Back to the garden

I was hoping to come back from holiday and have masses of produce waiting for me. But there doesn't seem to have been the growth spurt I was hoping for. Not sure what the weather's been like...

So just a few odd jobs. I dug in an enormous amount of compost into the old potato bed and planted out some of the winter cabbage and cauliflowers that have been growing in the greenhouse. Pulled up the onions (they can only be described as pathetic - I will post a photo later), got rid of a few dead things and have started digging up the strawberries and their runners into pots as I am going to move them somewhere else next year.

Our lovely chicken ladies and still doing fine and are getting quite chatty and very nosy. Still no eggs since the three we had in their first week. Soon we will have had them for a month so hopefully they will start laying more regularly soon.

Cutting my losses

Well I have decided to give up on a few things.

Tomatoes - my six tomato plants are now having a party in my compost heap and the green tomotoes have been combined with courgettes in the lovely chutney recipe on the farming friends website. The leaves and fruit were going mouldy and stripping them off wasn't helping - I think it was just too damp and sunless in my greenhouse. I will try again next year for third time lucky. (Last year the plants were fine but the tomotoes were totally tiny.)

Leeks - the plants were so small I could hardly see them and there was no hope for getting anything edible. I sowed the seeds far too late and planted them out when there were about a millimetre thick. It was doomed from the start.

Spinach - every seed that I get to germinate bolts immediately, I have no idea why. So I have said bye bye to the row.

Beetroot - I'm not sure about this one, I find these hard to germinate. Then some of them look ok, some bolt straight away and some remain teeny tiny seedlings. I have taken out a row that is never going to produce anything and I'm kicking myself that I left so much ground for it. Well I will know next time.

(By the way, I am cheating slightly with photo as it was taken before the plants went mouldy. I just didn't want to put a minging image at the top of my blog!)

Tidying

Well I have spent most of today pottering about doing bits and pieces, and quite a bit of weeding so everything is tidy before I go on holiday.

I finally managed to sort out the tiny plot at the side. I am going to give up trying to grow vegetables here as the soil isn't good enough. So I dug in as much compost as I could and planted some beautiful lavender and heathers. I have a yellow jasmine plant (I think) that will go in the middle and climb the wall when the one bean plant I have is finished(!)

Yesterday I dug up the last potatoes, composted and covered the ground the stop the weeds - this is where my winter brassicas will go when they're big enough.

And I did lots of weeding, planted some black radish, endive and more swedes and replaced the pea contruction with a much bigger one so they can grow as much as they like. I planted these really late but they are covered in flowers so hopefully I will get a few peas before the weather gets cold.

Pottering

Seems odd to think about it on such a beautiful day but I have been wondering what to fill my ground with come the colder weather. Since my broccoli, sprouts and kale are doing so well I thought I'd try more brassicas so have gone for winter cabbage and an over-wintering cauliflower. Hopefully in a few weeks they can go into the old potato plot.

I've had a lovely time pottering in the garden today, just cutting the hedge and clearing up a bit; everything is looking very tidy. Apart from my right veg plot which is getting overcome with weeds. I have been using 'the ground's too wet' as an excuse not to tackle it but if Heather the Weather isn't telling lies looks like I will have to attack it this week.

And here is a picture of CeCe, looking very cheeky!

Houdini

We were trying to do a nice thing. We were trying to offer Mrs Weasley (pictured above) a grape while CeCe was at the other end of the run and wouldn't be able to nick it off her. However she is much less tame than CeCe and got a bit freaked out, and decided to make an escape over my shoulder.

And being much less tame she was not happy at attempts to retreive her. After exploring the carrot and beetroot patch she jumped through the hedge into our neighbour's garden to show her defiance. We managed to get her back through eventually though she got stuck in the hedge which I had to gently cut away at to get her out. After this escapade I reached down and picked her up and we almost had a lovely moment where I thought she was quite enjoying the attention, she certainly didn't mind being stroked and didn't try to peck me at all.

She seems to have settled down fine now though I think she may be too stressed to lay. A great shame as I suspect she was the artist that produced our beautiful first egg on Monday.

Maybe a few more grapes and she will forget all about it?

We got an egg!!!

I can't believe it - they say that normally you have to wait a few weeks for the chickens to settle in for them to lay, but Mr Butternut came home yesterday and found an egg!!

