#gardeningSE26

[Tim Lund]

There have been some nice days, but I'm still a bit impatient about the weather, evidenced by some pelagoniums which I put outside, and clearly haven't much liked the cold nights. They'll survive, I guess, but I should have done some hardening off, taking them back indoors over night for a while. So this is what I'm going to do with this lot



which are runner beans, dwarf french beans and some butternut squash, which got off to a great start in the warmth of my greenhouse in the warm weather we had a couple of weeks ago, but which I think would succumb if planted out now.

The chard I planted out is still getting attack by birds - pigeons, I suspect - so to deter them I've covered them with a polytunnel / cloche



along with the neighbouring rows where beetroot is germinating



although this will help more just warming them up a bit.

I'm also feeling a bit disappointed with my pear tree, which has had nothing like as much blossom as last year, and I don't know why. It could be nothing to do with me, but I'm worrying I did something wrong with how I pruned it. It's the sort of thing with leaves me wanting to have more systematic training as a gardener - which I could of course achieve by not being distracted by other things ...

Anyway, the apple blossom is looking good



although I've not seen too many bees around to do the pollinating - that will be a matter of some warmer weather, I guess.

On the plot, I notice the first strawberry flowers - and that I've not got round to weeding the bed properly



I guess I'm just going to have to hoe them now throughout the season, since forking them up will disturb the roots of the strawberries.

Where I have been more on top of things is with the raspberries, so here removing the runners which are invading neighbouring beds



I also spent some time forking up more perennial weeds, which has its compensations, in the attendance of a robin - actually two



making my mind wander to why they are so tame - and I believe not in other parts of Europe. This guy explains it as a combination of our acting the evolutionary role of large, gallumphing mammals

http://www.birdwords.co.uk/2012/12/why-are-robins-tame/

and not being inclined to shoot or trap small birds. Make you feel quite chauvinist.

Back home, 23 of the 40 gladioli planted have now emerged



and five asian lilies



Last year I grow some aliums for the first time - mainly just to see how they did, and they have all survived the winter, in the same way Dutch irises do, though I can't say I actually like their flowers as much.

Here they are, still providing flowers for the home, this time with some smaller, more delicate flowered tulips



which is more the style preferred in the Ottoman empire than the shape bred in Europe. I'm with the Turks, here.

And of course the functional - although it doesn't really serve that much purpose keeping track of the total rhubarb production for the year. But 974g, since you ask.

[Tim Lund]

The long range weather forecast is for it to get warmer from now, so I took a risk and planted out my runner beans. Maybe I had to, since I'd started them in root trainers, and they were already getting too big for them.



In previous years I seem to have taken short cuts with setting up a frame for runners, and ended up with them blowing over in September, when the top of the frame is heavy with foliage, and acts as a sail in the wind. I've tried to guy the structure with binder twine stretching to some old pegs, but that's not worked. This year I may be overcompensating, using a fence post auger to insert some tanalised poles which I've had lying around for some years, and stretching a wire between vine eyes at about six feet above ground, and then having a full complement of 8' canes for them to climb up.



Although I have been hardening them off, they will still be vulnerable to slugs for the next week or so, and although it doesn't show, there are a few slug pellets on the ground here. I've also planted a few more seeds to provide back up.

I also noticed today the first broad beans forming - with a photograph showing not only some weeds, but also the soil cracking - thanks to the dry spell we've had and the clay subsoil



It would be better with more organic matter, but that's a matter of getting more loads of stable clearings delivered - one day it might all be wonderful. And these weeds don't really matter, because the beans are well established, and I'm not going to be entering this in a competition.

More serious is the blackfly higher up



which, left unchecked, will make a mess of the whole crop. However, what you're told to do in the gardening books - picking off the tops - really does work, so that's what I do. It seems a bit peculiar, and takes some washing in the sink,



but they are also good to eat, like a sort of spinach.

