January 2019 in pictures

January is always a quiet month with very little to do in the garden other than keep everything tidy, minimal weeding and watch out for heavy frosts. We had a few overnight this month and I did wonder if they would affect our rhubarb which had already sprung into action. It seems to have survived the freezing temperatures as have the overwintered broad beans that have been planted amongst the Brussel's sprouts.

We decided, though, to cut the remaining overwintering lettuces that were growing in a pot but I wonder if they would have survived the cold snap had I left them.

Most of the garden work has been indoor - checking seed catalogues and taking an inventory of what we already have. 

January 2018 in pictures

January is generally a quiet month spent mostly ordering and sorting seeds, and planning the sowings and plantings for the coming year. Towards the end of the month I started testing some of the older pea seeds in the Reading Food Growing Network's seed swap boxes for viability. Most of the packets had good rates of germination and high enough to be included in the swap boxes for another year. It is, of course, far too early to plant out the seeds once they have germinated so they go into pots on the kitchen window sill and the pea shoots add a welcome variety to our winter salads.

It's also the time of year when I go through the seeds I already have and donate the surplus to the RFGN seed swap.

We had some snow and cold weather in Caversham. The snow was quite impressive while it was coming down but it didn't last long on the ground. SI really hope that we don't have long drawn out cold spell this spring as we have over the last couple of years.

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.

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

Bean seeds for next year

The last of the bean pods have been harvested for seeds. I am always loath to leave some of the biggest and best beans on the plants to mature and dry but I know it is worth it for the sake of next year's harvest. This photo shows just some of the varieties I have collected from the garden. The problem is that labels were lost many years ago so I have no idea which varieties they are apart from "runners", "climbing" and "dwarf".

The season is not completely over yet and the weather has been so mild this autumn that I am still harvesting runner beans. I'm not gathering a massive amount bit a handful is enough to add variety to a mix of veg in a risotto or a casserole.