And then later on we were taking our seats in the main hall at the Assembly Rooms in Edinburgh for a festival show when I saw a friend sitting a few rows away. There was nothing to do but spread the good news with 'WE FOUND AN EGG!' Of course by the looks I got from the people nearby this may not be entirely normal behaviour but I was so excited I couldn't help it. Hopefully today there will be another one and I will take a photo of the haul.

Welcome to the ladies

Well...I have been pretty quiet blog-wise but busy elsewhere. I celebrated my 26th birthday a week ago (and so now over the half-way mark to 50 as my family lovingly pointed out.)

I had a fantastic time with the most wonderful fantastic Mr Butternut giving me the present of my dreams...an Eglu chicken house! It is a beautiful thing and is now being happily occupied with two new additions to our family - a partridge brown hen called Mrs Cecilia Cluckerson (or CeCe for short), and a Maran called Mrs Weasley. CeCe has already established herself as the boss I think. They don't do very much but I could watch them entranced for hours... I will post a photo as soon as I can.

Garden wise, we are drowning in cucumbers and the herbs are all looking lovely. Tomotoes have been disapointing so far - they may have blight as the greenhouse has been quite wet and there is some mould appearing. However, they are much bigger than last year so I will try again next year. I think I would space them out a bit more though and maybe try some outdoor varieties.

We have started munching on some of the most delicious carrots I have ever tasted, it's so tempting to pull them up when they're tiny but I must be patient and let the rest grow a bit bigger. I've been busy too sowing winter salads, cauliflowers and cabbage. It looks too like I've successfully created four blackcurrant bushes from tiny cuttings I took from a wild bush.

I've been constantly amazed at some of the veg that has done well in my heavy, wet, clay soil. Carrots are supposed to be a no-no in this kind of environment but they've been fantastic. I just wish I'd grown more rather than the measly two rows I thought I'd try as an experiment. The beetroot on the other hand has been extremely slow, as have the pumpkins, while other squashes are doing well.

It doesn't feel like a year since my 25th birthday when I was given my greenhouse (isn't Mr Butternut good to me?) and started on my garden adventures...

We Are Self-Sufficient!!

Er. Well in garlic definately...

I'm afraid curiosity got the better of me this weekend and I dug up the last of the garlic bulbs - almost all of them were huge and some were fantastic shapes, nothing like what you get in the supermarket which just makes me like them more!

And The Great Question Number One is...

Why does the sun shine when I sit at my desk at work and then the heavens open when I get home and want to weed/plant/dig/harvest potatoes for dinner?

R.I.P. Tree

Well, it's official - my tree is on the way to the great big orchard in the sky. It has canker.

And because the disease is on the trunk there's nothing that can be done so it's getting whipped out. And while this is very sad, I am already thinking to the future and my new apple tree, most probably from Buttersworth Organic Nursery, a Scottish nursery who grow organic fruit trees that will flourish in these parts.

I am waiting for some advice but if anyone has an suggestions of which type I should go for let me know!

Lesson Number One

Well the chamomile I planted out is doing well (please ignore the weeds) and is lovely in tea.

Tomatoes are doing well too and looking healthier after a bit of a sickly spell.

Some mysterious beast has been wandering through my purple-sprouting broccoli seedlings and destroyed one of them. I just hope it gets in trouble for having very muddy paws.

And the cucumbers are doing well, despite the death of their brother. Its nice in the garden just now cos there aren't any huge jobs to do except watching things grow and eating them. Nice.

Oh, and Lesson Number One is never cut a hedge without gloves on. A tiny and painful skelf has taken up residence in my finger and a week later I still can't seem to evict it. Ggrrrrr...

From building site to beauty

Well, this is the idea anyway...

Now that the extension on the side of our house is getting underway and going up fast I am dreaming about how my building site of a front garden will look once I can get my muddy hands on it. I am too ashamed to even post a photo of how it looks now. All there is really is a tree in the middle which I think might be dying, the hedges round the edge and the path. Just now in the top left of the picture there are two trees which I am going to cut down and turn the stumps into a seat.

The soil is clay and heavier than my back garden where the veggies are so the beds in the middle will all be raised beds (I am going to have to fork out for some new top soil for these). It gets some sun in the late afternoon and evening.

Although I don't want the tree in the middle to pop its clogs as I love the pink blossom in spring, it might be a good thing. Maybe I could replace it with an apple or plum tree?...