I've also now sort of weeded my strawberries



although there is still plenty of bindweed and couch grass underneath. There are plenty of flowers, but as yet no sign of fruit setting. There is, however, on the currants and gooseberries



Within the next two weeks it will be time to put a cage over these, and cover with netting to keep birds out.

Most of the potatoes are also appearing, and some beetroot sown two weeks ago is also showing. Looking at the remaining space on the plot, I'm aware of how much more I have coming to plant out than I have room for - some dwarf french beans, some courgettes and butternut squash will do it.

Other vegetables - which I've never done that well with in the allotment, e.g. carrots and turnips, I'm going to try growing as mini-veg, in compost in planter bags like this



Available from Marshalls

I'm already using these for growing salad in my garden, and peas over winter in the greenhouse.

We have just cropped these, and those sown direct in the soil, which means space is now available for planting out tomatoes as the main summer greenhouse crop



OK - too many other things to mention, bar these last two



a sweet pea about to blossom, and



a cornflower, which was in the garden when I moved here, and just keeps coming back with no effort on my part. I love the pattern below the flowering head as well.

[Tim Lund]

Suddenly it's a nice day and the allotment seems to have more people around - although that could also be to do with a new committee resolving to send out weed notices to those whose plots aren't kept up to standard. I feel grateful no longer being on the committee, knowing that one such plotholder near me is awaiting a hip operation, who knows when ... dealing with such cases is not easy.

It's also our Open Day two weeks from now



and these leaflets should be coming through letter boxes in the vicinity



On my own plot, my main concern was to find out whether slugs and snails had attacked the runner bean planted out last week - they had not



However, I'd failed to protect some dwarf french beans I'd been growing in root trainers, so I made the best of a bad job, planting out those I thought had a chance of survival. I used the same space that, in March, I'd tried sowing some parsnip seed from last year, from curiosity to see how many germinated, since they are notorious for not lasting. Only three in three rows, accounting for some odd gaps now in the beans.



Well, it's not going to win any prizes, but I only tried entering a competition once, and was judged to have a very weedy plot.

In March, I'd also sown some beetroot and chard, and I could at last see enough seedlings coming up to make it worth hand weeding round them, and where there were gaps in the rows, sowing replacements. Meanwhile the rows I'd sown three weeks ago are germinating well, which makes we wonder if it's really worth trying to sow as early as March, at least out doors.

It's also nice that all my potatoes are appearing above ground



and with the soft fruit setting, protection against birds went up.



Back home, I guess the garden is looking nice - I got a compliment from some passing on the streets this week - but I find myself thinking more about what hasn't gone to plan. So, for example, 12 flat leaved parsley seedlings planted out the week before last has been completely eaten by slugs, and some established irises have obviously not much liked being moved - only one rather pathetic bloom has appeared, although the plants are still alive. In spite of this, I'm still benefiting from a sequence of flowers - all with blue flowers - which are in effect naturalised. Earlier in the year it was grape hyacinths, but these are now over, going to seed, and so likely to appear wherever they get blown to. Currently it is forget me nots and cornflowers, but already, appearing above them, is the whiskery foliage of love in a mist. And above all is the wisteria



which this year I have not pruned back quite as hard as previous years, having noticed where my neighbours had been laxer with it, they had got a better show. I guess this means there will be more pruning to do once the flowering is over - and wisteria is an incredibly invasive plant - but I think it's worth it.

I also have some valerian, as I guess I should call it, even though I think of it as Sweet Betsy, which is what my Mum used to call it. That too is naturalised, growing wherever it comes up.



And to finish


The first sweet peas of the year - these were sown in October


This year's figs, starting to form


Poeony


and alium

[Tim Lund]

It's a good time of year to be gardening, but also one when it becomes largely reactive - seeing what is growing, coming into flower, needing to be potted up or planting out - and responding according. Where what's growing isn't wanted, it means weeding, which yesterday meant getting rid of the ivy which was taking over an area of old brickwork, otherwise happily covered by pinks, which now have that space to themselves.

