Penellype's 2016 Garden Diary

[Nicos]

My favourite tomato!

[Penellype]

And mine, although Ferline is running it close this year

[Nicos]

They are supposed to be blight resistant...did you notice a huge difference?

[Penellype]

Its hard to say really - 2 of the 3 plants at home were killed by what I think was fusarium wilt, not blight, the other is still not blighted. At my friend's some of the fruit have been going brown for a couple of weeks, but the plant looked ok until this week when it was clearly not well and I removed it (partly to salvage the tomatoes which were starting to get eaten by slugs). It has done vastly better than the non-blight resistant varieties I have tried to grow there.

[Penellype]

This weekend (apart from removing blighted tomatoes as above!)

At my friend's:
Trimmed mouldy bits off greenhouse tomatoes and sweet potato
Removed a dead courgette plant, 2 dead melon plants (no fruit) and some french beans that had finished
Cut back a bush that was overhanging the path
Weeding
Harvested tomatoes, calabrese, beetroot, peppers and a huge courgette

At home:
Moved the blackcurrant bush out from under the net on the raised bed to make it easier for the builders to get at the gutter. The plant had rooted into the bed through the holes in the bottom of the bucket and was extremely difficult to move (I had to cut the roots). Not sure it is a good idea to put it where the pieris is - having 2nd thoughts about that. Stuck it next to the hedge for now, displacing the strawberry towers which are homeless but at least reasonably easy to move around.
General tidying up, weeding and deadheading.
Harvested tomatoes, carrots, calabrese, lettuce, mizuna and namenia, a couple of very late blueberries and a few wild strawberries. Keep checking the peas but they seem to have ground to a halt.

[Penellype]

This weekend - Saturday only as I spent Sunday at a birthday party.

At my friend's:
Very much the same as last week, trimming tomato plants, removing dead bits of plants and weeding.
Harvested a load of tomatoes, some courgettes and peppers.

At home:
Cut down the last of the balconi red and Ferline tomato plants as they were showing signs of blight. Just the 2 Mountain Magic plants in the quadgrow veg planter remain outside.
Removed the remaining courgette plants as they were dying.
Removed some runner bean plants that had finished.
General weeding and tidying up.
Put up some more hooks among the garage rafters to hold canes and stakes, which seem to have been breeding over the summer!
Harvested various tomatoes (red and green), carrots, the last of the kohlrabi, calabrese, mizuna, namenia, lettuce, basil microleaves, a couple of red peppers, a couple of pods of peas, a few wild strawberries and tried another fuchsia berry. This one was a bit less obviously seedy and slightly juicier, but I'm still not keen on the (lack of) flavour!

All of this cutting down of plants at this time of the year gives me a problem as to what to do with all the debris. My solution, which just about works, is firstly to chop it all up as finely as possible using a pair of lawn edging shears in a large rubber trug. I then mix it with shredded paper and some of the chunky bits that get sieved out of compost and put it in the hotbin. Anything that is "clean", ie not diseased or covered in pests and not full of seeds is separated out first and shredded in a different trug, and this gets put in the wormery mixed with paper. I'm just about coping with the volume and all this chopping is helping to keep me fit!

[Penellype]

This was meant to be tonight's dinner:



Charlotte potatoes from the store in the garage, calabrese Sakura, carrot Flyaway (not sure why one is so much bigger than the others), and pea Terrain.

Unfortunately I couldn't resist eating the peas shortly after the photo was taken. Yum

[Penellype]

First white frost of the autumn here this morning. Probably not quite down to freezing but still pretty cold.

Cut down the last 2 outdoor tomato plants at home (1 Mountain Magic remains at my friend's). Dismantled the quadgrow veg planter and moved the cold frame across onto the hedge path (it will eventually go on the bed near the fence, but not until the fence has been painted). Moved the gooseberry complete with its net across to where the cold frame was. This finishes the job of emptying all of the raised beds and the builder can now get at next door's gutter without me having to move things at the last minute. Still no idea when he is coming.

[Penellype]

This weekend

You can tell the clocks have changed when I have time to update this on a Sunday evening! 4.30pm and its getting dark

At my friend's:
Dodging the showers both days.
Removed 2 of the courgette plants which had completely died.
Cut down the outdoor Mountain Magic tomato monster which was suffering from the cold. This huge plant had developed about 6 strong sideshoots as well as the main stem and each was laden with tomatoes. I filled 3 standard sized seed trays with green and partially ripe fruit - probably about the equivalent of all of the greenhouse tomato plants combined!
Removed one of the Roma tomatoes in the greenhouse as its stem had gone mouldy. The other is going the same way, but I ran out of time.
Swept the leaves off the greenhouse roof as best I could (hard to reach in places due to bushes)
Harvested tomatoes, peppers, calabrese, the last courgette and a small cucumber

At home:
Too cold and wet to do a lot.
Trimmed a few dead leaves off the strawberry plants.
Sowed some basil for microleaves
Harvested lettuce, mizuna, namenia, carrots, a few peas, calabrese and the odd wild strawberry.
Made a load of tomato soup.