Allotment Advice Wanted...

I feel that now is the time to come clean about a secret project of mine...

I have been desparately trying over the last few weeks to get something done about quite a large piece of land in my local area that was once beautifully kept but has now been left to go wild. After lots of emails and letters it seems like the local council might be about to listen to my idea to turn it into allotments for people in my village, and we are about to set up a meeting to 'take it forward' (in their words.)

So I am wondering if anyone reading this has ever done something similar and has advice, or knows of any good websites that could help me prepare for the meeting. I know this sounds great but I am not getting my hopes up just now, just keeping my fingers crossed!

Broccoli coming out our ears

Well despite what I thought was careful planning all the broccoli I planted is ready at exactly the same time, and today there are another four massive stalks that need picking. I heard that you can lightly steam florets then plunge them in ice water, then freeze them so I might try that. Otherwise I will have 20 litres of broccoli soup in the freezer.

And never to learn, I have planted out lots of purple-sprouting broccoli seedlings where the early potoates used to be so I guess I will have the same problem last year. I shouldn't complain though cos it tastes fantastic. Mr Butternut is extremely impressed!

I've also been spending a lot of time jam-making, first blackcurrant and then endless raspberry. All this comes from the wild fruit bushes in the countryside near our house. The only thing better than raspberry jam is free raspberry jam. (Apart from the sugar...) But something odd happened with the second batch. It has set beautifully but in the jars it has separated with all the seeds at the top. Mysterious, not sure what I did wrong...

And here is a picture of my gorgeous Cosmos 'Chocomoca' plant which smells just like it sounds.

Blogging for Positive Global Change

I am really honoured to have been nominated for a Blogging for Positive Global Change award by the very lovely TopVeg! Especially since I am so new at this...

The award was originally created by Climate of Our Future to recognise bloggers who ”are trying to build awareness among their readership in order to create a more sustainable and enlightened future.”

TopVeg is a fantastic site with a wealth of info on everything to do with growing your own that you can think of, and who have definately solved a few mysteries for me.

So now I have to nominate five of my own, though I'm going to have to think about this and add my list in a couple of days.

A Momentus Day...

Oh yes. Believe it people. What you see below are the very first potatoes ever grown in my garden.

I really didn't expect these to be ready as they hadn't flowered yet but were supposed to be earlies. But they were starting to smother my broccoli overflow area (!) so I thought I would dig them up and see, if the spuds were tiny I reckoned they'd still be tasty.

Only I got a bucket-full from about six plants! I did a little dance in the garden and immediately called my mum to celebrate. I will be eating them for dinner - way-hey!

Elsewhere in the garden things are still going well, apart from a cucumber plant which has died. I'm ashamed to say that it was totally my fault - I was transferring it to a bigger pot when I snapped the stem in two. Oh dear. I tried to bandage it (feel free to laugh!) but it Withered and Died to quote Kate Rusby. So now I only have three left, but never mind.

For some reason I'm not being allowed to give this post a title...

Hurray! Look what I found this morning! It seems like everyone else has been eating strawberries for weeks but up here things are slower and we have only had two or three a day. But with a bit of sunshine this weekend everything is speeding up.

My squashes are beautiful and I picked the first Costa Romanique courgette today. Its hard to get a sense of scale from this photo but please believe me that its huge!

I now have some teeny tiny baby cucumbers so this year am going to try removing all the male flowers and see if I can get some bigger fruits. And some of the wild raspberries near my house are turning ripe so it won't be long before the annual jam making and sweating over hot sugar begins again.

By the way - how long does garlic need to dry out? And how do you know when its done?

What is up with the weather?

Complaining about the weather at the moment is getting a bit boring but I can't help it. Are we ever going to see some summer?

My garden was totally waterlogged at the weekend and I couldn't get into the greenhouse because the path is flooded. Although I realise that this is nothing compared to the poor folk further south who have had whole allotments washed away.

I did manage to get to the garden centre though and buy some beautiful plants for the pots in the back garden. And I discovered a beautiful Autumn Bliss raspberry plant which is now sitting very happily at the back door.

In between the downpours I managed a bit of weeding and dug up a garlic plant (thanks for the advice soilman!) which is beautiful and now drying out. I'm going to leave the other 60 or so plants in the ground for a few weeks and see if they get any bigger. Family seemed very impressed and the smell is fantastic.

I got a bit carried away...

