First post this year! How bad is that!

I have been totally frustrated this year with gardening! It is now over half way through the year and the only things flourishing in the vegetable garden are the Lollo Rosso lettuces.  The beans (French this year, not Runners) are pathetic. Only an inch bigger than when they were planted out in April! The courgettes in the same bed as the beans only further along are tiny with no fruits. At least the courgettes in the tubs are bigger and I have been able to pick 3 courgettes so far with more to come.  I decided to plant ridge cucumbers for a change and they are a disaster being very wizened  with spotty leaves.  I sprayed them with a bug killer just in case there was something eating them!  I don’t like using sprays but the blackcurrant leaves  were also looking eaten as well.  I limed the earth round the blackcurrants as well as the ph was too acid for them and I have to admit that made a big difference but they still don’t look healthy. And only about 5 currants on one of the bushes. Nothing on the others!

However on the other hand the roses are looking good and the climber has the most delicious scent. The cosmos is as always a picture and the begonias are gorgeous.  The nasturtiums have gone mad and the Philadelphous has flowered profusely for the first time in three years.   The herbs are doing well. Well all but the sage which has withered and died. I have bought a pineapple sage, a purple sage and an ordinary sage to replace it. One of them must do well!  Actually they are all looking good so far.  And the avocado is looking good after an unprotected winter though its trunk is still spindly and looks like an elongated walking stick!  But there is plenty of colour to look at through my lovely new French doors and if we get any sun things should start to improve on the culinary side.  If we don’t get any sun the cherry tomatoes in the hanging baskets will be a wash out just like last year!

Courgettes in garden (above). Courgettes in tub (below). They are three times the size and have lots of fruits on them compared to the ones in the garden!  The soil here has been well manured and dug over and I had a good crop of runner beans last year so I can’t think why nothing is growing very well this year!

End of year thoughts!

I really only garden between March and October! During the winter months the garden has to look after itself. However I have resolved that from January I will be more organised and think about how I want the garden to look and start working in it and planning for the summer now! It is looking really sad at the moment. I bought my husband a bird table for Christmas as he is really into feeding the birds and I thought a bird table would be a bit more visable than feeders hanging in the trees. We’ll see!

While I was organising it’s placement I had a quick look at what was growing/flowering/surviving.  This clematis is an evergreen and I had not noticed it flowering before but then if it flowers in the winter no doubt I’ve missed it. The flowers are very fragile and almost non-descript until one notices the lovely inside of each flower.

I also noticed I had a rose in blossom. This is a climber that I planted in the summer. The flowers in the summer weren’t as attractive as this one!

I was given this house plant at the beginning of the year and no matter where I put it the wretched thing didn’t thrive. The flowers were a muddy white colour and had an awful scent. I don’t know what it is but when I threw it outside in disgust at the beginning of December it took on a new lease of life and began to flourish. So perhaps it isn’t a house plant after all as we’ve had some frost and miserable weather during its time outside. Any suggestions?

I’d like to wish anyone who reads this blog a VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR and a successful gardening one too!

Very lazy!

I have been very bad about doing anything in the garden and writing in the blog! The weather has been too dreary to want to do anything outside and now the clocks have gone back it is very dark when I get home from work.  I have cleared the runner beans and composted them. Also the courgette plants and I was pleasantly surprised to find smallish courgettes in November when I pulled them up. Amazing that the slugs hadn’t found them. The spinach continues to do well and I still have beetroot in the ground. Otherwise the garden is in a sorry state and needs weeding and digging over so that I can manure it ready for the Spring. The trouble is I start classes in September each year and am so busy getting lesson plans organised that the garden gets forgotten. It is very forgiving.  And still very colourful with the nasturtiums and begonias still flowering and even the odd lobelia plant. Apart from a couple of cold spells the weather has been mild and so the flowers are still appearing.  I can’t see me doing anything major until January as I have so much to do to get ready for Christmas.  At least I’ll be able to pick herbs for the stuffings as to date they are all doing well.

Autumn rambles on…..