It also means pulling up some of the love-in-a-mist, which self seeds everywhere, but was obscuring the two vine cuttings I have surviving from planting them two years ago. In previous years they've been knocked back by snails, which is why they've not yet developed long shoots for training as the main stem of an established vine, and instead had a bunch of shorter shoots. But now I've laid my bets on three to survive the snails, and trained one to go left - temporarily along a piece of old washing line, one right, where is will soon enough meet a pear coming the other way along some wire, and the third straight up. I think when I grew a vine before, it had its first grapes in the second year, but as yet this shows no such signs.



I also took the shears to an area of grass where a branch of my fig, by trailing on the ground last year, seemed to be asking to be layered. I've also got some cuttings, taken from the ends of another branch which was getting in the way going up the garden, but I'm not sure that any of these have taken. Layering is probably more reliable - but needs a stick stuck in the ground with a plastic bottle put over the end to stop my shears ending the experiment prematurely.

Of the three sorts of summer bulb planted this spring, the freesias are the only non show, so I gave up on them, and decided to use their space for some bergamot, which I'd grown from seed, and was getting too big for its plastic modules in the greenhouse. I thought I might find the remains of some freesia corms, as indeed I did, but they weren't rotten, and at least one has a few roots coming from it. I'm not sure that anything will happen, but if so, well, all the better. On looking up freesia cultivation - which perhaps I'd have done better earlier - I discover they benefit from some complicated care to break their dormancy, mimicking the climate of South Africa - and that I may also have just been impatient. Oh well, it's how you learn.



On my allotment, I've now dug over all but one patch of ground, removing perennial weeds ahead of planting up - either with squash,courgettes or dwarf french beans. Some of the ground was ok, and at the end looked like a reasonable seed bed - soft enough indeed for a robin to stuff its beak with ants' eggs being unearthed



but there is just one patch where the earth stays in brick-like clods. It's the same patch where three years ago there was standing water, so I guess it's just that the clay is not far below the surface, and I just have to keep on adding organic matter. I guess I have to put the last of the rotted down stable clearing I had delivered last autumn, but there won't be enough. I guess I'll just have to hope that, if I can pile it into mounds where I plant them, it'll be enough for some courgettes.

And just because they are now flowering







or getting ready, in the case of this hollyhock



It reminds me of this sort of crazy mathematical solid

[Tim Lund]

It's been a very gardening week, but not so much for gardening I've been doing.

On Tuesday, Kathleen Towler of Millefleurs had organised a trip to the RHS Lindley Library in Westminster, which is free to anyone - not just RHS members. The focus is on the history of gardening, which is something which interests me too. I feel another thread ticking over in the background, although it would be more about diet, health, demographics and social history - something I find myself thinking about when lifting potatoes - it was a great-gerat grandmother of mine who came over from Ireland in the years after the Great Famine.

Then Wednesday, it was the Chelsea Flower Show - thanks to a neighbour and fellow allotmenteer, who checks up on progress in my front garden as she walks to Sydenham Station. She'd bought tickets, but one of her party could not go, so was offering them round. I'd never been, so it seemed like a good idea - and it was, even if not cheap. Well, maybe that how the RHS subsidises the Lindley Library. It was quite an experience, although part of me was feeling how preposterous it was to have these little showcases of idealised English rural calm materialising for a week in London for inspection by us urban hordes.



Makes me feel a bit Joni Mitchell

They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

They took all the trees
Put 'em in a tree museum
And they charged the people
A dollar and a half just to see 'em

but the rest of the family told me to get over it.

I also found myself, wandering down the main avenue, getting into conversation with the people behind the root trainers I've enthused about here, and learned about some of the principles they use - air pruning. On the strength of which I succumbed to the temptation to buy one of these



which I think I'm going to use for a blueberry - I need somewhere where I can keep the soil acidic. Watch this space ...

