March 2018 in pictures

What a start to the month! Freezing temperatures and on March 1st we had heavy snow. This lasted 3-4 days, disappeared and then reapppeared with a vengeance two weeks later. No way were we going to be sowing or planting anything outdoors this month.

In between snow storms the rhubarb was bold enough to poke its head above ground. It was planted about 18 months ago so we are hoping to be able to harvest some stalks from it this year.

Indoors, we were enjoying some pea shoots growing on the window sill but I suspect we may have started them off far too soon. We have no clue as to when it is going to be warm enough to plant them outside.

We finally took the plunge and sowed our tomatoes in modules indoors toward the end of the month, three weeks later than usual but there was no point in starting them off any earlier. The weather forecast is still not good and it will take a while for the ground to warm up. It looks as though that, like last year, everything will be a month late.

We did, though, have some harvest from our perennials: ramsons (wild garlic), Babington's leeks and red veined sorrel. And we were still pulling up the spring onions that probably grew from a packet I had dropped in the autumn last year. 

December 2017 in pictures

This month saw the first snow of the winter and some heavy overnight frosts. 

We are steadily eating our way through the winter squashes, but it looks as though we shall still have some for January at least.

The Babington's leeks are ready for harvesting and, after three years in the ground, a few clumps now need thinning out.






There are plenty of brussels sprouts in the garden, a few parsnips and some "volunteer" potatoes that were found lurking around the edge of the compost heap. I had hoped to have more from some late plantings in the growing sacks, but the foliage was completely flattened when the fence panels came down in the September storms. Better luck next year!




December is when I place my orders for fresh seeds and new varieties, but first I have to organise my existing stock so that I can see what I already have. That took half a day to do and then I could work out what I needed to order from the seed suppliers. My next task will be to create my sowing diary for the coming year.

July 2017 in pictures

Golden sweet mange tout. Very pretty mauve flowers, yellow pods and delicious but not very prolific. I'm not sure it's worth growing them again in any quantity.

Flowers and bulbils on Babington's leek. Nice garlicky flavour. I used some in cooking and kept some bulbils for growing on. 

Monster purple sprouting broccoli. This beast stood at 3ft 6in. The others around it were a normal 2ft max and had long finished sprouting. This one had only just started. It lasted another month and would have probably gone on for at least another year had it not been so shallowly rooted. A few blustery winds and it started to keel over and eventually I had to remove it. But it died give us plenty of broccoli spears and leaves before its demise. 

The start of our garlic harvest. I did label the three varieties that I planted but when it came to harvest the labels had disappeared! So I have no idea what is what. I'm not sure it really matters as I will use the cloves from the best specimens for replanting this autumn.

First of this year's cucumbers

Potatoes, Golden Sweet peas and first of the runner beans

Cherry plums

Grapes forming

Gorgeous colours on this monster that landed on a grapevine leaf. It was one inch long and buzzing loudly. I thought it was hornet of some sort but it is a hoverfly - the Hornet Mimic Hoverfly also known as the Belted Hoverfly, Volucella zonaria. Harmless.

Rudbeckia adding a splash of colour

Cinnabar moth caterpillars munching on ragwort.

The temperature may be in the 30s but Ms Moggychops
has found a cool, shady spot in the garden

April 2017 in pictures

Viewed from east to west with the garden shed at the bottom. Looks very messy and scrappy but there is a lot going on. Fruit trees and bushes in blossom, brassicas flowering, swiss chard still growing, onions and garlic filling out, Babington's leeks ready for cutting, strawberries spreading, grape vine against the shed budding.....

Time to assess what we have in the preserves cupboard. Damson chutney in there from 2014!

Cowslips in the lawn.

Early morning - brassicas in flower. 

The early morning light really makes the yellow brassica flowers standout in the garden.

Ramsons doing well in the garden and spreading!

"Bright Lights" swiss chard cropping really well.

Garden veg for lunch: swiss chard, cavolo nero, spring onions, Babington's leeks, ramsons, lovage.....

And this was the result!

The main herb patch is doing well apart from the chives not re-appearing this year. The spanish bluebell has been there ever since we moved in over 30 years ago. I have tried to remove it on several occasions and plant it somewhere else but it keeps coming back. Ramsons are coming towards the end now and the flowers are going to seed. Oregano going bonkers as usual, as is the lemon balm. Mint, lovage, rosemary, sage and thyme in pots.




Looks as though we might have more than one pear this year (last year's harvest). The blossom escaped the frosts we had a few weeks ago.

June - busy, busy, busy

Like 2015, 2016 started off cold and sometimes extremely wet. Everything, including parsnips, was started off indoors but May saw the start of warmer weather and planting out could begin. The good growing conditions continued in June and we had a continuing harvest of overwintered crops. We also had to play catchup over a very short time-span with sowing and planting out so there was very little time to relax and lounge around.