Here it is, the middle of October and still the sun shines and the weather is warm. We are still picking runner beans and courgettes and the garden is a mass of colour from flowers that are still flowering. They don’t seem to know that it is Autumn and they should be giving up! I want to get out and tidy up but there are too many plants still doing their thing. However when the clocks go back I will start to pull up plants that are past their best and dig over the borders and at the same time incorporate manure and compost.  This year I am going to be on top of all the preparatory work well in advance of Spring. Usually I’ve left it all to the last minute and it is a rush but not this year.  This year I have plans, and I will follow them to the letter.  Then if we get a cold spell later on any frosts will help in breaking up the soil so that when it comes to sewing seeds I can get a fine tilth.

I also want to do some pruning but not while the shrubs still have leaves on them.  It is easier to see where to cut when there is just the bare wood.  For some unknown reason this year most of the shrubs have grown enormous.  The Lemon Verbena, which smells heavenly, has grown to about 10 feet tall.  I chopped it right back last autumn and was a bit worried that I had over done it but no, it came back with a vengeance.  It is only a half hardy shrub but seems to like our mild Cornish winters.   At the moment it is still in full bloom though the flowers are fairly insignificant. However there are a lot of them and the bush more than makes up in quantity what it lacks in quality.  Before the leaves start dropping off I want to pick some for  potpourri in the house.  It is good for keeping flies at bay as well as smelling good.

The main problem with this mild weather is that the grass keeps on growing and needs cutting regularly still. Not a job I enjoy! Just as well that Martin does it!  However it would be nice if it lasted until November as that would shorten the winter.

Autumn, season of mists and mellow fruitfulness…

Lovely long sunny days. It is still light at 8.30…well just! But the evenings are beginning to draw in and it is dark in the mornings. No lovely light at five o’clock and a sunny start to the day just after seven.  We are being very fortunate with the weather and will be for a few more days hopefully.  Of course sunny days with no rain means watering in the evenings.  This is especially important for the tomatoes and the hanging baskets.  There are loads of green tomatoes and I’m wondering how many will actually ripen; while the hanging baskets continue to give a good display of colour on the back fence.  The petunias have gone on and on flowering which is good considering there has been no dead heading at all.   The runner beans have come to an end as have the courgettes.  The perpetual spinach is still going strong and looks as if it will continue at least until the first frosts.  On the whole the garden is still colourful and doesn’t yet have that untidy, end of season look about it.  I don’t feel the need to pull things up and empty tubs and pots.  The runner beans arn’t straggly and still have lots of flowers but it is doubtful if they will produce any beans.  The last beans I picked were on the tough side and not at all edible even though they were picked almost as soon as they appeared.  Obviously the plant knows when the time has come to give up!

If I had to evaluate the past season’s growth I would say that overall the beetroot and spinach did best followed closely by the runner beans and the courgettes. The lettuce was a non starter and the tomatoes never really got going due to the wet and cold start.  The flowers did well and I shall certainly grow begonias and variegated nasturtiums again. I shall be more selective if I buy more dahlias to get a greater range of colours.   The herbs did well except for those late herbs that I grew from seed.  These were attacked by slugs and never got going.  I still have good clumps of parsley, thyme and basil but the coriander and dill gave up the ghost some time ago.  It was a good year for all the varieties of mint I have as it was so wet and mint loves a damp climate to grow with not much sun, especially peppermint.  The cuttings of rosemary that I took have taken well and will be planted out next spring. The original bush has grown top heavy so I shall prune it right back later this month and see whether it shoots from the base.  It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t now that I have plants to take it’s place.  Rosemary is like blackcurrant in that a cutting stuck into compost and kept moist will root very quickly.

Ginger!

If you are wondering what this is it’s ginger!  I found when I looked in the bag I keep my root ginger in that it had started sprouting so I decided to try growing it.  I broke off the sprouting pieces in a similar manner to sprouting potatoes and put them into some compost. I’m keeping them on the kitchen windowsill so that they get plenty of light though if they can sprout in a dark paper bag then I reckon they’ll do OK and as its a south facing window they should get plenty of sun…when we have any. Anyway it will be interesting to see what happens.  It is an experiment.  I’ve never seen a ginger plant so I don’t know what to expect. I must Google it!

