The first aubergine flowers opened this week.
As pretty as they are, I am keeping my fingers crossed that I get some fruit this year.
The garlic took a battering against the wind this week. I wasn't sure if they had keeled over because they are ready for picking or if the wind did it.... so I pulled one up.
When I cut it open, it didn't look as if the cloves had separated properly so I'm guessing they are not quite ready yet. I'm wondering if this is what people are talking about when they mention wet garlic? I'll leave them in a bit longer but keep an eye on them to make sure they haven't been damaged and need to come up anyway.
My relationship with radishes is a strange one... I don't like them, but grow them because I have free seeds and they don't take up much room. These ones are called hilds blauer herbst und winter and I'd not grown this variety before.
I decided this time that if I didn't like them I would stop growing them and give the seeds away. I nibbled on a little bit and still didn't like it, but what if I cooked them?
A quick scout through my vegetable cook book found a recipe for citrus radish confit. I also had some turnips and had previously glazed them, so decided to make a combination of citrus glazed turnips and radish - what a difference cooking them makes... delicious!
The veg plot is pretty full at the moment. This is the view from the potting shed
More experienced gardeners would probably say that things are planted too close together... and they would be right, but I have a lot to fit into the space and it seems to be working okay so far.
I am now harvesting enough of a selection of veg every day so that I don't need to buy any from the shops. In the past few days I have continued to pick mange tout, peas, courgettes and turnips but also had the first potatoes (see patience is a virtue post), first shallots
and first pak choi (although I had to pick this because it bolted, I think they are supposed to grow bigger than this)
A couple of cabbages should also be ready in the next week or so.
I think I could still do better to keep it going for as long as possible. My successional sowing has fallen by the wayside, so I rectified this by sowing a selection of lettuces and salad leaves, chinese cabbage, chicory and some onions for pickling (the last lot didn't materialise into anything).
I also need to get some more root veg in the ground, or rather containers... for some reason they didn't grow in the raised bed so that got filled up with brassicas. The ones that I already have in containers are doing much better so I bought some builder's buckets today and need to get sowing.
... one which I do not possess.
I posted a couple of weeks ago that I had 5 more weeks to wait for my potatoes... well, various sources state that early potatoes only take 12-13 weeks from planting to harvesting and as today is 13 weeks I didn't need any more encouragement to have a furtle around in one of the potato sacks.
I wasn't disappointed.
A few of these were boiled and joined various other veg: pak choi stir fried with shallots, glazed turnips, steamed mange tout & peas, yellow & round courgettes lightly sautéed in butter (all from the garden), and a roasted free range corn fed chicken (not from the garden) on my plate for dinner - delicious!
Wow! Can't believe I haven't posted for so long... so much has been going on in the garden. For the past few weeks I have been enjoying the fruits of my labour... hasn't been easy though, the slugs have been relentless this season and I have resorted to slug pellets for the first time ever. I think the breaking point was when they pretty much destroyed a whole bed of lettuce - I was not impressed :-(
Anyway, some of it did survive and I have enjoyed a few salads with reine de glaces, lollo rossa and little gem.
Last week I picked the first turnips, mange tout and a gold rush courgette.
Today, I picked another gold rush, some more mange tout (which is ready on a daily basis now) and the first couple of tondo di toscana courgettes.
I also picked my first strawberry a couple of weeks ago and have had a few more since then, so it is starting to feel more like summer now.
I was hoping there would be more than two parts to my Bank Holiday Weekend gardening activities, but the bad weather has continued; yesterday it rained more or less constantly, and when it did let up there was a very cold wind blowing round the garden. Today has been better; there is still a chill in the air but the sun has come out every now and again. Nevertheless, over the course of the weekend I have been able to do a few more bits and pieces.
The jack o' lanterns have been planted out into reusable growbags.
I'll probably put squash in between them, once they are ready to go out.
I've planted out my beetroot (boltardy) plugs into a wicker planter and sowed some more undercover, and have continued sowing like there's no tomorrow; broccoli (psb & raab), cauliflower (all year round), pak choi (red choi), fennel (di firenze), chicory (radicchio palla rosso precoce), turnip (purple top milan) are all in small pots in the potting shed.
Outdoors sowings consist of a row of swede (best of all) in a raised bed with some previously planted out brassicas, and four types of radish (cherry belle, prinz rotin, french breakfast and hilds blauer herbst und winter) in a bulb crate.
The final batch of potatoes (rooster) have also been planted into potato sacks.
In the greenhouse I potted on the okra plants.
And finally, I purchased some sweet pepper (bellboy) and chilli pepper (apache) plants from the garden centre. I still haven't given up on the idea of germinating my own from seed even though my last (and was going to be final) attempt in the heated propagator only produced one chilli shake, and time is running out if they are going to have a long enough season to fruit and ripen. Might just give it one more go?!
I am trying to get into the habit of succession sowing this year; this weekend I have sown another row each of white gem parsnips, chantenay red cored carrots and mammoth snowstar leeks in the raised beds along with a large tub of white gem parsnips.
I also added to the brassicas by sowing some more kale and purple sprouting broccoli as I'm hoping they will provide fresh veg throughout the winter and into spring when there is not a great deal around - essential if I'm going to achieve self-sufficiency.
On the subject of brassicas, I planted out another batch into the raised beds; mainly cabbages, golden acre primo, offenham flower of spring and kalibos, along with some kale and purple sprouting broccoli.
My plug plant enterprise has had a 50% success rate so far; the beetroot has germinated very well, but not one single turnip has come up. I'll give the beetroot another week before planting out though, hopefully that should be okay; they are still a lot smaller than the plugs sold in the garden centre and I need to strike a balance between them being strong enough, but not so advanced that the roots are damaged by transplanting.
I decided to begin my own plug plant enterprise so that I will always (hopefully) have something to fill the gaps that will no doubt arise in the raised beds; currently on that production line are turnips and beetroot which I normally sow direct.
Yesterday's rain has clearly had an effect on the outdoor sowings: radish, turnip, paris market carrots (just about), mizuna and mixed lettuce seedlings have pushed themselves up through the compost.
These are the radish (french breakfast):
Also, not to be outdone by the raspberries, there are now green leaves on both the gooseberry and blackcurrant bushes.
... hmmm, this does not bode well for when the season is really in full swing, I'm already getting behind with blogging what I have been up to - must do better!
Anyway, what I should have posted about a week ago is that I continued my indoor sowing with:
- Okra (Clemsons Spineless) x 5
- Cucumber (Miniature White) x 5
- Gherkin (Cornichon de Paris) x 5
- Courgette (All Green Bush) x 2
- Tomato (Sub Arctic Plenty) x 5
- Mint
- Thyme
and a selection of brassicas:
- Cabbage (Kalibos) x 2
- Cabbage (Offenham 2 - Flower of Spring) x 2
- Cabbage (Golden Acre / Primo) x 2
- Broccoli (Early Purple Sprouting) x 2
- Kale (Dwarf Green Curled) x 2
Outdoors I sowed a row each of:
- Spinach Beet
- Turnip (Purple Top Milan)
- Beetroot (Boltardy)
I have never tried to grow gherkins before but am hoping they are just the same as regular cucumbers and therefore don't pose too much of a challenge. I have tried okra in the past, but just ended up with greenery and no flowers!
There is so much to do this month, but I do enjoy it when it gets busy... and it is totally worth it once it comes to harvesting time.
