June 2019 in pictures

Right at the beginning of this month we had one of what we call our first and last Sunday lunches. We had the first of the peas (mangetout), garlic scapes and cavolo nero of the year from the garden. We've been picking onions (in the bubble and squeak) and broad beans for a few weeks. We ate the last of the sprouting broccoli/brassicas (in the bubble and squeak) and the overwintered swiss chard. Pie, potatoes and carrots were from Reading Farmers' Market. 

Two of the bag beds had peas that were grown at the start of the year indoors for pea shoots. We usually manage to harvest three cuts before they start to get a bit tough, and then we plant them outside. In previous years we have had mixed results: some would just give up or show minimal new growth (cold weather conditions plus rodent activity perhaps?) whilst others would grow quite well and produce an average crop. This year they are going berserk and we are having to hack them back on a regular basis!

We've picked some more of the overwintered onions, the first of the garlic and the strawberries. The sorrel, both french and red-veined are plentiful as are the various herbs.

At the end of the month, temperatures rose to over 35degrees C and the forecast is for the hot weather to continue well into July. The pots will need regular watering, but I am hoping the mulch that we put on the main beds earlier in the year will help those retain moisture for longer.

June 2018 in pictures

The weather started to heat up significantly this month and we started harvesting significant amouts of fruit and veg.

The peas in particular are doing well this month: Golden Sweet, Blauwschokker, Shiraz and Giant Bijou. 

We have plenty of potatoes and onions this year...

... and garlic scapes, and the best harvest of garlic we have ever had.

On the wildlife front we again have frogs hopping around the shadier and damper areas of the garden and two separate bumple bee nests under the shed.

November 2017 in pictures

Our dividing fence was finally replaced at the end of November. We had tried to prop up the lose panels in various ways but we had a series of strong winds over the month that resulted in them disintegrating even further. Once the work had started, the chap who was doing the work for us said that the posts were still good apart from the parts that had rotted underground and suggested that we reuse them. The rotten pieces were sawn off and the posts placed in metal fence post spikes. They shouldn't rot so easily and the fence will be easier to maintain. Unfortunately, three of the panels were irredeemable and had to be replaced.

On the opposite side a series of frosts resulted in the end of the squash plants and the remaining runner beans. The brussels are doing well, though.

And the garlic finally arrived. Last year, I carefully labelled their positions with name of the variety but when I came to harvest them the labels had vanished! This year, as well as placing labels in the ground, I have kept a note of what has gone where. 

A bonus crop of volunteer potatoes found whilst turning over the compost heap. There may be a few more lurking around the edges. 

And finally for this some month, some reading matter for the dark winter evenings. The Minimalist Gardener by Patrick Whitefield is a collection of articles on permaculture and growing fruit and veg, including tips and advice for small urban gardens.  See The Minimalist Gardener for further details.

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

May 2017 in pictures

Really pleased to see that the pear blossom and fertilised flowers survived/missed the frosts. It looks as though we shall have at least a dozen pears this year, up from last year's single fruit that survived.

A typical Sunday Lunch for this time of the year. Starting at the top and working around the plate clockwise: steak and ale pie from Reading Farmers' Market; pea shoots (kitchen window sill); stuffed purple sprouting broccoli leaf (garden) stuffed with risotto; purple sprouting broccoli (garden); carrots (Reading Farmers' Market); potatoes (supermarket); various brassica leaves (garden).





Typical daily veg collection for May and on this occasion the veg was for a shared meal at a meeting and AGM of Transition Town Reading (TTR). Includes swiss chard, purple sprouting broccoli, onions, cavolo nero, various kales and oregano.

And this is what I made for the TTR AGM: winter/spring vegetable quiche, spicy vegetable and chickpea flour muffins, and sprouting broccoli leaves stuffed with vegetable risotto.

At the front of the house, the new(ish) rosemary bush is now well established and liking the hot dry environment. The surplus garlic cloves that I planted as an experiment are also doing well. 

Some of the runner bean seedlings that were started off under cover. Having been caught out with late frosts in previous years these will not be planted out until late May or the beginning of June.








I bought some interesting varieties of tomatoes and chillies from Homecrafts in Caversham, and was forced to use the bath as a "waiting room" for them a while. Tomatoes were Brandywine (pink beefsteak variety), Principe Borghese (red egg/plum shaped fruit)  and Costoluto Fiorentino (red beefsteak).

Although there is a lot just beginning to grow some of the crops are finishing. Last year's planting of swiss chard is now going to seed but there are still several meals worth left before they need to be pulled out. 

October 2016: time to bring in the chillies and tomatoes

October is often a mild month and many of the summer crops are still growing, albeit slowly. There were some cold nights and the threat of frosts towards the end of the month so time to pick the chillies. There was a good crop on the plants that made it past the seedling stage but I lost most of them right at the start of the year. 

I always start the chillies indoors but we don't have an area in the house that is consistently warm enough for them. So, I use a propagator. Unfortunately, it is a very basic model: either on or off and if left on for too long it can get too hot. I was away for two days running some workshops and forgot to switch it off. On my return I was greeted with cooked chilli seedlings. A mistake I won't make again and time to invest in a thermostatically controlled propagator.

We picked all of the tomatoes and brought them indoors regardless of whether they were ripe or not. Some were beginning to turn and have been left to ripen in the kitchen. Others were nowhere near ready to ripen and used up in stir fries and omelettes. The last big green courgettes were picked but the baby yellow ones were left until frosts and slugs threatened. 

And I found I had a single, lone aubergine. When we started growing our own veg we had several years of successfully growing aubergines in pots outside (we don't have a greenhouse) but we then had three years when we didn't have the right weather at the right time. We gave up after that but this year I was given a plant so I thought I'd try again. I was underwhelmed by the yield but it was probably not the right variety for growing outdoors. They are not on my list for 2017.  

The runner bean seeds have been collected for next year. I've been saving these for so many years that I'm no longer sure what varieties I have apart from the white ones, which are Moonlight. Moonlight, however, has been a perennial disappointment. I have tried different suppliers as well as our own and grown in different locations. The plants grow well, they produce plenty of flowers but we get hardly any beans from them. All the other varieties we grow have been fantastic this year. 

I have no idea where we are going wrong with Moonlight but we shall try again in 2017. We are enlisting the help of friends who will grow some plants from two of our batches of seed so that we can see it really is us or the seeds that is the problem. 

The garlic has been planted and this year we have three heritage varieties: Red Duke, Mikulov and Bohemian Rose. 

Outside of the garden it has been a good year for Rowan berries. There is still rowan berry jelly in the cupboard so this time I made marmalade with the juice and some citrus fruit. 

The wasps that have been nesting in the kitchen roof space have been dying off in small batches over the last couple of weeks and this morning it looked as they were all on the way out. This sight was repeated across all three kitchen windows. But there are still dozens, if not hundreds, of them buzzing in and out of the nest so a lot more to go. The windows are covered in streaks of some sort of sticky goo but there is no way I am going to attempt to clean them while there are wasps still around.

Squash harvest minus five already eaten!

October 2016 Zone 2 and 3