clean up begins

It's that time of year again. What a daft expression, surely it's always that time of year, whatever time of year it is.

But I digress, it's time for the autumn clear out and clean up. For some reason over the year I just seem to accumulate mounds of stuff which ends up jammed into any odd place I can fit it. Under the potting bench, in the shed, behind the shed, hanging from the roof......

By stuff I mean containers and lengths of wood I find on the shore, empty compost bags, things I bought and never got round to using.....

So, with the tomatoes and cucumbers now finished and removed from the greenhouse I actually have room to turn round in there and make a start. I want to get it clear and disinfected before I bring the overwintering salads, etc under cover. The glass is quite dirty as well and it obviously benefits the plants to have as much light as possible in the winter months. The only problem with all this is that I hate throwing anything away so what normally happens is that all the pots/containers get sorted for size then stacked inside each other. This frees up space, makes everything look tidier and I get to keep all my rubbish.

That's what I've been doing for the last week or so with a bit of weeding and pruning when it hasn't been raining.  Not very exciting but then gardening isn't all excitement and anticipation. Anyway, doing something is infinitely preferable to sitting on my backside.

Today's picture is evening light on Skiddaw and the Northern Fells. While I was down on the marsh  taking pictures I found a broken scaffold plank. I'm sure I can find a use for it somewhere!

final sowing frenzy

I took advantage of some decent weather last weekend and had my final sowing frenzy of the season.

In went:
lettuce (winter gem and loose leaf)
rocket
spinach
turnip
pak choi
spring onions
carrots (Amsterdam sprint)

All but the turnips are in containers so they can be brought into the greenhouse over winter. They don't do much during the coldest months but once the sun starts to climb a bit higher in the sky they're off for some super early crops in spring.

Also pricked out some winter gem lettuce into individual pots which will be their permanent home.

These are in a rich compost but they will need a liquid feed boost to help them along once they reach a decent size.

Because the potato crop was later than normal due to the weather I had nowhere on the plot to put the first of my leeks so they were planted in an old plastic basket that I found washed up on the marsh. Sunday's chicken dinner had home-grown leeks which, although not large, were perfectly good. 

These will probably all be used before the first hard frost whereas those on the plot will stand through the winter to give us fresh right through to next spring. With much stuff harvested and not much left to go in it's now a time to catch up on all the jobs that were delayed from the summer. Some overdue pruning of the plum and cherry trees was number one as it needs doing before leaf-fall in order to avoid disease. I don't make a list of things to do but rather just wander round the garden and do things on a random basis. Perhaps I should be more organized but why break the habit of a lifetime?

the year of exotic fruit

Although it has been a real struggle to get worthwhile crops of many things this year my frantic sowing of just about any seed I could get my hands on has had some interesting results.  I've never grown squash before but here's a nicely swelling uchiki kuri growing in a sheltered spot outside.

and a melon 'charentais' spreading all over the greenhouse. The plant has a number of fruit showing and I just hope it doesn't get too cold too soon to give them chance to ripen.

For the first time ever I'm getting a decent crop of aubergines. I've often grown them before but usually only get the odd fruit as most just seem to rot away.

aubergine 'halflange violette'

I know that tomatoes are not especially exotic but the outdoor ones are actually ripening this year. Normally they struggle but these 'Maskotka' (freebie seeds with a magazine) seem to be enjoying our Cumbrian climate.

Now, in case you think I have a magic touch I must add that the butternut squash haven't produced a single flower, never mind any fruit, and the peppers are still as green as the front lawn! You can't win 'em all.

food hedge

My experimental 'food hedge' has proved a great success. I've only grown runner beans against it this year but it will be climbing peas and anything else that I can find suitable next year. The pics show what it looked like at various stages.

I'm amazed at how well the runners have done, considering they are in containers and not the open ground. (many thanks to Elaine of U.K. Veg gardeners for the seed). Today I picked just short of one pound of beans and I've previously had a couple of similar pickings.

beans means.....beans!

