flowers and veg

If anyone needed an excuse to grow flowers among their fruit and vegetables let me give one.

A small clump of chives in the soft fruit area of the garden. This morning they were alive with pollinating insects but the tortoiseshell butterfly flew off just before the shutter clicked. Without these insects we'd all be in deep trouble so do try and make room for them wherever you can.

When I started this garden seven years ago the idea was not just for it to provide fresh fruit and veg for myself and family but for it to be also an essential part of the local ecosystem. I could have created a sterile oasis that still produced food but at what cost?

Neatly ordered it ain't but the variety of wildlife it now supports never ceases to amaze me.

This is a shot taken from the bedroom window. The main veg plot is on the left but I have containers dotted about all over the place.

The east boundary of the garden is a dense privet hedge which is home to numerous house sparrows, blackbirds and song thrushes. They like to eat young pea shoots, etc. but they also eat some of the nasties like caterpillars and grubs so, as long as I protect my young peas, an uneasy truce is maintained and we co-exist. I don't normally cut the hedge until June in the hope that the first clutch of eggs is hatched and away. It gets another trim in late summer and that's usually it. An untidy hedge is not a cause for concern to me but a garden without birds would be!

If you want to encourage diversity in your garden you have to be prepared for at least a little untidiness. Neatly manicured lawns and immaculate flower beds fill me with horror. I just don't understand their purpose. My veg patch is kept weeded but the rest of the garden is more or less left to its own devices. I have sown wildflower seeds and planted spring bulbs but these are dotted among everything else, including dandelions. A lot of people reach for the Roundup as soon as they spot a dandelion but their seed heads are a great source of food for many bird species. Anyway, with 'weeds' rampant in neighbouring gardens and in the surrounding countryside killing a few dandelions is certainly not going to stop their wind-borne seeds from settling on your precious plot.

At the bottom of my garden I have a boggy 'woodland' area. This is overhung by neighbour's trees and also has a couple of my own apples. The canopy is quite open so underneath I have rhododendrons for a bit of colour with raspberries and gooseberries for food. The ground has clumps of shade-loving wild garlic so I suppose this is what people now call 'forest gardening' but it just seemed a sensible use of space to me.

Three years ago I built a big pile of large stones close to the cherry tree and just left it to see what would happen. Very soon it was covered in grass and assorted 'weeds' but it also sprouted self-seeded raspberry, blackcurrant and bramble plants along with holly and a couple of unknown shrubs. I'm pretty sure these arrive in the droppings of birds which peck at the cherries or simply roost in the tree. Amphibians also love to shelter in the damp nooks and crannies between the stones and there are shrews and hedgehogs regularly seen there.

In addition to the boulder heap I also pile up all tree and shrub prunings and leave them over winter as a refuge for whatever fancies living among them. In late spring, when the hibernating creatures are moving about, the rubbish goes through the shredder and is composted. And that's another thing, the big open compost heap is winter home to yet more life. When I dig into it in spring you should see the ensuing feeding frenzy as birds from all around come to search for their creepy-crawly dinner.

To me, all of this seems like a win-win situation. Insects pollinate my plants, birds eat insects, amphibians and hedgehogs eat slugs and snails and I get to eat as much fresh fruit and vegetables as I want. It's a cycle and, so long as I don't upset the balance too much, it will simply keep on going.

at last....

I know it's been a while but there really has been a lot of catching up to do and the outside is always preferable to sitting at a computer. Anyway, I have finally got all the summer/autumn veggies into position and growing away nicely. Just the winter veg. to go in but they'll have to wait for space to become available.

These are self-blanching celery in deep tubs. Last year's celery was a disaster, like so many things, so I'm trying an F1 variety. As long as you keep them well watered they do fine in containers.

Broad beans have plenty of flowers but no pods yet, unlike the first peas which should be ready for picking in a week or two.

Because we have salad crops throughout the year I grow them in small amounts in any old container that's going spare and just leave them wherever there's a gap.

The thought of a 20 foot row of bolted lettuces sends shivers down my spine but that's what so many people end up with because they are led to believe that home growers should follow the same rules as farmers and grow everything in long straight lines.

I try my best to garden in a wildlife-friendly fashion and find that this actually pays dividends in the long term. Admittedly, I lose a few things to birds and slugs unless I take elaborate counter measures but overall the pest problem is minimised by having some sort of balance. Here's a frog sunbathing on the front lawn. Must be different to the one that jumped out of the compost heap in the morning unless he took the long way round! Frogs eat slugs and not vegetables so I like frogs.

You may have noticed that the lawn is not neatly manicured. I don't play bowls and anyway it's on a slope so I couldn't if I wanted to. No need for a velvety sward then. It does have buttercups and daisies and dandelions and frogs...what more could a gardener want.

container crazy

I had a count up today and I currently have 151 assorted containers with edibles growing in them. Still have the squashes and melons to pot up but I'm about on a par with previous years. To be honest I couldn't really accommodate any more unless I started covering the back lawn and there would be voices raised in protest if I tried that.

They range in size from 6 inch pots of spring onions to a wheelbarrow with potatoes growing away nicely.

I don't know why people bother growing things like spring onions and salad leaves on the plot when they are quite happy to grow in containers and you can place them near the back door for the convenience of just popping out for a bit of lunchtime sandwich filling. My aim is to get a more or less continuous supply of such things by making small sowings every few weeks and with the greenhouse I can usually manage to pick something most days except in the most severe cold spells. 

This is the tatie barrow with 5 Kestrel plants in it. When they are finished I'll follow with another crop depending on what plants I have available. The problem this year is that things are so late there may be nothing suitable though I suppose a late sowing of kale or some overwintering crop would be OK.

