Fruit and Veg.

Well, what a busy couple of weeks we have had; all our craft projects have taken a back seat as our attention has been completely focused on the garden/smallholding. Time to take a breath and have a look at what's been going on.
 

As an amateur gardener, a lot of what I know was gained through trial and error, combined with a healthy amount of searching through gardening books and the internet. However, what I do know is that water, warmth and sun provide the perfect growing conditions for many plants, both edible and non-edible. 

We have been so fortunate to have had warm sunny days with just enough rain at the right time and oh how our plants have started to flourish. So much so in fact that this post is all about edibles and I'll dedicate a separate entry to all the flower planting in and around the smallholding.

Where to start? Mmm, potatoes I think. One of the best examples we have of how the plants are sprouting is the potatoes. We have 3 varieties planted in this bed and also in the large tubs and wooden planters on the right hand side. This photo was taken a couple of weeks ago, just after we had earthed them up.

This photo was taken only 5 days after the previous one and shows how quickly the potatoes have grown. It seems even more obvious looking at the potatoes on the right, now peeking over the top of their planters. Now they need to be earthed up again, I'm sure we only did it once last year but I suppose we'll be glad we made the extra effort when it come to harvest time.

A very helpful contact on Facebook advised that we could earth up our potatoes with grass cuttings. I was always dubious about using grass as it has a tendency to end up as a green slime but this Guardian article made us think again and give it a go. If it works it'll save a lot on the amount of compost we use.

We have been both surprised and delighted with the developments in the polytunnel. M constructed some supports for the tomato plants and in they went; I'm hoping we get a good harvest again this year as the freezer is starting to look a little empty. The only slight downside of these wonderful growing conditions is that they are also perfect for weeds so there was quite a bit of weeding to get on with.
 

You can see the growth here in just 8 days. The brassicas, squash and pumpkins are certainly thriving in the extra heat and are coming along nicely in the right bed. In the left we have Kale closest to the camera with small Pak Choi only recently sown. Above the Kale is Swiss Chard and in the top bed are some cauliflower with beetroot sown on either side. In the orange pot to the left of the door we have a Gherkin, a first for us.

M was keen to get a Fig tree for the polytunel and we picked up this (very) little plant for about £3. It may be some time before it bears any fruit but it is now in situ in the polytunnel enjoying some TLC.

The peas and beans have got off to a slower start due to some prolonged dry periods but they are staring to recover and we have flowers appearing so hopefully they will survive through to harvest.

The latest addition has been the first batch of sweetcorn; hopefully the last of the frosts have passed and these will establish quickly. There's still room for the second batch when they are ready to leave the greenhouse.
 

This is an old apple tree we have called Jess' tree as she loves to gather the windfall. We performed quite drastic pruning on it last year to lift it off the ground and remove some crossing branches. So we have been delighted with the abundant blossom this year which proves we did the right thing. 

Some of the original trees in the orchard did nothing at all last year but we have been pleasantly surprised that some blossom has appeared and look forward to seeing if we get any fruit and if so, what type it is.

I thought I'd show you a little picture of our 'Orchard', taken when we first arrived here about 20 months ago.

Followed by how it looks today. The rough overgrown area in the middle of the first photo is where our veg beds are now. It amazes me how much it has changed in a relatively short time.

Our orchard trees are still very young and quite stick-like but we have had some blossom and the beginnings of fruit. Last year we had 5 apples from the orchard so anything more than that will be wonderful (although to be fair they did taste amazing).

There's so much to share at this time of year that I feel I may have gone on a little too long so I'll leave it here. I hope wherever you are your gardens are growing well and you are getting the opportunity to enjoy some summer sunshine.

The Bluebell Quandary

One of my favourite things about woodlands, after the snowdrops of course, is the wonderful rich carpet which appears when the bluebells are in full bloom. Over the years we have visited many areas of the country and marvelled at the sight of a blue/purple carpet of little delicate nodding flowers.

This is a picture from our local park where the bluebells are just emerging at the start of May, no doubt they will continue to blossom and spread for a few weeks yet. It has been my desire to emulate this within at least one section of our woods.

Last year we managed to spot these in our woods but sadly they were in fact the grand total of our bluebells. So in early Spring 2016 I bought some bluebells bulbs on line; after a little bit of research I ensured that they would be native English bluebells and not the Spanish variety.

I may have slightly underestimated the numbers of bulbs required to product a sea of blue but this is what appeared this year. Yes, although I planted them in groups of 3 or 5, I obviously planted the groups too far apart and should have clustered them in a smaller area. Still, in about 10 years time we may have loads!!