The runner beans are continuing to produce beans and flowers. As long as this lovely sunny weather goes on they should do well. I am having to water every evening.  The courgettes aren’t being so productive though they are still producing the odd courgette. And the tomatoes have been a dead loss this year.  We are getting tomatoes but far and few between and the skins are tough.   I planted out some coriander plants yesterday and during the night some dratted slug ate three of them.  And the wretch was still there starting on a fourth one. But that was it’s mistake as a few grains of salt soon finished it off! So now I have one coriander plant bravely struggling on!

I am leaving the dead rose heads on the plant now and not nipping them off as I don’t think there will be any more buds and they can produce rose hips.  These make lovely decorations at Christmas especially frosted with silver spray.  I could even have a go at making rosehip syrup if there are enough.

Fascinating plant!

Earlier this year I was having a lot of problem with cats in the garden. Since we haven’t had a dog this has been a real nuisance. So in desperation I bought a peculiar plant which was supposed to be obnoxious to cats and keep them off the seed beds. It certainly smelt awful. It was called Coleus Canina but as the label was all in German I wasn’t too sure what I was buying but the picture of a scared cartoon cat convinced me that this was something I needed! It was minute but over the year it has grown and grown and has made a quite sizeable bush. I don’t know whether it works as shortly after buying it we got an electronic cat scarer. One of them works as we haven’t had cats in the garden for a long time! Makes life nicer for the birds too! Anyway I was tidying up and noticed that this plant had produced some flowers and they are so strange. Like something from another planet!

For anyone who reads German this is the label!

The weather has been glorious for the last few days. Just in time for the August Bank Holiday weekend. The beans are doing well after their shaky start and I have been giving them away we have had so many. The tomatoes are another story though. Quite a disaster. Last year we had a glut. This year we are having a hard time finding enough ripe ones for a salad. And they are tiny. They are meant to be cherry tomatoes but these are minute with tough skins. The wrong kind of weather for too long. I was upset to find that one of my courgette plants (I only had four to begin with) had rotted on the stem about five inches up from the soil and withered. Sadly it was covered with baby courgettes which now won’t come to anything. Why this should be I don’t know. The others are all doing fine. The spinach and beetroot are doing well and these are two things I’ll grow again next year. And all the herbs are flourishing. I bought an Angelica plant and want to have a go at candying some of the stems as I love this as decoration on trifle.

Middle of August

Lots of runner beans I’m pleased to say though after last night’s gale they were leaning over perilously and in danger of collapse. Fortunately a shove in the right direction and some string soon fixed that problem. What wasn’t so easy was putting the courgettes back in place. They had been tidy bushes but the wind had left them blown over and in a heap. The leaves being prickly weren’t so pleasant to touch when trying to make the plants upright again. Not so many courgettes now either though I see lots of small ones coming.

My lovely pink rose which I posted photos of earlier in the year is no longer a bush but a very tall standard! The new shoots weren’t suckers but the genuine article producing clusters of the self same pink rose. I had no idea that it was meant to be so tall thinking it was a bush! But it is at least 3ft in height and growing! Whatever, it is a lovely plant.

The dahlias took a battering in the wind but are still upright though somewhat bedraggled. I had to rescue some of the flowers and after shaking the earwigs out I brought them into the house where they are looking good. Everything else in the garden is doing as well as they were and doesn’t seem to have been overly blown about.

The tomatoes are abysmal with lots of small green tomatoes and no sign of any ripening at all. And those we have picked (far and few between) have had very tough skins. Not at all like last year’s glut. There are loads of flowers so perhaps if we have an Indian summer we will have a late crop.

The Avocado tree is doing exceptionally well. Much better than last year. The leaves are bright and unspotted and the trunk is beginning to thicken up though it still resembles a wiggly walking stick!