I decided to go outside for a potter and chat with my plants last night but somehow a spade found its way into my hand and the urge to dig stuff overtook me.

And so Mr Butternut looked out the window last night to see another vegetable bed had been created in the middle of the little grass we had left. I got the desire to plant peas you see, and unable to think of any place to put them decided that some more grass had to go. Now.

And so I marked out the bed, lifted the turf, dug it up, dug in some compost, made a pea wig-wam type thing similar to my dads and got planting. I also put in some lettuce underneath hoping that it would help stop the weeds and give the ground in the middle something to do.

It will have to revert back to grass in the autumn to make way for our chickens - already provisionally named Mrs Cluckerson and Mrs Henry.

Tree Disease?

Something very odd has happened to the tree in my front garden - has anyone seen this before? I don't know what kind of tree it is but it has a lovely pink blossom in spring. Help!?

Growth and Plans

Well it has been a busy week though not for me in the garden unfortunately, the weather hasn't let me get out much. Things are growing nicely without me though and it looks like I will have blueberries this year - yum.

I've had a trip up north to my parents where me and my pa constructed a rather spectacular frame for his peas to climb up. Here is the Eighth Wonder Of The World:

I did get a bit of a fright when I went out one morning and all my brocolli and sprouts had completely wilted - a complete mystery as they weren't too dry or waterlogged and there were no beasties to be seen. I had a panic but the next day they had all totally righted themselves and are starting to form heads of broccoli.

The squashes are growing well too though I can't remember what type this is:

And then the plans...I have decided and persuaded Mr Butternut that it makes sense to dig up a lot more the back garden to create three raised beds. I want to put asparagus in one and then include the other two in the vegetable rotation but next year use one for salads and the other for strawberries. I am also planning things for the front garden which is such a mess that I am too ashamed to post a photo. We are having some building work done but once this is finished I'll be able to tidy it up and completely re-design it - very exciting!

Job Done

Lots of activity in the garden today so I am just doing a list to help with my memory...

• Potted on the purple-sprouting broccoli and basil
• Planted out the leeks (hannibal variety) and sowed another row
• Planted three more rows of beetroot (detroit globe) and two rows of swedes
• Planted out my butternut squash and jack o'lantern pumpkins
• Planted out chamomile round the blueberry bush
• Planted out a mystery squash near the strawberries
• Weeded like a demon
• Trying to get the lawnmower to work with no success
• Tidied out the greenhouse again and chatted to my plants

Construction Work and a Murderous Deed

Well I'm now back in Scotland finally which is a great relief as I'm not used to non-Scottish climates! All my plants were doing well and I have some of the largest strawberries ever seen by man in my fruit bed. Mr Butternut wants to eat them now but we are just waiting for some sunny days to redden them up.

Now I'm up north staying with family and yesterday helped my dad weed his vegetable plot and we constructed a very impressive looking pea tee-pee type-thing and planted some more seeds. Photos will follow...

Another thing - is it wrong to feel evil glee at murdering slugs? When I was home at the weekend I nipped out to water the lettuces and found the most enormous slug I had ever seen - no joke, it must have been about 15cm long - drinking out of my beer trap. I thought, 'hey ho, you look like you're enjoying that, fancy a swim?' And so I nudged it in but it keep trying to climb out and I thought 'NO, I will not be beaten!' and so I held it under the beer for a couple of minutes with a look of evil satisfaction on my murderous face. And yet it wasn't enough so I reached for my scissors to cut its drunken body in half when it finally went off to the massive lettuce in the sky and I did a dance with delight.

Does this make me a terrible vegetarian?

Ciao!

Just wanted to say hello by my blog and ask anyone reading this to send happy thoughts to my plants. I am working away at the moment so there won't be much plant progress until the weekend. Hopefully when I get back all the veg in the garden will have doubled in size and I'll finally have a lettuce ready. Keep your fingers crossed!

I Love Sundays...

Well I've been having a great weekend with no housework to do so I've been getting through all those jobs that you put off for weeks. Sewing up the broken seam on Wee Man's bed and handwashing are good examples! And I finally got out in the garden with my camera.

Spent some time today potting up my butternut squash seedlings, planting out buttercup squash plants, bringing some herbs indoors for my kitchen windowsill, weeding (as always) and eating radishes. Here is the evidence.