I found this large mineral lick tub washed up on the shore last winter. The bottom was cracked so it was no use for putting liquid in but a few big drain holes and it's home to another four spud plants.

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The square red pot behind it has a courgette in it. I'm only growing the round courgettes this year, rather than the long ones as I find them more convenient and particularly handy for stuffing.

The big downside to all this container craziness is that in the unlikely event of hot dry weather they do use a lot of water. They also take a lot a lot of compost to fill them and it wouldn't make economic sense if I bought the commercial stuff so I make most of my own.

I'll be with you in...

...apple blossom time, although it's a bit late this year. This might be a good thing as there's plenty of blossom and plenty of insects about so things are looking good for an excellent harvest.

This is my James Grieve which is absolutely covered in flowers. For every one of the seven years we have been here this tree has given us a bumper harvest and is one I would recommend for anyone living in northern England or Scotland. 

Winter Gem is just coming into flower and should give us our first crop this year. This one is three years old and has had to put up with some pretty awful springs in its short life.

This is the unknown cooker. A monster of a tree which must be nearly 30 feet tall and was probably planted shortly after the house was built about 60 years ago. It has always been an erratic performer and I suspect is nearing the end of its useful life. It casts quite a lot of shade over the veg patch and I was going to cut it down and replace it last winter but never got round to it. A job for next winter I guess. Having worked in forestry for a number of years I have a bit of a thing for trees and don't like to destroy them for no reason but they are a crop like any other and when they stop producing they have to go. A good friend of mine is a sculptor/wood carver who makes lovely little boxes from fruit woods so nothing will be wasted. We'll get some excellent firewood and the small branches will be shredded...recycling at its best!

The Elstar and Egremont Russet are also flowering so it looks like cider making will be taking up some of my time in the autumn. We have plenty of wild crab apples growing round here and I can get apples from my neighbours who, for some odd reason, grow them but don't use them!!

Changing the subject slightly, the cherry tree is also festooned in blossom.

Now all I have to do is keep the birds off the cherries...not an easy task.

bolted broccoli

Hardly surprising that my broccoli has given up the ghost and bolted. First it had to just sit in the cold soil waiting for spring, then it was battered by gale force winds and the final indignity was rain of monsoon intensity. Now it is just producing some pretty flowers for me! Thankfully I have some cabbage plants to replace them and will make another sowing of broccoli to slot in when space comes available.

On the up side I'm hoping for a decent crop of blackcurrants this year.

All four bushes are festooned like this so if we get some sunshine all should be well. I do hope so as I've invested in a fruit press and want to have a go at making real juice ice lollies.

Indoor strawberries are plumping up nicely and waiting for the sun like everything else.

Tree fruit have an abundance of blossom and there are some pollinating insects about although not as many as their should be at this time of year. The forecast is for it to warm up this week which will certainly help. 

I pricked out more celery seedlings today. If we get as much rain as last summer they should cope as celery is basically a water plant.We like it as a cooked vegetable, raw in salads and as a flavouring in soups so we should be able to make good use of plenty of plants, assuming I can find space for them all.

As last year I'll be growing my climbing beans up the privet hedge to maximize garden space. It worked really well and gave a good harvest despite the poor weather.

I got 100 percent germination from this lot and have another ten currently just poking their heads up. Thirty-five plants should provide us with plenty and when you add in the dwarf french and broad beans we'll be looking at a real bean feast!

new potatoes

We had the first of the new potatoes today - nearly a fortnight later than the last two years but not surprising given the cold spring.

The variety is Home Guard and they tasted lovely but the yield was poor compared to my favourite Lady Christl. I suppose I really should leave them longer to bulk up but I just can't wait to get that first crop of the year and twelve weeks should have been enough for them.

I can hardly move in the greenhouse at the moment due to pots and trays of plants which should be potted up  into final positions or going outside. So long as this cool windy weather prevails I'm loathe to put out any more brassicas and lettuce only to see them ripped from the ground by gale force winds. By mid-May I should be well on the way to getting through the greenhouse potato crop and making the space available to the tomatoes and peppers, etc. but not this year.

greenhouse chaos!

This afternoon I managed to trip over and scatter a tray of lettuce seedlings which I'd just put down on the floor to make a space so I could prick out some celery. At least lettuce is a fast grower and easily replaced. The celery I'm trying this year is an F1 self-blanching type 'Loretta'. Because the seed is so small I just scatter it on the compost surface and end up with far too many young plants. I potted up sixteen which should be enough for us as we normally only pick a few sticks at a time, rather than cutting the whole plant.

One thing that does seem to enjoy this weather is radishes. I sow them regularly in any containers I have to hand and they just seem to grow away regardless.

Scarlet globe radishes happily growing in four inches of compost

spuds coming along nicely

The greenhouse potato crop is looking very healthy, even though we haven't yet had a lot of sunshine.

They've been growing away for 10 weeks now so I had a 'furtle' round under the compost and found plenty of small tubers. The biggest was about the size of a pigeon's egg so I'll leave them another week or two and give them some tomato feed. For the last couple of years I've had my first picking the last week in April but the cold spring has delayed that eagerly awaited event this time.

In between showers today I managed to pot up some lettuces which will stay in the these pots for some nice early heads. The CCA lettuce I plant 3 or 4 to a large pot and pull the leaves as required.

Little Gem and AYR lettuce

Another early container crop is beetroot which I absolutely love. After the disaster with the hailstorm the other day I'm glad I have a few tubs growing in the greenhouse for some sweet baby beets at the start of the season.

We had a couple of magpies hopping about on the back lawn today and, according to the old saying, it's two for joy. We could certainly do with some of that to kick-start the gardening year.