Author Archives: Lynn Davis

How quickly things change

Posted on by in Musings...
Even though there is the temptation to think that gardening requires patience, looking backwards it is astonishing how quickly things change.  The two photos below show how much the overall plot changed in just five months.

Looking South 5 March 2011

Looking South 3 August 2011

The view looking North gives a clearer picture of the sweet pea gateway that Lynn planted up as well as a sight of the sweet corn beds in the distance and a better view of the rabbit proof fence that took up a lot of our early efforts.

Looking North 3 August 2011

The bed of squashes pumpkins and courgettes also shows very clearly the pace at which things have grown with these pictures taken at approximately monthly intervals.

Squashes and Courgettes 21 May 2011

Squashes and Courgettes 29 June 2011

Squashes and Courgettes 26 July 2011

The potatoes tell a similar tale, with harvesting having started by the time of the last picture and the potatoes being replaced with brassicas and late peas.

Emerging potatoes 24 April

The potato beds 14 May 2011

Replacing the potatoes with brassicas and peas 29 June 2011

Of course the reason we took the allotment on was to grow stuff to eat, so harvesting is the main pleasure.

Buried treasure

What do you want in your basket?

Still harvesting

Posted on by in In the allotment

The march of autumn is now very noticeable and I cleared out the “Xtra Early” sweetcorn patch.  The late peas are finished and I hope to clear these out on Friday when the forecast looks more promising.  I’ll also look to get the bonfire going that day to burn all the potato haulms, which are notorious as disease shelters and not recommended for composting.

While the “bonnie” is going I also ought to be able to harvest the Cara potatoes.

Despite the slowing growth, we are still harvesting courgettes and a week’s worth makes an impressive pile.  I also picked the first of the borlotti beans, which look lovely.  In theory we can use them as runner bean substitutes at this size and then store the actual beans as they swell.  A swift taste test of a raw bean confirmed that they’ll make lovely substitutes for runners.

A week's worth of courgettes

Young Borlotti Beans

Catching up and Carrots

Posted on by in Garden updates

Despite a bit of a spurt of effort in the garden a couple of weeks ago, there is a feeling that the garden is slipping out of control as the continuing miserable weather has meant that desk-based (and other inside) jobs have taken priority.  However, a couple of better days at the end of this week encouraged some weeding, pruning and mowing.  We can even see out of the bedroom window again, having got round to giving the wisteria another haircut.

The carrots in the home roots bed have been rather disappointing this year, at first we got very low levels of germination and then the seedlings were rather swamped by the neighbouring parsnips.  The first few we harvested were also quite badly forked and split – no problem for immediate use, but no chance of keeping.  The forking had roots running very close to the surface so I wonder if this was down to the plants searching for water back in April/May when it was dry and we were watering to keep things alive.  The last batch however, looked rather better as shown in the examples below.  It will be interesting to see how these compare with the container grown ones that we will be harvesting next week.

Last of the garden carrots

 

Lawns

Posted on by in Musings...

A regular theme in my garden updates has been the limited reward for effort that comes from a lawn, yet along with many others I still strive for something that (at least at a distance) evokes memories of a cricket outfield.  There is something about a nicely mown lawn, neatly edged with the roller stripes still prominent that is quintessentially English.

Back lawn late August 2011

This shot shows the back lawn in late August, looking as good as it has for a while.  Of course close up, it is far rougher, but this is OK, I’m not using it as a putting green (or even a fairway).  In this situation perception is as important as substance and of course requires far less effort to achieve.

Autumn on the way

Posted on by in In the allotment

This evening we wandered down to the allotment to do a bit of tidying and harvesting, including gathering a couple of winter squashes for Pat at the golf club who gave us the pumpkin plant.

The plot is starting to look rather autumnal now and things are slowing down.  That said the borlotti beans and the brassicas are still progressing well.  We will have to harvest the last batch of potatoes when we get a decent run of dry weather.

A sad end to the tomatoes

Posted on by in In the allotment

Last Friday I popped down to the allotment to see how things were bearing up after some very heavy rain.  The bad news was that we have got some serious sort of fungal infection on the tomatoes in the cloche.  Looking at our books it seems to be Botrytis (grey mould) so I cut out the infected areas and treated the plants with fungicide, but the infection was so widespread that there is not much, so the chances of a crop look pretty thin now.  If it is grey mould it has probably been a result of slightly careless cleaning out of the side stems.

More brightly harvesting continues with some carrots, a few courgettes and one of the winter squashes that looked really lovely.  I cut down the haulms of the Cara potatoes just to make sure that we don’t hit any late blight problems and dug the Vales Sovereigns (which look really good).