to go in them but again the windy weather put me off planting them – but I think they can go in during the next couple of days. Update – they have now been planted.

Tomatoes outside greenhouse – they are ‘Adam F1’

The plants inside are growing well and I have the chilli pepper plants in pots – they will be moved out of the way when I’ve tidied my plant trays up. The three tomato plants at the back are all

Tomatoes and peppers in the greenhouse – ‘san marzano’ at the back and one ‘adam f1’ in front

Here are the mangetout plants a few days ago:

Mangetout bed

Meanwhile, it is clear that around half-a-dozen dwarf beans are dead or badly scarred as a result of the frosts, plus of course it has been very dry and that’s not helped, even though I’ve been watering.  I’ve planted one of the new ones (‘safari’) now and more are coming on in the greenhouse.

Inside the greenhouse after what seems far too long more cucumber seedlings have appeared, also some ‘old’ climbing beans (‘blue lake’) have also germinated.

Ciurgettes, squash and more seedlings in the greenhouse

Outside, the broad beans are all in flower now, and the potato plants are just starting to appear.

Broad bean bed

However, there was one other loss apart from the dwarf beans, one of the tomatoes outside the kitchen (‘yellow perfection’) failed to survive the cold snap, but the other three are ok. Strangely the last batch of tomato seeds in the greenhouse have produced seedlings  ok, but they seem to be very slow growing which I don’t really understand.

 

Now we have drought!

Since my last post we’ve had almost a month of sunshine and no rain. Nice to have good weather at first and did help get the plants going after the poor spring, but now it has become rather annoying. It’s too hot to work in the garden after mid-morning and it never really cools down. To make things worse it has been a period of intense preparation for our ‘Open Gardens’ weekend recently so I needed to spend a great deal of time not just getting things ready, but thanks to the weather, I needed to spend a lot of time watering as well.

Anyway, although the Open Gardens has been and gone (with several hundred visitors over 2 days) I’m busy harvesting as well as watering.

So, how are the vegetable coming on I hear you say. Well I’ve managed to keep them watered well enough and many are now producing.

So here is a fairly complete description of the current veg situation.

The garlic, which were of two types, spring sown and autumn sown has survived  (bed 9) and rather oddly the spring sown variety was ready first and so already harvested  This variety has only produced small bulbs, they are all hanging in our outhouse now ready for use but so far not used so I don’t know about their flavour. The autumn sown variety is certainly ready, I just haven’t had time to do it yet so we’ll see….

Garlic harvest

Meanwhile I’ve put one of the courgette plants (atena variety) into the space left by the garlic plus a sweet pepper plant since I had several I needed to locate somewhere and it will act as an experiment like some of the others to see it they produce – with weather as it is I would have thought there was not excuse!

Atena Courgette in the foreground, garlic to the right and cucumbers plus courgette & cornichon above (see below)

Taking the bed next to the garlic (bed 11), the strawberries have produced a decent crop around 2 weeks ago but the dry weather has really affected them, despite watering, little or no fruit is to be found now and not many flowers.

Next is the bed connected to the strawberries, nearer the greenhouse (bed 10). This has a courgette (Green Griller), cucmber (Baby), a squash (F1 Hunter) and a ‘cornichon’ (small cucumbers, Vert de Paris) as well as the collection of dwarf and cannellini beans that finally germinated. The are just starting to produce. The courgette has already produced a couple, and the cucumber. The cornichon not quite and the squash has yet to flower.

Beans, courgette, cucumber & squash

Next to that bed is a bed of broad beans, in front of the greenhouse (bed 7). These are almost finished and we’ve had quite a few pods, in fact I’ve picked some today but some plants have been affected by blackfly, but not enough to be a big problem. They are a mixture of ‘Aquadulce’ and ‘De Monica’ but no real difference in the pods that I cansee.