And then I have a question for anyone out there reading this... Do my leeks look rubbish? I'm worried that they'll never to ready in time for planting out.

Spring has sprung...(and the clouds have sprung a leak)

Well, there's been very little happening in the garden the last couple of days because of the ground being so wet and a pesky thing I have do which involves earning money. How inconvienent - don't my employers know I have a garden to look after?!

So here is a photo of what the garden looked like on the 17th of April. (There's nothing under the cloche - I just put it there to make it look like there was and so the garden less empty!) Tomorrow if the sun comes out I'll take some pictures to compare. The combination of rain and sun has made everything double in size. (Apart from the lettuces I have in the greenhouse which seem to be taking an age...)

And this running thing will probably not go away anytime soon as I've now entered the Inverness 10K in October. Oh dear.

Non-Gardening Excitement

All has been a bit quiet on the garden front as yesterday I took part in a relay team running the Edinburgh Marathon. And exercise is not my strongest point.

I took the glory leg of 5.2 miles which meant I got to run across the finish line and pretend I had run the full thing. I was quite scared though of the amount of runners that were doing the full thing and overtook me after they'd already run 23 miles. I have to say it was tempting to think about training for the full thing but not sure how I could fit it in when there are so many vegetables to grow and eat...

First Feast

Finally - I got to eat something out the garden!

Last night I had ristotto with mushrooms (not from the garden), chives, broad bean tops and salad leaves. Yippee!

I would have taken a photo of this historic meal but it smelled too good. So here is what you get instead.

Dead Potato

Oh dear.

I was planting out my brussel spout and kale plants last night and noticed that a random single potato had withered and died.

What does this mean? Has a mischievous cat chosen to do its business right on top? Was the potato plant protesting that I had planted them all too close together? Or is this the dreaded blight?

Well I dug it up and the tuber was totally rotten and soggy - it was gross so no picture. A frantic check through potato problems in 'The New Vegetable and Herb Expert' (thanks Dad) brought me to the conclusion that Dr. D. G. Hessayon hadn't come across this before either.

So...anyone any ideas? Dad?!

And so I carried on and planted out my brussel sprouts and curly kale.

The garden is starting to fill up finally. Tonight its the turn of the courgettes and squashes so I'd better be off and get busy. And the housework is beckoning too. Oh dear.

Endless sowing (of seeds)

I am unbelievably stupid. Was about to get on the train today when I get a phonecall from my man D to let me know that I have his keys for the house and the car he has borrowed for the week. And my response?... 'Can you drive to the station and pick them up?' Perhaps one of the most illogical things I have ever come out with.

As a result I had two extra hours this morning until the next train and so two hours in the greenhouse (every cloud and all that...) Managed to sow some more beetroot and the first swedes as well as some Jack O' Lantern pumpkins. And finally take some photos. So here they are.





And the strawberry cage is still there. I am doing a little dance!




















From left: blueberry flowers, some orange seeds I spat out in a pot, cucumber babies and the first strawberries

Hi everyone

Hello there

Well this is my first attempt at blogging. It seemed a good idea for me to keep track of what I'm doing and maybe get some help and ideas from anyone who might ever come across this...

You will pick it up as I go I suppose but basically over the last year I have turning our garden into something a bit tasty, and making some clothes in the process. Fruit and vegetable growing is taking over at the moment but I usually have some kind of crafty thing on the go (to keep me busy on my daily train journey if nothing else.)

And so tonight...

• I crafted a rather feeble/tremendous (I can't decide) fruit cage for my strawberries and cranberries. I love birds and there are loads in the garden but when it comes to my fruit I have declared war. And I will win.
• Decided to be brave and leave some brassica seedlings from the greenhouse out for the night. I wrapped them up real nice with fleece but if they die I will weep.
• Potted up a nice big half barrel with a sunflower and some coriander. (I was absolutely convinced that I was growing lemon balm but these little plants look suspiciously like, and smell suspiciously like coriander.) Still good but not as nice in tea!
• And re-potted a yukka house-plant. Please pray for it. I am rubbish at keeping house-plants alive. I heard that if you rub banana skins on the leaves it makes them shiny but I tried and they just looked covered in yuck. Maybe I was rubbing with the wrong side of the skin. And I think I heard that on How Clean Is Your House and I don't think I trust those ladies anymore.

Unfortunately its dark now so I will take some photos tomorrow (if the fruit netting hasn't blown away that is!)