compost suprise

I am sure many of you who make your own compost have experienced this.

The lovely compost that you have been making over the past year is then spread over the flower borders, greatly improving the soil and health of your plants.

Then as the summer progresses you find a plant that you did not sow in that border but you do recognise it.

A tomato plant. So instead of weeding it out,  you leave it there, no training or pinching out, just let it do its thing.

Then August and September come round and you have tomatoes ripening in the sun!

We have some of these growing in the potato patch and we have had a wonderful crop, plus more still ripening.

The strange thing is that, because of all the rain and damp weather we had in July and August, the potatoes have all suffered from blight, except the Sarpo blight resistant ones.

We have had to remove all the tops from the potatoes to save the crop. But the tomatoes, in the same family as potatoes are unaffected! Explain that.

climbing courgette

 For several years we have been trying to grow the climbing courgette variety Black Forest.

Each year it has failed to grow more than about 50cm.

This year we found another climbing variety Shooting Star. Success!

It has grown well and we have tied it to a support so it goes quite high.

The fruit from the "Shooting Star" are lovely thin and bright yellow. Also very delicious.

A definite must for next years planting.

Keeping on the yellow theme we have also had success with melons in the greenhouse. This variety called Emir are quite a small fruit just enough for 2 and are ripening and tasting great, really juicy.

Once again we entered several things into our local flower and produce show and won 2 firsts, 2 seconds and 2 thirds.

        The Firsts were for a brace of courgettes and my bowl of fruit. A successful year.

Still catching up

 I did not realise it is over 2 months since my last post and I am still playing catch up with weeds and grass edges and all the other jobs in the garden.

We have been harvesting well and now the gooseberries, black and white and early red currants are over. The autumn raspberries are just beginning, replacing the summer ones which are now over.

This means it is time to cut out the fruited canes of the summer raspberries and tie in the new growth which will provide next years fruit. The same needs to be done with the logan and tayberries.

In the green house the aubergines are coming on well, not the normal rounded type but a variety called long purple.

The tomatoes are also ripening. We have not bothered with outdoor tomatoes this year, as long as the weather is warm and dry they are great but with all this damp weather they are likely to get blight and the whole crop will be lost.

The cucumbers were doing well but have now succumbed to the red spider mite, We will use nematodes next year to try and prevent this.

Beetroot, lettuce and beans: broad, french and runners are all doing well and the courgettes are growing by the minute. We like to pick them at about 15cm so a daily check is required to prevent ending up as marrows!

Peas have been and gone but were delicious freshly picked.

Now is the time to summer prune the trained apples and plums and pears so that will keep me busy for several days over the next couple of weeks. Pruning the new growth back hard at this time of year encourages more fruit buds and stops the trees growing out of their spaces.

Not the best time for a holiday

Usually we would never go away in May, the garden is in full flow after the winter chills and the greenhouse is full of precious seedlings.

But 2023 was a special birthday year and so we did go away for 2 weeks at the end of May.

It was a wonderful holiday but we will not do that again!

Following the wet winter we have had a very cold spring. Plants were not coming back into life after the dormancy of winter and seeds refused to germinate.

Then suddenly, just when we were away, the temperatures rose sharply. 

We came back from holiday to find that everything had put on about a months worth of growth in the 2 weeks we were away. So we are now trying to catch up, getting the weeds cleared and planting out the pots in the greenhouse. 

We have come home to come lovely roses though.

                                                        Joanna Elise

                                                            Alberic Barbier

                                            Tottering by gently

And a bonus to come home to, the asparagus and strawberries are ready now.

March and April

 Where did that time go, is it really almost May?

The weather is still wet and cold. It was only 1 degree at night on the 19th April, and that was in the greenhouse! No wonder we are having trouble getting some of the seeds to germinate even with a heated bench. Just to confuse further, it was 17 degrees outside the next day.

There is one area of the garden which looks lovely now and that is the bottom of the lawn in the front garden. When we moved here nearly 15 years ago there were a few cowslips on the lawn at the end. We decided to leave them and over the years we have added various spring plants and bulbs to enhance the area.

The cowslips are opening by the end of March. There have been snowdrops, anemone blanda, snakes head fritillary and crocus. The tall spikes of camissia are up now and the flowers will open in May.

Then will come the yellow rattle which has established now and controls the grass.

We leave the area to flower and then go to seed, eventually strimming at the end of August/early September and then mow for the rest of the season.

Mid April, a golden sea at the end of the garden.

february honey bees

In February, if it is not raining and the temperature is around 10 degrees or more then the honey bees will be flying, looking for food. They do not hibernate during the winter but keep warm by clustering together in their hive. They feed on their honey stores and if the hive is managed by bee keepers they also have a sugar block called foundation to eat.

But with the first bit of warmth they are out and about buzzing in the gardens.

You may think there is not much food for them in February, but if you grow the right plants the garden will be buzzing .

Snowdrops are wonderful at this time of year, brightening up the dullest spot and full of nectar and pollen for the bees.

The special varieties of snowdrop are also good food for bees, this is Diggory.

Crocus and Hellebore are a good food source.

Mistletoe, the almost insignificant flowers are easily spotted when you hear the buzzing coming from the branches that are covered in mistletoe.

Sarcococca, again like the mistletoe, the flowers are very small but the scent is amazing. Planted beside a path you can smell them several metres away and as you get closer the buzzing sound announces that the bees are feeding.

January 2023

 A New Year and the weather is still up and down.

Now 17 days in we have had higher than normal temperatures double figures for nine of the days and reaching 12..4 degrees. Then yesterday it only reached 4 degrees during the day and dropped to -5.8 last night. So the garden is all white again.

The snow in early December stayed, along with below freezing temperatures, for more than 7 days. It was quite a relief when the white went. It will be a couple of months before I will discover how many plants I have lost but the biggest and saddest loss for me is the aeonium. I have built up a collection, from just one cutting, over the last 10 years. Adding a few more unusual varieties in the last couple of years. Apart from a few pots (all I can fit in the house) the rest, about 30 pots,  have previously survived all winter in a small bubble wrapped greenhouse. But when I got to the green house this year, after the thaw, the aeoniums had drooped and softened to a mush. They are a succulent so the stems had just frozen, and being full of water they collapsed and rotted. Apart from the 4 "special" ones, I am now left with just 6, 4 of which are the cuttings from last year. The lovely tall older ones are all lost.

On a brighter note, it is January and the start of snowdrops. Mrs McNamara is out now with many others, the green shoots pushing through the soil and the white tips forming.

                                                                    Mrs McNamara

                                                        The lovely Cyclamen coum 

                                Rhubarb is coming through too, so time to cover some with the forcing pots to get                                                         early bright pink stems, delicious.