I started to clear and tidy up an area against the kitchen wall where, last autumn, I had dumped a couple of pots and piled up some wood. I abandoned the tidying up and replaced everything when I spotted this grumpy looking inflated toad. It could explain why the chard and brussel sprout seedlings that I had forgotten about and left out overnight had not been gobbled up by slugs and snails as they normally would have been.

I saw a second one at the other end of the garden but it could have been the same one having a wander around in search of alternative hiding places. May he/she and their friends continue their good work in the garden.

At this time of year not all the possible food growing areas are in use so if flowers pop up I leave them be. Like this poppy, they add a welcome splash of colour and encourage pollinators into the garden.

The potatoes bags right at the back of the garden are doing well and we've managed to plant runner beans against the fence itself. We still can't plant much in that strip because of  the sycamore tree roots. The trees that were on the other side of the fence have been removed but the substantial roots remain and are close to the surface. The beans do OK there but very little rain reaches them with the potatoes overshadowing the soil, so I have to remember to water them regularly.

The Babington's leeks have now reached maturity (it is their third year in the garden) and three of them have sprouted flower stalks. Hopefully they will mature and we shall have dozens of bulbils some of which will go back into the garden and the rest shared with other gardeners in the area.

Clouds of these beauties have been darting around the garden this month. Common blue damselfly Enallagma cyathigerum.

This was an experiment in growing potatoes from supermarket potatoes. It is not generally a good idea to try this as you cannot guarantee that they will be disease free and they are usually sprayed with chemicals that inhibit sprouting; but I decided to see how far I could get with some Ruby Gem. As expected, they didn't sprout very well when left on the dresser in the kitchen (my usual chitting area) but there was enough growth to encourage me to plant them out in a potato bag. Growth was rather leggy and it quickly died back. The total yield from 3 potatoes was 274g. Some supermarket salad potatoes fared even worse. They just sat on the dresser for two months and turned green.

The experiment supports the general opinion that it is not really worth trying to get a decent group out of the treated potatoes to be found on supermarket shelves.

The peas that I used to test viability and germination rates for the Reading Food Growing Network are growing apace in the bags alongside the kitchen and bathroom extension. This is what they look like from the kitchen window.












And here is the outside view. The runner beans in the tub are also starting to take off.

We have plenty of  overwintered pointed cabbages and onions this year. Last year the cabbages were a great disappointment but they have more than made up for that in 2016. I have been cutting the heads off but leaving the stems with a few of the lower leaves hoping to encourage them to regrow. We are now starting to see a second crop of looser heads of leaves.

We have a lot of wild alpine strawberries in our garden that were planted to provide ground cover at the rear of the garden while we decided what to with that patch. The area had, for the last few years, been overshadowed by sycamore trees on the other side of the fence and their roots still restrict what we can plant there. The strawberry fruits may be small but they are gorgeous little flavour bombs. Delicious with homemade yogurt and the first of this season's locally produced honey from 600 yards down the road.

The wild strawberries take over a patch of ground very quickly and are difficult to manage so regrettably they will have to go now that the ground is to be used for higher yielding crops.

Replacing the wild strawberries in some places are the larger "domesticated" varieties and the first of those are beginning to ripen.  

Two years ago I planted a small grape vine that I bought from a stall at a RISC Roof Garden open day. We may have grapes this year!

The tea bags for this year's Tea Bag Index Project have arrived. See my posting about last year's participation for details of what is involved. This year the pairs of tea bags are going into the strip of ground next to the back fence, the ground that is next to the composting area, and the narrow strip alongside the garden shed.

My Babington's leeks are very determined perennials

Earlier this week I checked the clumps of Babington's leeks that are dotted around the garden. This is their second year so I was hoping that some might be ready for eating. When I planted them out I wasn't sure how many would grow to maturity and I didn't leave that much space between them. They've all done very well and as a result are suffering a bit from overcrowding. No problem, I thought, just pull a few of them up. I thought they would come out easily, like garlic. Far from it.

Although I had originally planted them about an inch and a half below ground, I didn't realise that they have what are called contractile roots that enable them to bury themselves deeper into the earth. I pulled some of the stems expecting to extract the whole plant but the stems snapped off leaving the bulbs about 6 inches down. To get the whole thing out I had to remove all of the soil above and around the bulb. Even then they did not want to come out. I suspect they are going to be a bit like horseradish; once they are established you can't get rid of them.

I managed to harvest enough plants to yield about 200g of edible leaves, stems and bulbs. They are delicious chopped and stir fried, and taste like garlicky leeks. A worthwhile addition to the garden but, if you are going to try them yourself, be careful where you plant them. They will strongly resist attempts to move them if you later decide they are in the wrong place!