OK - this is #gardeningse26, not SW3, but before getting back on the Overground, just to say I found this sort of straight down the line traditional show in the Grand Pavilion the most impressive



with exhibitors on hand happy to talk about how they grow and breed their plants. There's a sort of honesty in its artificiality.

Ah - my camera battery seems to need recharging, so what's actually been going down in SE26 is going to have to wait for tomorrow.

Isn't it nice to have a London Bank holiday weekend of decent weather!

[Tim Lund]

With camera battery recharged, some photos from this weekend's gardening.

The problem with this time of year - though it's not really a problem - is that so much is happening that there's no way to cover everything - so writing this now, having looked through the photos I've taken, I realise I've missed out the lupin, which is just coming into flower - like the delphinium, it lives in large pot, giving it some protection from slugs & snails. There's also a dahlia, which is not far off blooming, while in the greenhouse, the tomato, planted in the ground rather than grow bags, now needed support - and lots of pinching out of side shoots. It too is producing flowers - I guess any tomatoes will be a few weeks yet.

Where I have photos, it's mainly of the allotment, where slugs have attacked this potato



and two more have been completely defoliated, which doesn't photograph as well.

In last week's post I mentioned a bit of ground where the soil, lacking organic matter, forms into brick like clods into which it's hard to plant anything. Well, here it is, with the last of the rotted down stable manure, which I'll spread over it and dig in before long



Those on the right are strawberries in flower - and even with fruit setting



and bind weed shoots ready to strangle the plant - nothing much to be done about these other than keep hoeing them.

The next photo shows the effect of resowing the line of beetroot I sowed in March where I didn't get any germination. If you look carefully, you can see the new seedlings just coming through.



For happiness, here are my autumn sown broad beans getting on with producing pods



I reckon I'll start harvesting them in a couple of weeks.

I'l also seeing a few pods on the peas, but they never seem anything like as productive as broad beans. Maybe I'm doing something wrong ...



The runner beans are all surviving, but they've not started racing up their canes yet, apart from one. Once I measured one which grew 18 cm in a day - that'll have to wait a week of so too



I've been trying to give away the Wahaca chillies I grew, and got down to just three. It hardly makes sense to save them, but with the TLC applied to them, it's hard. There's no room in the greenhouse, so I'm going to see if I can train them to grow along the ground, and live under these plastic tunnels.



And to finish, some soft fruit coming - first Tayberries, in the lead

http://lund.co.uk/images/gardeningse26/ ... Small).JPG

and second raspberries - there is a honey bee in there, doing its job of pollination.

[Tim Lund]

Only just back from the plot, having waited for the rain to stop. By the time I set off home, about 7.00, the sun was out and the sky rapidly clearing - making it a joy to be down there. Prior to which, however, there'd been a fair amount of physical work earthing up the potatoes, which at least weren't showing any more signs of slug damage. In fact one whose leaves had been completely stripped was recovering.



I also took down some more french beans for filling out the last unplanted space. The ones already planted aren't exactly thriving yet, although they're not exactly dead yet.



I suspect they are just rather fussy about warm weather - well, the forecast is it to be much warmer than of late from Friday, so I hope they respond accordingly.

Something which definitely will respond are the strawberries, since today I saw the first ones ripening up,



and, to my surprise, lower right in the photo, a rather slow on the up take slug, who hadn't yet got his/her radula into them. Before long I'll need to net these to keep out birds as well.

It's also time to start harvesting the broad beans, since if they get much bigger than this



they're not so palatable. There are quite a few of them



so a good proportion will end up in the freezer.

The runner beans - at least one - is getting the idea of climbing up its cane



so another task next time I'm down will be tying in any others which are flopping over, and risk climbing up the wrong cane.

I'm also watching the raspberries, which are not at least looking like raspberries - I think they will be a couple of weeks before we start picking. It's a good thing the freezer is almost empty now - we had the last of last year's red currants this evening, leaving just one bag of blackcurrants. On the other hand, this year's rhubarb production, 5.67 kg in total, has got to the point that we're starting to freeze it now. There's also a tayberry someone gave me a couple of years ago which I'm still only getting to know - last year it produced one very long cane, which I have trained to the wall of my shed, with some loops to use up the space, but now it's sending out two strong new shoots, so I guess I'll have to work out some geometric solution to how they should be trained without getting in the way of this year's fruit bearing cane. Maybe I wasn't really meant to train them against a wall in the first place ...



