Starting To Ripen

I have one chili pepper plant which has produced lots of chilies, but until now they have refused to ripen. Now, one by one, they are turning from green to red. I don't usually cook with chilies so wouldn't have grown the plant had it not been for my daughter buying me a matchbook of seeds for Christmas. This is a variety called Serrano, and the one plant has produced many chilies. Whether we will eat them or give them away remains to be seen.

I thought I would give you an update on the blue potatoes which I grew this year, Blue Danube. I wouldn't have ordered this particular potato had it not been for the fact that I qualified for an offer and bought the potatoes for 99p. The plants produced a good crop and there was little slug damage, however, when it came to boiling they just turned to mush. I tried baking some but their skins turned rock hard, no good for someone like me who thinks the skins are the nicest part of a baked potato. So on the whole, I was rather disappointed with this potato and won't be growing them again.

The garden got a good tidy up at the weekend. The rabbit hutches were brought down from the grass on to the patio for the winter where it's much easier to clean them out and tend to the rabbits' needs. They still get a good run around when the weather permits though. Lots of pots containing summer bedding have now been emptied out in to the compost and put away ready for next year. The garden is definitely winding down ready for winter.

Potatoes For Christmas

After the success of my potatoes for Christmas experiment last year, I decided to grow more again for this Christmas. Last year, I just saved some of the seed potatoes which I bought for planting earlier in the year, but this year I decided to order seed potatoes which were delivered later in the year specifically for planting for Christmas. The varieties advertised were Orla, which is a first early, and Vivaldi, Carlingford and Maris Peer which are all second earlies. When they were delivered the Orlas had been substituted for Bambino. They've all been planted in containers and are growing well. At the moment they're outside but I'll make sure that they're moved in to the greenhouse before we get a frost. I don't heat my greenhouse so they'll be covered with fleece for extra protection. It was lovely last year to have newly harvested potatoes on our Christmas dinner plate.

The weather has picked up again over the last couple of days. Last week was so cold that I turned on the central heating to heat the house through before we got out of bed, but that's been turned off again as the weather has improved. I'm hoping that it stays dry as I want to get plenty of digging done before winter sets in.

My tomatoes are still ripening in the greenhouse. I've noticed lots of people starting to take off their green tomatoes and ripen them on the windowsill but I haven't had to resort to this yet. There's a couple of varieties which I've grown for the first time this year which I will definitely grow again next year. The first is San Marzano, a plum tomato which is ideal for cooking or making sauces with, and it has a lovely flavour when cooked. The second is a heirloom variety, Tangella, which has medium sized orange fruit. I was very kindly given some Tangella seeds to try, and so far I haven't been able to find anywhere which sells them, so I'm making sure that I save some seed. I just hope that I manage to grow them again next year as they're delicious.

Lucky Lucky Me

Many thanks to Damo from Two Chances Veg Plot Blog who hosted a giveaway. I was one of the lucky winners and yesterday I received my prize of a £25 Lands' End voucher and three packets of Nasturtium seeds. I had hoped that I might get to spend the voucher on myself but I made the mistake of showing my twelve year old daughter the website and now she has other ideas. Actually there are some fab clothes on there for girls, I could spend the voucher over and over again on things for her. Thanks again, Damo, you can see that we'll have no trouble spending it.

It's that time of year again when the garden is in desperate need of tidying up. Many plants have finished flowering and stems are wilting and turning brown. I don't tidy the garden like I used to though. I now know how important it is to leave some of those stems and fallen leaves, no matter how unsightly they look, so that the beneficial insects have somewhere to overwinter. I keep meaning to make a bug hotel but another year has nearly passed and I still haven't done it. If I manage to keep the beneficial insects in the garden over winter, then they will hopefully stay and give me their help again next year.

I'm having another great year for beans. I'm still getting huge amounts of French and runner beans from my plants so I intend to freeze some for the winter months. How nice it is to have the taste of summer during those cold months.

Caught In The Act

It's four weeks today since Archie arrived in our household and ever since he's been a little rascal. This is him, caught in the act of eating leaves off my alpine strawberry plant, which to be honest has seen better days. He can't pass this plant without having a nibble. The other day he was running around with a worm dangling from his mouth, but he does help with the garden pests too. The other night when it was quite dark my daughter thought he had picked up a twig so promptly stuck her fingers in his mouth and pulled it out, it turned out that it wasn't a twig at all but a big juicy slug, urgh. Last night he came running in to his bed with a huge snail which I had to retrieve and dispose of. I can see that we've got our hands full with him.