With the copious amounts of rain we have had and the bad weather in general I have to admit that I have not been particularly good about getting out and tidying up and generally keeping things under control and orderly. Neither have I felt any inclination for making late sewings of things which wouldn’t probably come to much anyway. My enthusiasm for gardening has been much diminished I’m afraid. But having said that the garden is still a picture and good to look at. What more could I ask? Well lot’s of things but I won’t detail them!

No pictures because as you will know if you’ve been reading my other blog I am without the wherewithal to put any up. My computer has been re-formated and although now it is working it is just a skeleton of it’s former self. But better than nothing.

August

It is August already and it feels as if the year is nearly over. I think this feeling has been acerbated by the really dire weather we have been having. Although it is now sunny there is an autumn feel about the air and already there are berries on the Hawthorn.  On the bright side the runner beans are being very plentiful and I am giving them away there are so many.  So I needn’t have worried during the cold spell in May that I might not get any beans! But the cherry tomatoes are a disaster.  The few there are have tough skins and are very jaded looking. There are lots of flowers so perhaps if the weather stays fine they will improve.   On my morning walk around the garden I noticed that the Cosmos are finally giving up.  I have been religiously dead heading but I think the rain was just too much for them.  Considering they have been blooming since the beginning of April they have done well.  The dahlias are looking good and standing up tall.  Lovely purple colours but it would have been prettier if they had followed the colours on the packets as then there would have been more variety.  The Hydrangea is doing well as always.  The original white variety is blue under the trees, and turns very deep turquoise as the flowers develop, and pink on the other side of the garden.  As the Rhodedendron does well in the Cornish stone wall I can only presume that the blue hydrangea is in a more acid soil. It must be all the leaf mould.   The blueberry in a pot is covered in berries which are ripening slowly.  They seem to be ripening at the rate of one a day which means I can’t go and pick a handful at once.  So it doesn’t look as if this year I am going to get enough for blueberry pie.  I think next year I may get a good crop from my late blackcurrant bush Ben Alder as it has grown into a good sized bush and with judicious pruning should - hopefully, fingers crossed - do better.  Patience is a virtue and no more so than in the garden. My biggest problem is that I want everything to happen yesterday!

Lush!

Lush is the only word for my garden! Everything is now overgrown and rampant! The lovely variegated  nasturtiums have spread until they have almost obliterated the bedding begonias but wonderful plants that they are the begonias are rising above it all and making great splodges of orange and red in amongst the pale variegated foliage of the nasturtiums. Somewhere in amongst all this are the deep blue lobelias. I know they are there as there are odd spots of blue appearing every now and then!  I am disappointed in my two ferns as I thought with all this rain they have burgeoned forth but they are still on the small side and limp looking.  The lovely pink rose that I posted pictures of earlier in the year has thrown up four long shoots with several buds atop each one.  I am waiting to see if these are the same as the original or whether they are suckers. They are coming from the main plant but are so much stronger and bigger than the original branches that I am wondering.  This is so exciting!

We had the first proper picking of runner beans this week. They were delicious and well worth waiting for. There are more to come as well.  I have to keep propping up the canes and the wind is such that they are constantly shifting. I’ve tied the end ones into the fence so I’m not worried that they will blow over completely but they do have a definite leaning  to the left.  The courgettes continue to do well.  Condidering that I managed to sever the main shoot of one of the bushes they are doing remarkably well. The bush in question immediately put forth secondary shoots in an effort to recover from my stupidity!  The beetroot are amazing! This is the first year that I have grown such smooth round beetroot of a good size…..not too big and not too small!  I hate the fact that the lawn keeps on growing regardless as by now it is almost ready for hay! Oh for a dry sunny day to cut it. Not even sunny is necessary, dry will do!  The cuttings I took of the blackcurrant bush Baldwin, continue to grow and look really healthy. I will take some more later on and should have enough to give some away.  I’m thinking that next year I will have a go at growing rhubarb as I adore rhubarb and ginger jam.  Perhaps I’ll let some of the courgettes grow to marrow size and then make marrow and ginger preserve.  Mmmm! Tasty! I must look for a good recipe!