In previous years, I've always grown leeks on my allotment, but this year I decided to try them in my garden, because, although the rest is edible enough, they always seems to suffer from a sort of rot affecting the outer leaves, and I'm wondering if this has anything to do with the fungus causing it being endemic to the allotment site



Something similar happens with tomatoes, which grown outside on the allotment generally get blight, but never at home - and are even less likely to suffer when grown in the greenhouse



The other things I'm growing at home rather than in the allotment are turnips and carrots - although for slightly different reasons



namely that turnips, if grown as here in multipurpose compost, and harvested young, should be much nicer than the rather woody roots produced some years ago. Carrots too always seem to disappoint in the plot - I think a combination of the basically clayey soil, and that I'm not there enough to keep an eye on them when they need weeding. I guess that amounts to saying I don't really know what I do wrong with carrots; growing them like this could be how I learn more. Something similar happened with broad beans a few years ago, which I'd never been very happy with, but now I know what works, for me at least.

OK - enough words - just a few more photos to finish

The mulberry fruit starting to form



The delphinium flowers forming



Dill, which we've been picking for a few weeks now (great with fish)



(we don't bother with the snail ...)

Basil - just started picking - eventually this will start getting made into pesto



and last Love-in-a-mist - with a rotary washing line post in their midst, and foxglove and valerian behind - all flowers which decide for themselves where to grow.

[Tim Lund]

It's pretty nice being outdoors gardening on warm afternoon like today, with the plot getting to the point of supplying a fair amount of the evening meal



(I left my proper camera behind, which is why these images aren't what they might be.)

We also had some kale growing in my own garden, which we stir fried with the chard. About 20% of the strawberries had some slug damage, but that was easily cut out. They were noticeably sweeter than the first few picked earlier in the week.

First task, however, was to help guide the runner beans up the right canes, and also to spray those on which black fly were settling with detergent. Turning over one of the leaves, I notice a rather pale ladybird larva, who should also help.



The broad beans are doing fine, and before long we'll be spending evening podding them and putting them in bags for the freezer. This is in spite of the plants looking like this



which on looking up, I find is called broad bean rust, and is not very serious and almost impossible to control. So I won't even start worrying about that.

The currants are looking nice, inside their netting

Red



and black



however green they look for the time being.

But the gooseberry is showing signs of ripening



so at last I remember to look up the advice I followed for the first time last season - and yes, it is about now I should be picking about half the fruit, so leaving room for the rest to get bigger and sweeter.

Curious what happened to the french beans I planted out the week before last. I'd protected then with slug pellets, but within days, most of them had lost their leaves. However, there were no slug slime trails around, and the growing points had not been attacked - which is what slugs go for. It seems the same happened on a neighbouring plot, and we can only think it was crows or pigeons. Anyway, with the growing point intact, they now look like this



Something similar is happening with the beans I had planted out earlier, and which hadn't been thriving - but now they are starting to pick up, as can be seen from the fresh new green leaves and the discoloured older ones. It must be the warmth they are responding to.



Back home, lots of plants are developing, but the first dahlia is exciting me at the moment



Look carefully, and you will see the cat is more interested in the hollyhock.

[Tim Lund]

This is not the best time of year to take a holiday, but it seems there has been no rain for the last week, without it being scorching hot either, which is as much as I could have hoped for for my strawberries, since any rain would have brought out the slugs, and more heat dried out the plants. So, as soon after unpacking as possible, having woken at 11 pm yesterday this morning, I was off to the plot, and came back with fruit in jam making quantities. We also had some for our dinner, which were very nice. There are still plenty more to come - here they are after being picked



We also had a rucksack three quarters full of broad beans - whose plants are looking worse and worse, but so what? There will be a few more weeks picking these



The runner beans are doing ok too, with only one managing to go up its neighbour's cane. I might, however, have gone down with the detergent spray to attack the black fly.



although ladybird larvae are helping control these



Unfortunately I failed to get a photo of the robin with one of these larvae in its beak - not at all the right idea.