Last year when I installed my small wildlife pond I had high hopes that there would be some frog spawn in there this year. Unfortunately this didn't happen but I'm now keeping my fingers crossed for next year. There have been three resident frogs in there all summer so I'm hoping that they'll stay and raise some young.

I have dug up some more of my maincrop potatoes, Lady Balfour. They're a really nice potato, delicious baked, but sadly quite a few have slug damage. None of my first or second early potatoes had any damage, even though they were left in the ground quite a long time, I've only just finished digging up the International Kidney, and I know that other people have had less damage this year due to it being a dry summer, so that's disappointing. I've decided that next year I will grow my first and second earlies only in containers and that will free up more space at the allotment for maincrop potatoes so that I have plenty to store over winter. I was very happy with my first earlies, Sharpes Express, so I will grow these again next year, but I wasn't keen on International Kidney and I'm not happy with the slug damage in the Lady Balfour so I'm on the lookout for a second early and a maincrop to try next year.

Harvest Time

I had a good haul from the allotment today. I'm still digging up my second early potatoes, International Kidney, but I'm not keen on their flavour or the way they break up on cooking so I won't be growing them again. I've started digging up my maincrop potatoes, Lady Balfour and Blue Danube, a blue variety, but haven't eaten either yet so can't give a verdict on taste. I've also harvested runner beans, three varieties of French beans plus the last three Sonesta which are the yellow beans, chard, curly kale, cavolo de nero, courgettes, tomatoes and a swede.

I've started thinking about crops for the winter. I've already got some curly kale, cavolo de nero, chard and purple sprouting brocolli in the allotment. I have lots of leeks at home which are still waiting to go in, and at the weekend I bought some plug plants from a local market. I got some spring greens and also some savoy cabbage. They were only £1 for each tray and look like strong healthy seedlings.

I don't think I've given the allotment the attention I should have done this year for one reason or another. Even so, I think it's been well worth the £20 per year rent. I've definitely had more than £20 in produce from it, strawberries alone would have probably cost me more than this in a supermarket. Next year I want to give the allotment more of my attention, so I intend to get as much of it dug over before winter comes so that the frosts can help break up the soil. This was my intention last year but somehow it didn't happen and this year it seemed like a mammoth task to get it all done. Let's hope that the weather holds up now so that I manage it this year.

Tomato Varieties

Every year I try some different tomato varieties along with my old favourites such as Tigerella and Gardener's Delight. The new ones I tried this year were Harbinger, Tangella and San Marzano. Harbinger is the one on the left in the photo and Tangella is the light coloured one. The San Marzano were started off quite a while after the others and is only just starting to ripen now so I can't give you my verdict yet, but I'm quite impressed with the others I have grown this year. I think next year I will simplify things a little and grow one salad variety and one cherry variety.

As the season is coming to an end it's time to start thinking of next year. A job for this weekend is to go through my seeds and see what I've got and what I need to buy. I usually go to the Wyevale sale which starts sometime in September where the seeds are on sale for 50p per packet. Some great bargains can be had. In the past I've had a sweet pea collection, five varieties in one packet which should have been over £4, a herb collection, again with five varieties in one packet and again it should have been over £4, and last year I got my cucumber seeds, Bella, which should have been £4.45.

I've really enjoyed writing this blog for the last seventeen months but would also like to include other things about my family life. I toyed with the idea of widening the subject matter of this blog but I would really like to keep this to gardening, so I have started another blog. Keeping with the theme of television programmes my new blog is called Through The Keyhole and will hopefully give you a glance through the keyhole of my front door in to my family life. I hope I will see you there.

It Was Worth It

It was very late to be planting my onion and shallot sets in May, and although I haven't got a huge crop, and they haven't grown quite as well as they would have done if they were planted earlier, it was worth getting them out. Admittedly, the onions are very small but still useable, but the shallots divided nicely and I have quite a few to be going on with. Next year I will make sure that I plant them out much earlier, but this just goes to show that you will still be rewarded with late crops.

I'm extremely pleased with my potato harvest so far this year. I planted some of my first early potatoes, Sharpes Express, and my second early potatoes, International Kidney, in containers and also some in the allotment. I had great yields from the containers and have only just finished the first earlies which were planted in the allotment. The varieties I chose last year suffered a lot of slug damage in the allotment, but the Sharpes Express suffered none. This may be due to the fact that we've had a dry season this year, or it may be down to the variety. I will grow Sharpes Express again next year. I had never heard of the variety before I chose them this year, but they have been around for about a hundred years, and I've had a great harvest from them. The container grown ones produced a good harvest and the ones at the allotment came out without any damage. The International Kidneys were quite disappointing. They produced a good amount both in containers and in the ground, but they broke up on cooking and the flavour was rather bland. I won't bother growing these again. My maincrop potatoes were just planted at the allotment and haven't yet been dug, but there are two varieties so I will let you know how I've done with those at a later date.