Broad beans

Finally, on that side of the path is the ‘cold frame’ bed (i.e. covered with a glass door, bed 8). That has 2 cucumbers (? bought & Baby), cornichon (Vert de Paris) and a courgette (?, bought). I’ve had a couple of cucumber from the ? variety, likewise from the ? courgette. Also, the ‘baby’ cucumber has been producing (yes we have too many cucumbers just now!, and the courgette glut is about to hit….).

In the greenhouse I have 5 tomato plants in growbags, 5 pepper plants (one in a growbag, the others in pots. There is also a cucumber plant (mini F1, bought plant) trained up a cane, which I suspect has more or less finished producing after growing 3 cucumbers. The tomato plants are Alicante (x2), Cocktail (small fruit type, bought) and San Marzano (x2, large fruit, Italian type). The peppers are all plants bought in when I thought none of mine would germinate, Capino (x4) and Bell Boy. The peppers seem to be doing well with peppers on at least three of them, and the tomatoes all have plenty of fruit and should be ripening soon.

Greenhouse tomatoes with the pepper plant in the grow-bag nearest

On the other side of the main path, starting near the flower section, is a ‘salad’ bed (bed 1) with a couple of rows of ‘cut and come’ salad leaves (now probably past their best), some Lollo Rosso lettuce (bought as seedlings) and a row of pak choi just getting big enough to use. There is a row of mixed salad lettuce just coming through and a row of salad leaves that seems to have  mostly failed to germinate!

Salad bed with pigeon scaring CDs – there should be a row of seedlings nearest but the weather has meant poor germination

Next to that is a bed of mangetout peas (bed 2), some of which (Sugar Snap) were bought as seedlings when mine didn’t seem to be germinating. The others and a mixture of Oregon Sugar Snap and Sweet Horizon grown from seed. They have been producing for a couple of weeks now and are a very welcome addition to our meals.

Mangetout Peas

The next bed has a squash (F1 Hunter) and a courgette plant (Atena) (bed 3). However, the courgette has been severely got at, I suspect by pigeons and I have put some netting round it today. Part of the bed is occupied by pots of tulips and other bulbs ‘resting’.

Here is a harvest collected yesterday from cucumbers, courgette (Green Griller , Atena plus unknown) and broad beans

Harvest courgettes, cucumbers & broad beans

Beyond the blackcurrant bushes – the berries just getting ripe at the moment – is a bed with beans (bed 4), ‘fine’ beans (bought as seedlings, again when when mine weren’t germinating) and climbing beans (some ‘various’, and blue lake). The fine beans have been producing for a couple of weeks and the climbing beans have just started producing.

Beans – ‘Fine’ beans round the edge and climbing beans in the middle. The labels were to help visitors

The last bed has potatoes in it (Desiree, bed 5 ), and I imagine the crop won’t be too good after the dry weather, despite my watering.

Across from the potatoes is my raised ‘tank’ with carrots, but a poor showing this year despite several sowings, the rhubarb, which is doing really well and has produced several pickings and a container with more garlic waiting to be harvested.

The next bed  has cauliflower and cabbage plants (bed 6), both bought in as seedlings. The dry weather has affected these as well I think with the cauliflowers just beginning to show now. On the end of this bed is a grow-bag with three sweet pepper plants.

Cabbage on the right, cauliflower on the right with pepper plants in the grow-bag

Outside the greenhouse are two grow-bags with tomatoes and one pepper plant. There is a mixture of tomato types all bought as seedlings apart from the Gardener’s Delight – F1 Shirley (largish fruit), Outdoor Girl (many small fruit), Totem (bush type),  and a Bell Boy pepper, which has heavily attacked by slugs to start with and is just about recovered. There is also another unknown bush type tomato in a container.

Tomatoes outside the greenhouse

Finally, near the kitchen is a container with three tomato plants – Tumbling Tom (bush), Sunbaby (small fruit) and Sweet Aperitif (small fruit), bought in as seedlings.

Last of all here are two berry harvests, redcurrants (around 2kg) harvested a couple of weeks ago) and just yesterday gooseberries (around 750g) from one of the two bushes (the other not quite ready):

Redcurrants

Gooseberries

Phew! that’s all for now folks…..