The french beans are coming on too, with the first producing flowers



and for the first time this year I started thinning out beetroot, as here



These are some of last year's seed I sowed - Cylindra and Bolthardy - which are the usual colour you expect of beetroot, and have leaves with the same sort of colour. However, this year I tried this variety



whose flesh is banded, but generally lighter. It doesn't have as strong a beetrooty flavour, with leaves it tasting rather sweeter. Definitely worth keeping on with.

None of the other soft fruit is quite ready for picking, although I think the gooseberries will be soon. The rhubarb season is tailing off, and they will only be picked occasionally for the rest of the year. Below are crowns I split up this year, which I have taken nothing from - it will only be next year they go into production



OK - there's plenty else happening, including the first dahlia, but I'm starting to yawn badly...

[mosy]

Just learned of this "tom-tato" which produces toms at the top and spuds in the roots:
http://www.thompson-morgan.com/vegetabl ... o/t47176TM (Includes brief video as a select option on the pics option).

Not sure what I think about this concept - well, I do, so better just to post as info.

Whilst writing, does anyone know which birds it is that I hear which "chit-chit-chit" (neither a chirrup nor tweet) in rapid succession at no particular time of the day? Ta.

[Tim Lund]

It's a nice time of year for gardening, except for the amount of time it requires, and the realisation that, even so, I've not managed to give my plants as much watering as they would like. Well, it's just one of those trade-offs everyone has to make. Anyway, my allotment isn't looking too bad, by my standards at least, which is part attributable to these two varieties of hoe



the one on the left being one I inherited from my aunt, the handle with a bit of woodworm in it, but the fine points at the end perfect for getting at weeds close into the plants to be nurtured. The other I bought from Sydenham DIY, and is the sort of thing subsistence farmers worldwide have been using for centuries. It's not only good for less delicate work, but also earthing up potatoes



Just visible in this, though not obvious, are some of the underground shoots which the earthing up has disturbed, and where, but for this, new potatoes would be forming. I guess that's evidence of my having planted the rows too close together.

I also noticed that some of my garlic are starting to die back, which means they'll not be photosynsethising any more sunlight into the new bulbs below, so I might as well dig these ones up



I suspect these too would have done better with more watering, or at least being in a less clayey soil; that sort of cracking goes along with brick like earth which plants find hard to grow out into. Nothing for it but more organic matter - it's something which takes years.

I also noticed whitefly appearing on my kale



which doesn't kill them, but it takes so much time to clean them off before cooking that it's barely worth the effort. Well, I've sprayed them with detergent, and we've taken most of the affected leaves, cutting out the affected bits, and freezing / using the rest. Let's hope.

More positively, a problem of success with the red currants, which are over burdening the branches, and curving back down to the ground.



I prop up as many as I can with bits of twig poked into the ground, but I didn't have enough to hand.

The fruit are just starting to turn red, but it will be a couple of weeks at least before we start picking them. OTOH, the first wave of gooseberry picking is well under way - thinning them out to leave the rest for get bigger and sweeter, to that they can almost be eaten as they are. So back home a half hour or so was spent snibbing, prior to bagging the fruit up for the freezer. We also took another rucksack full of broad beans home, with the majority of them heading for the freezer too.

This is encouraging:



my butternut squash sending out a stem, which will crawl along the ground, in due course to be directed to cover the area intended, rather than the nearby area where french beans are also getting established. When first planted out, especially if it's cold, squash plants do little, and are vulnerable to slugs & snails; the stem tells me it's getting established.