I didn't have much luck with my brassicas last year. This year I've just bunged stuff in and hoped for the best, really leaving things to get on with it. I'm enjoying lots of kale and cavolo de nero at the moment, and there's kohl rabi and swede waiting to be pulled. I think we can overthink things or pander to things too much sometimes.

A New Garden Pest

After years of listening to my daughter's nagging I have finally given in and allowed a little bundle of fluff to enter our lives. This is Archie. He's a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel and he is fourteen weeks old today. We got him last Thursday and he's settled in really quickly. What a pest he is in the garden though, pulling the heads off my flowers and picking up stones and eating them, as well as chasing the rabbits when they're out in their runs. I'm intending to show him the virtues of having a nice garden rather than a garden full of headless plants, and I'm looking forward to having him down at the allotment with me. I think he's going to need a lot of training before he's at that stage though.

We're picking more and more beans now. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I'm really impressed with the Sonesta dwarf French beans. They're a waxy yellow bean and are full of flavour, as well as being a heavy cropper. I will definitely grow these again next year. I'm enjoying seeing the splash of yellow on my plate.

I harvested the first of my cavolo de nero this week. I've never grown this vegetable before but this is another that will be a regular on my allotment from now on. I really enjoy green leafy vegetables and this one has a delicious flavour. It's actually a winter vegetable so I'm hoping that I'll get many more pickings over the coming months.

A New Site For Gardeners

A new site for UK gardeners has been launched this week by Gillian Carson of My Tiny Plot. UK Veg Gardeners is a community site and basically does what it says on the tin, it's a site for veg gardeners here in the UK. There's a forum, links to news items, photos of people's veg and groups among other things. Although there are other gardening sites, these tend to be huge covering the whole world, or not specialised enough covering a huge spectrum. Gillian wanted to create a smaller, more intimate site for veg gardeners in the UK. The site has only been launched this week but already is proving to be very popular with many people signing up to become members and lots of content being added. I wish Gillian every success with it, I'm sure that it's popularity will continue to grow. Why not pop over and check it out?

I was thrilled to bits at the back end of last week to receive an email letting me know that I am Dobbies blog of the week. They've given my blog a lovely write-up too. It means a lot to me to know that people find my blog interesting and that they enjoy reading it. I'm so grateful for all the lovely comments my readers leave too, they make my day, so thank you all.

Turn Your Back For Five Minutes...

...well, a fortnight actually, and this is what happens, overgrown courgettes which have turned in to marrows. We returned from our holiday to find that everything is doing well. As I suspected before I left, the tomatoes have started to ripen, as have the peppers which are also turning red.

We had a lovely holiday. It only drizzled one morning and one afternoon out of the whole fortnight so we did really well with the weather. I understand that there was a little more rain than that here in Yorkshire which is probably why everything at the allotment has grown so well, including the weeds!

My French beans are just starting to produce. I've picked the first few which have been eaten over three meals. This year I have grown Sonesta which is a yellow dwarf bean and Blauhilde which is a purple climbing bean, as well as Safari, a dwarf bean and Blue Lake, a climbing bean which I have grown before. I'm very impressed with Sonesta which have produced a good crop from the few plants I have and taste delicious. They also stay yellow when cooked which adds a little colour to the plate. My runner beans have romped up their wigwam whilst I've been away and are now covered in red flowers, so it won't be long before I'm harvesting those too.

Holidays over, it's now time that I tackled those weeds. They're so bad that once I stride in to the thick of them you may never see me again. Wish me luck.

It's Typical

I go on a holiday for a fortnight later on today. How typical is it that my tomatoes are just starting to ripen? I've got a couple which are already on their way to being red, but not red enough to pick them yet, and many more at the same stage as these, which I'm sure will be ripening before my return. These are Tigerella which are a stripy tomato. Although I like to try different tomatoes every year, I always grow these and Gardener's Delight, a cherry variety, along side them.

This week has seen the first of the second early potato containers emptied. This year I chose International Kidney as my second early. This is the same potato as those grown on Jersey and sold under the name of Jersey Royal, however, only those grown on the island are allowed to be called this, all others are known as International Kidney. I got a great harvest from one container, with many quite large sized potatoes.