Despite the frost most things in the garden haven't died down - I don't think it got down to zero here, on the edge of the village. At my friend's, which is surrounded by fields, courgettes, nasturtiums and the outdoor tomato, plus the sweet potato in the greenhouse were clearly suffering badly. A bit of local concrete makes quite a difference.

[Penellype]

This week

A tricky week with frost and a little snow, quite a bit of rain and having to contend with a nasty cold starting, which has curtailed activities somewhat especially this weekend.

At my friend's:
Took the net off the broccoli as it was getting too tall.
Cut down the cucumber plant in the greenhouse as it had died, along with one of the Shirley tomatoes as it had finished fruiting. There are still 2 Shirleys, a Sungold, a Roma and a Belle with fruit on in the greenhouse.
Rigged up a plastic cover to protect the bucket of potatoes in the greenhouse from the frost.
Plenty more stuff wants removing outside, but I ran out of energy.
Harvested one very small cucumber, tomatoes, windfall apples and 3 small courgettes which looked ok on the outside but had gone brown and horrid in the middle (frost) so I had to throw them away.

At home:
At the beginning of the week I rearranged the growhouse so I could move the still flowering tuberous begonias into it. I don't normally try to keep half hardy plants, but these are expensive to buy so I am giving it a go. I managed to overwinter some in the garage last year, but that was a very warm winter.
Also removed some of the nets so that they wouldn't break their frames if we got a dumping of snow - these included the fruit cage and some of the smaller nets over various brassicas and spinach. I left the carrot cage in place as it is really tricky to do and I hadn't the energy. Fortunately there wasn't much snow and it melted really quickly.
Did some deadheading and cleared the leaves from the japanese maple out of the (then empty) pond. Put them in a sack to try and make some leaf mould (possibly).
Put some alfalfa seeds to sprout.
Harvested carrots, peppers, lettuce, mibuna, a handful of large mizuna and namenia leaves, a few peas and a few wild strawberries. I tried making a stir fry with the oriental greens as they are getting a bit big for salad - something I have not done with these before. Not bad.

[Penellype]

Today's haul of peas (Terrain) from plants sown on 30th July:



Rather small but very sweet. These actually made it into my lunchtime salad along with some corn salad, a chinese celery leaf, tomatoes and baby lettuce leaves from the grow light garden:

[Penellype]

Where did the week go?

At my friend's:
A decent hour of removing dead tomato, courgette and nasturtium plants and tidying up stray canes, plant labels etc on Saturday before rain stopped play.
Sunday was never going to be much fun with wind and rain forecast, although it was much better than expected. Did some weeding before I got too cold to continue.
Harvested the last of the green Roma tomatoes, some nearly ripe Belle and Shirley tomatoes, calabrese, a yellow pepper, windfall apples and a fairly decent leek.

At home:
removed the begonias from the growhouse as they were losing their flowers and leaves rapidly. Put them in the garage to overwinter.
Cut down the remaining runner beans and chopped them up for the wormery. The archway now looks rather bare.
Decided that as the slugs had pretty much massacred the caliente mustard, but there were a few seedling nasturtiums about, I would chop these and dig both into the bed near the hotbin now rather than wait until spring when there will probably be nothing left. The idea behind the caliente mustard is that it fumigates the soil as it decomposes - it contains the same compound that gives mustard and nasturtiums their "hot" taste. Hence the addition of nasturtiums. Worth a try anyway.
Removed dead bedding plants, deadheading and general tidying up.
Harvested carrots, calabrese, lettuce, tomatoes (from the windowsill), peas, 3 wild strawberries and a huge pak choi that took me 3 meals to eat.

[Penellype]

A "stay indoors" lunch for a dark, wet and dreary Monday:



3 sorts of lettuce (chopped) from the grow light garden, tomatoes Sungold and Ferline from the tomato store (peeled, of course) and alfalfa sprouts from the jar in the kitchen. Add poached salmon, mayonnaise and a slice of fresh home made bread.

No need to go outdoors for a yummy salad

[Snadger]

A "stay indoors" lunch for a dark, wet and dreary Monday:

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3 sorts of lettuce (chopped) from the grow light garden, tomatoes Sungold and Ferline from the tomato store (peeled, of course) and alfalfa sprouts from the jar in the kitchen. Add poached salmon, mayonnaise and a slice of fresh home made bread.

No need to go outdoors for a yummy salad

Sounds and looks delicious!

[Penellype]

Sounds and looks delicious!

It was delicious