I also had to sort out my blackberry - a cultivated variety - which is still adjusting to a new and bigger shed, which is right up to the path around my plot. The means I have to keep the stems trained closely to the shed, because otherwise they get snapped off by people walking past. The new shoots - on which next year's fruit will form, are growing strongly now, but tangled up with this year's canes. So some vine eyes went in, and next year's canes set going in opposite directions.



I've had to do the same with the tayberry



although that's easier, having been planted after the new shed. The first of these were ready about a week ago, and the first summer raspberries were also picked today. In a couple of weeks they will be hitting peak production.

I've also had the detergent spray out on my runner beans - whose leaders are up to chest height - and my dahlias - here, if you look closely you'll see ants on them - they have this trick of stroking them which makes them produce a sugary secretion which the ants then eat.



Otherwise:

Tomatoes are starting to set fruit


Turnips, which I'm growing in compost, in a fabric container, are starting to form - not sure when I will be harvesting these


Carrots, sown more recently in the same way are germinating


Just one fig cutting has taken (and two vines)


Some auriculas, which I was persuaded to buy at the Chelsea Flower show are actually germinating


This is an example of just trying something to see if I can manage to get it to grow - I'm not really sure where I'll ever have space for them.

Apples - in this case Discovery - are swelling - put quite likely with codling moth larvae working away inside, since I failed to spray for them.


The first of my dahlias to look even vaguely like a pom-pom


I just bought some dahlia seeds a few years ago, so see how easy they were to grow, but since (especially thanks to a couple of books on gardening history) I've become aware of their long history of passionate specialised growers. I can't even remember what variety this is, but I'm curious as to why some have just a single ring of petals, and others look like this. There is so much to know technically about gardening - no way am I ever going to know it all, so let's just enjoy it, and these photos

[Tim Lund]

Just learned of this "tom-tato" which produces toms at the top and spuds in the roots:
http://www.thompson-morgan.com/vegetabl ... o/t47176TM (Includes brief video as a select option on the pics option).

Not sure what I think about this concept - well, I do, so better just to post as info.

Thanks for that - maybe I'll try it one day, although I'll probably wait for some reviews. As the T&M web site says, it's just an application of a age old technology, grafting.

[mosy]

Hi Tim Lund. I don't have a problem with the tom-tato from a grafting point of view, more a worry that as both elements are fruiting (or the spuds "rhizoming"), i.e. co-existing, one might try to contaminate the other to fend off what it sees as an intruder.

Incidentally, I came across "re-wilding", a concept of re-introducing original genes back into plants which have been lost by centuries of cross-breeding and refining etc: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/0 ... 73668.html

On dahlias, the ones I grew once seemed to be a magnet for earwigs. At the time, I read that rubbing Vaseline around the stems stopped insects crawling up, although it wouldn't stop earwigs which have wings (or at least some do).

Always interesting to see your allotment and garden progress

[Tim Lund]

Thanks again, Mosy - that is interesting. I wonder what George Monbiot think of it as a use of the work re-wilding?

I'm not actually against GMO technology, and putting back into plants genes from wild relative which confer drought resistance or other desirable characteristics is a fairly obvious application. But maybe GMO best discussed in the Town Pub ...

[mosy]

Happy to move to Pub if a wider discussion on GMO were to ensue since an argument against GMO I read emanating from Africa was that year-only crops bought at great expense from major corporations were not helping and indeed with their own research (charity funded) they would hope to come up with better long term solutions to counter drought and excessive use of pesticides.

However, in this thread, information is king as it never hurts to at least try to keep up with current thinking and innovations whatever one might think of them.

[Tim Lund]

I was away this weekend for a wedding in Holland, from which I've only just got back, so on Thursday I went to the plot to give it a good watering. Even so, with still no rain, and 29° & 32° forecast for Tuesday and Wednesday, I'm going to have to get down there again before then. Let's hope there's a good downpour Thursday.

I probably haven't been watering as much as some of my plants would have liked, but I think the watering I have managed has at least helped thus year's newly split rhubarb crowns get established



but I've still not been picking anything from these.