We've had some miserable weather this week, quite a bit of rain, though lots of it has been at night. I'm happy to say that the sun is out today, just in time for the start of our holiday. The kids finished school yesterday, today is a teacher training day, and hubby is finishing work early, so we're able to get off early. We're having a week in (hopefully) sunny Devon followed by a week in Somerset, so I hope this sunshine continues. See you all in a fortnight.

Lilies

I love this time of year when the lilies are in bloom, they are one of my favourite flowers. I have had this particular lily in a pot for about four years now, it's quite neglected yet it still keeps on flowering. I know the lily I have in another container is Stargazer, but for the life of me I can't remember the name of this one. I noticed a lily beetle on the leaves the other day, it was swiftly despatched. I see lots of lily beetles at the allotment but this is the first time I've seen one in the garden, it seems they're becoming more common.

I'm enjoying lots of spring onions at the moment. I planted up a whole container of them earlier on in the season and now I'm reaping the reward. I love spring onion with cheese in a sandwich, I know what's for lunch today.

The beans are just starting to flower, they should be ready to pick when I return from my holiday.

Peas

The first of the peas have been picked. They don't seem to have done as well as in previous years, I assume it's because of the dry weather we've been experiencing. There was only enough ready for one meal, but there are lots more pods filling up so hopefully we'll get a bigger batch at the next picking. These are Onward which I grow every year, I think I might have a change next year.

At long last we've had a proper downpour, I can't remember the last one we had. The allotment will be really glad of it, as will the grass which is looking very pale and dried out.

We go on holiday at the end of next week so at the moment I'm trying to get the garden and allotment sorted out ready for our departure. I'm harvesting whatever I can so nothing goes to waste.

An Unexpected Visitor

We were on our way to the local gala on Sunday when I noticed something moving in the road. It turned out to be this little guy, well, he wasn't actually that little, more the size of a large tortoise. He's a red eared terrapin. We started knocking on doors asking if anyone had lost him, looked for notices in shop windows for anyone missing their pet and asked at the local vet's with no luck, so he's now gone to live with someone who hubby knows who keeps other terrapins. Many people bought these terrapins as tiny pets when the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were a big TV hit without knowing that they quickly grow to quite a size and can bite. Many were then dumped which has caused problems for wildlife. I'm sure he'll be happy in his new home.

I had high hopes this year of getting more than the measly one cherry which we got last year from our tree. There was lots of blossom on the tree at the beginning of the year but I think it must have suffered the same fate as the blueberries in the late frost. The result was only five cherries which were happily growing but one by one they have all disappeared, I suspect birds have taken them, so there isn't even one cherry to harvest this year.

I have noticed on some blogs that some people are now picking ripe tomatoes. My plants are only just starting to produce small fruits but they're a long way off from being ripe. I thought I must be behind this year so I checked back on my blog posts from last year and it seems that I was at exactly the same position with the tomatoes last year. Blogs are so useful for keeping this kind of information.

Keeping It Native

This Meadow Cranesbill is flowering non stop at the moment. It's a gorgeous colour and as you can see there are many more buds yet to open. It was planted last year in my wildlife border. I used a number of native plants in the border in order to attract beneficial insects to the garden. Native wildlife is best adapted to native plants for food and shelter, so by adding native plants to your garden you will attract more wildlife. I have seen an increase in the varieties, as well as the number of bees and butterflies visiting the garden since last year so the border has worked well. If you would like to know which other plants were used, they are all listed in my post from April last year.

We've had three full trugs of strawberries so far this week, that equates to about fifteen pounds. There will be more to pick today too. I can see that we're going to have to make some jam in order to use them all up. We had a treat on Wednesday evening and melted a bar of chocolate, in to which we dipped some strawberries, delicious but naughty.

There'll be no sweetcorn for us this year. I never planted them out as they seemed to go yellow and stopped growing. Last year's were a disaster too. They were planted out but only grew to about a foot high. I'm wondering now if it's to do with growing them in toilet roll inners. Last year was the first time I'd done this, and they'd always grown well in previous years. I think next year I'll try growing them in plantpots as I have done previously without any problems and see how I go.

My second cucumber is now ready for taking from the plant and there are four courgettes on one plant which will also be ready for harvesting. More tomatoes are growing, and the beans are climbing their wigwams. The early potatoes are being harvested from their containers, and the ones planted at the allotment should be ready. Even the onions and shallots which were planted really late seem to be coming on ok, though I haven't grown them before so I can't really tell if they're doing well or not. On the other hand, the leeks and squash are still waiting to go out, there's nowhere dug over for them yet. Most of the brassicas wilted and died. This happened last year too, I just can't seem to grow them from seed, though a few seem to have made it. The weeds aren't just threatening to take over anymore, they're actually doing it. I really must spend more time down there.