We were so excited to discover that we had loads of bluebells in the garden and I was amazed to see some white and pink ones too. Oh lovely we thought, what pretty little flowers. However, after another stint on the computer I found that these are either Spanish bluebells or hybrids of the native bluebells. This is bad news indeed, apparently they are extremely invasive and will hybridise with the native bluebell, all but wiping out their distinctive traits. Unfortunately we had also transplanted some bulbs from the garden into a different area of the woods so we may inadvertently introduced the aggressive variety there.

So the quandary is: what to do? Do I lift all the bulbs we have put in? Leave them to naturalise? Mmm, decisions, decisions. Well, to be honest I'm not sure. Part of me wants to rid the garden and woods of the non-native species and purely plant English bluebells but the impatient side of me says oh look at the pretty colours. I think my sensible side is winning as it's probably a good time to lift the bulbs before they get settled in and I could get some (lots) more English bluebells in the autumn to plant everywhere.

Well, after much deliberation, the war on the non-native bluebell has begun. I have been around the woods, often on my hands and knees, getting stung by nettles while examining and sniffing bluebells. Anything non-native has been removed and bagged for disposal. All the offending bluebells in the garden have likewise been dug up and bagged. Undoubtedly this will be an ongoing task until they are all eradicated but it's a start. I can still dream of eventually having something resembling a bluebell meadow (above), in the meantime I'll start to shift my focus to the cut flower bed and hope that it is more successful.

Early Summer Sun

What a wonderful time we have been having recently. After a very wet February and March we had been praying for some decent weather and oh how it arrived in style. We have now had about 4 weeks of sun, no rain, warm days and the occasional cold night. It is a very busy time in the garden, the plants are growing and we are working long and often exhausting days, but my it is also such a rewarding time.

The onions are growing slowly next to the beans which are still under protection until they are established. Despite our scrupulous efforts to remove all the potatoes last year there are tiny little potato plants emerging amongst the onions -oops.

M has built a rather large pea and bean frame as we discovered last year that the peas all collapsed on top of each other, encouraging slugs and making harvesting a real chore. It might look like overkill as the peas are so tiny right now but they should end up covering most of the framework.

So with the temperatures in the greenhouse varying between from a low of 2⁰C at night and daytime highs of 39⁰C we have had an unexpected issue. The blazing sunshine has been too much for some of the tender seedlings and for the first time ever we have installed some greenhouse shading, this is stage one with some more shading yet to go in.

It is incredible the difference a little bit of shading has made, the plants have the advantage of sun and good ventilation without frying.

I am so excited, my lemon tree which has been suffering over the past few years and had barely any leaves last year has finally got 2 minuscule flower buds appearing. I'm not really expecting fruit as it's still in recovery but it's a good sign. On the down side it seems like that some ants have set up residence in the pot so we may have to disturb Mr Lemon and repot him to remove said interlopers.

Planting up has begun in the polytunnel and so far we have a selection of squash (winter and summer), pumpkins, broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower. There is also room for the kale and chard along with some companion planting of nasturtiums and marigolds when they are ready.

I just have to include a picture of our flowering Rhododendron; it was new in last year and although it almost doubled in size there was not a single flower. Look we have flowers and definitely worth waiting for. The leaves have turned a bit pale and we're not sure of this is a nutrient deficiency or due to the large quantity of rain we had over the winter but we've put some feed around it so will hope for the best.

The Forget-Me-Nots (which we fittingly forgot we had planted) have been the mainstay of the garden flowerbed as it is still too risky to plant out anything tender. However, some of the Alium bulbs are starting to poke through the surface so we may have some more colour to come.

This flowerbed was submerged at various times during the winter but has recovered remarkably well. It contains lots of unidentified plants as I was particularly rubbish with my labelling system so it could either be surprisingly beautiful or painful to the eyes, we'll just have to wait and see.

M was really keen to have a Peony and this is it. It's probably well behind every other Peony in the country but it was only planted a couple of weeks ago and so has some catching up to do. For the first time we had to water the plants in the garden, I was loathe to do so but when their heads start to wilt I guess there is no other choice.

After the mower was fixed (seems like an annual event) M got stuck in around the orchard and the woods. I love these pictures as it really does show how beautiful the weather has been.

The orchard trees are so tiny and most still look like sticks but we have a few leaves arriving and have been treated to the uplifting sight of blossom on the cherries and damsons with the tantalising promise of apple blossom to come. Even the hedging is beginning to grow after the relentless prunning regime carried out by the wild rabbits.