Harvesting and preserving are continuing to occupy a lot of my time. Apart from having the chest freezer almost full I've done pickled beetroot and onions and made the first lot of chutney. Heaven knows why I'm making more chutney when I still have about twenty assorted jars from last year but it just feels the right thing to do. Saw some Kilner jars on special offer in a local shop the other day so I might have a go at bottling as well. Mmm, might have to find another cupboard somewhere!

In order to make best use of the space I have available I make small sowings throughout most of the year to ensure continuity of supply and try and avoid gluts of any one type of veg. Today I've done one tub of carrots (Early Nantes), spring onions (Lisbon) and lettuce (Little Gem). When ready the lettuce seedlings will be transferred to individual pots placed in a large tray so they can be moved in and out of the greenhouse when bad weather threatens. You can also bring them into the house and grow them on a windowsill if you don't have a greenhouse. By doing that you can have something fresh from the garden even in the depths of winter.

flat out...

....not on my back but at work in the garden and the kitchen. Well, it felt like flat out to me but I suppose most folks would consider it a little gentle exercise!

After more than a week of decent weather there is just so much to do.  I guess all British gardeners have been hoping for some relief after a miserable summer. So there's the inevitable weeding, summer pruning, planting out of winter veg. and harvesting all the maturing crops. And it's not just the harvesting but all that's involved in preserving for the winter. The freezer is filling up nicely and I've made some pickles but there's a load still to be done.

After cleaning and prepping, these turnips and cabbage are now in the freezer

 

 

I'm growing melons and squash this year and noticed the first baby melon yesterday. Not sure how it's going to perform but it's in among the cucumbers in the greenhouse and being treated the same as they are. 

Talking of cucumbers, how's this for a  curly cue

I bet you won't find one like this in a supermarket!

That's it for now. The trouble with being out in the fresh air all day is that you get that lovely warm glow and want to just curl up in bed!

still here, still gardening

For one reason or another I've not been able to keep my blog up to date. I suppose it's mainly down to the long awaited decent weather which has meant a stack of work to be getting on with. The harvesting, preparing and storing of food has to be dealt with on top of all the general work such as weeding, grass cutting, hedge clipping, summer pruning of the fruit trees, etc.

I finally did get blight on the potatoes but I recognizedt it in time, chopped down the haulms and managed to get a reasonable yield considering they were lifted three or four weeks too early. Top performer and one I'll definitely grow next year is Picasso which has the potential for some huge yields, given decent weather conditions.

This morning I noticed that one of the trusses had broken from the tomato plant stem due to the weight of fruit it was supporting.

Three and a half pounds of juicy toms on one truss ain't bad. I've had to tie up the other trusses with strings from the greenhouse roof to stop them suffering the same fate. The variety is Hildares F1, seed bought from Lidl.

And on the subject of tomatoes I'm picking a couple of pounds a day at the moment. Some are being eaten fresh but a lot are chopped and frozen to use in the winter.

These are Amish Paste, supposed to be good for making sauces, etc.

Cabbages have done quite well this year, they must like cool conditions. This one is 'Greyhound' and weighed in at over two pounds.

Earlier in the year there were very few cabbage white butterflies around which was a blessing but they seem to have appeared with a vengeance now the weather is better. Most of my brassicas are under debris netting but I do have a few unprotected and it's a pain having to constantly check them for butterfly eggs.

Well, I'm blogged-out now but I will try and keep things up to date as the harvest progresses.

how close can you plant onions?

This close it seems.

Early this year I had quite a few spare onion sets so I decided to plant them in containers for use as salad onions. This lot are in a supermarket mushroom tray and they've been buried behind beans and assorted other crops until today. Surprisingly none of them have bolted and I've ended up with a good bunch of usable onions once they've dried.

I've also grown picklers in nine-inch pots quite successfully this year.

These are De Barletta but any bulb onion sown from seed seems to work.

The food hedge experiment is coming along nicely with the runner beans in tubs flowering as they twine their way through the privet. Many of the flowers are white and don't show very well but they are there!

If this works as well as I hope it will I'll be on the look out for more climbing vegetables for next year to fill the fifty foot or so of hedge that's available.