Even Daffodil walk (although not an appropriate name once all the daffs have gone) got the mower treatment and now our little shrubs look even smaller. They are a mixture of Hydrangea, Astilbe, Amelanchier with a couple of evergreen shrubs. Everything has to be protected from rabbits and deer so they have fencing around them which is a good thing as at least we can see where they are.

The sunshine has been wonderful, it is revitalising and relaxing all at the same time and we have been enjoying every second. The weather app tells us that rain is on the way which will be welcome news for the orchard and hedging plants as the ground is bone dry and starting to crack up. The water butts, and we have lots, are nearly empty and they could do with a bit of a refill soon too. Until then though we will continue to bask in the sunshine and soak up as much vitamin D as we can.

I just had to finish off with this gorgeous picture of Ginger after her mud bath; they are having a great time in the sun and unless M creates the mud bath for them they just empty their drinking water out - rascals.

Polytunnel Adventures

We have been waiting for what seems like months in anticipation of some decent weather so we could make a start on building the (M's) polytunnel. Each day began with a weather app check to see if the wind/rain would enable us to get stuck in. As this is still spring we had to make the most of the days we had and so the polytunnel emerged in stages over about 10 days. I thought I'd share a few photos of how we got on.

The first dry day was perfect for the installation of the ground anchors which thankfully didn't require a calm day but did test our mathematical calculations (and patience) to the limit. Eventually we had 12 foundation tubes fixed in the ground and vertical thanks to the trusty spirit level. You can see the ground is sloping but apparently that is ok as long as we keep everything straight with the spirit level.

With future maintenance in mind we decided to lay weed matting under the sides of the polytunnel so hopefully we won't have to mow too close to the polythene. I'm not sure what Jess and Finn think is going on but there seems to be at least one dog in every photo.

The first couple of hoops seemed to be really difficult to put together and it wasn't until we stepped back to look that we realised it was completely wonky. We had watched the 'How to' video about 10 times but still managed to do this.

So with the hoops the correct way they fitted together beautifully and it wasn't long until we had something vaguely resembling a polytunnel structure. As we can get some pretty fierce storms we opted to buy our polytunnel from Northern Polytunnels and as an extra precaution elected to purchase the extra bracing poles horizontally across the centre and from the top pole down.

The matting was rolled flat again so we could fit the door frames in; yes the matting doesn't quite cover the whole floor but that's fine as we're aiming (eventually) to make the left hand side a full veg bed. We also had a few cutoffs to finish off the little gaps beside the doors.

We ran out of a bit of steam and only got one of the doors installed before it was time to call it a day. Looking good so far; it looks like it dips in the centre as we need to lift the the centre hoops once the polythene is on.

The next day we finished off the second door with Jess and Finn for company. Finally that was the framework all up and ready for the polythene.

With the weather improving it was time to think about moving Spot and Ginger from their winter home back down to their summer enclosure where the grass has been growing beautifully. However, this meant walking them past the green house down by the orchard and across to their gate, quite a long way to try to walk 2 huge pigs. It seemed prudent to attempt this move before the polytunnel polythene was on, just in case they decided to go walk about. So off they went from this barren mud bath (winter enclosure) to:

this fresh green grass paddock, although to be fair they will probably make short work of turning it into a muddy field again.

After an eventful walk (Ginger wanted to investigate the woods a little) we had 2 pigs back in their enclosure with both the orchard and polytunnel intact. It didn't take them long to settle back in.

Apparently M had put too much straw in the ark and so a little bit of housekeeping was in order until it was acceptable.

The windy weather returned for a few days so we took to the barn to get the doors ready for any break in the weather.

This is the part I was definitely dreading the most. Despite watching the video another couple of times it looked like the most challenging stage. With a slight breeze the polythene unfurled quite easily over the framework, then we just had to try to get it secured.

The worst bit was definitely trying to pleat the polythene around the door but after a frustrating few hours we (mainly M) finally got there.

After a little trim around the edges it was starting to look really good. You can probably tell from the cloudy skies that the weather wasn't great and it was oh so cold.

And once the doors were on it was time to pack up and finish for the day.

A very pleased M spent a day barrowing wood chippings into and around the polytunnel (very handy we had a huge supply of them after our Easter wood chipping week). He also laid some concrete slabs at the doorways so we won't be traipsing mud around too much.

The plan was to completely cover the floor inside the polytunnel. This year we are going to put some raised beds (made by M of course) on the left side before probably turning this side into one large planting bed. Our old PatioGro will be at the end on the right hand side with a dedicated tomato area (utilising growbags) next to it. As always our best laid plans may be subject to change but it's a good starting point.

So there we are, all set and ready to go. No doubt there will numerous updates during the summer and we'll see how we manage to increase our productivity by prolonging the growing season.