With other watering, none of the plants which matter are showing any signs of distress, with the possible exception of the Swiss chard here which has bolted



and so been harvested straight away, along with some of the beetroot I planted in March



However, I don't have any good idea on how much more fruit I'd be getting if I'd watered more,









or how much more advanced by beans would have been - these first dwarf french beans now forming



but I suspect it would have helped.

But for my autumn sown broad beans, it's now time for the final harvesting, with those few now pulled up here just those whose pods could not fit in my rucksack



As with many crops, there's something very homely about sitting down later and processing them - in this case podding, and putting them in freezer bags. I blame my Mum, whose attitudes towards home economy were formed in wartime rationing.

I also noticed that the dwarf french beans, which, soon after planting three weeks ago had been almost completely defoliated by birds (sorry about the rotated picture)



are now thriving as if they had never suffered at all

[Tim Lund]

Even though I've been down to the plot quite often this last week - picking and watering - I only got round to one photo



which I took when wondering how we were going to get round to eating it all, so I sent it as an invitation to an old school friend, inviting him to come round to help.

There are also these to-date tallies, in grams, generally.



*The mice is the cat's verified career total, the figures in blue, totals from last year.

with unrecorded product lines at the bottom. And there are also lines for garlic and blackcurrants which need to be added ...

I know it may seem a bit sad, but I have in mind, maybe next year, to track my gardening inputs and outputs more systematically, so keeping as well a record of how much I spend on seeds, equipment, compost, etc, and also a rough estimate of time. Well, maybe something to go into towards the end of the year, when there is less actually to do on the plot.

It's a time of year when gardening is quite time consuming, and with the enjoyable exception of the couple of hours my old school friend did come round - with gardening knowledgeable partner - I have been outside and working pretty well all day, mainly doing the sorts of thing anyone with a garden would have to do - pruning, shearing, and generally tidying. I have also taken on an additional challenge in getting some new paving laid in my front garden, which has increased by a fair bit the amount of space for planting. However, I need to get an idea of what the soil is like where it was previously paved, before deciding what to put there. Ideas are coming, thanks not only to today's visitor, but also another gardening neighbour who happened to be passing as we were out there, and added her thoughts.

Originally my front garden was almost entirely paved over - for parking - and the ground is still not that rich in organic matter, even though these days I'm forking up fewer bits of the rubble which formed the base of old concrete. I was surprised, therefore, to have got a reasonable yield



from my 19 garlic plants, as they were early March, in my front garden



A few of the garlic plants had lost all their greenery, and on digging them up, I could see that they had started to go mouldy, which is one of the reasons I split up all the bulbs into cloves, and removed any outer mouldy parts, or just chucked them. We'll use some of these as they are here, but most will get frozen; they lose their texture, but there's no discernible loss of flavour once cooked.

Two of the casualties of the new paving were my winter savory plants, one of which I hoped would survive, especially since it had grown from a cutting in my Mum's garden. Well, that's life - or death, in this case - and I happened to have a ticket to the Hampton Court Flower show this Thursday, and picked up a replacement there.



*The plant at the top is Southernwood

It will be some years before the winter savory will be the size of the ones lost, so in the meantime, I'm thinking of growing some thyme, which is faster growing, but goes straggly after a few years, unlike winter savory, which you can just keep cutting back, and use wherever recipes call for thyme.

I was also struck at the Hampton Court Show, by this show garden



SQUIRE’S DESIGN THE PERFECT ENGLISH COUNTRY GARDEN – AT THE RHS HAMPTON COURT FLOWER SHOW

wondering how it would be possible to keep that rich bio-diversity without the space being invaded by grasses. I'm interested because I have a small area of grass, on a steeply sloping part of my garden, which try to treat as a hay meadow, letting the grass grow until July, and planting with spring bulbs, such as bluebells, snowdrops, grape hyacinths. It's OK, but it has nothing like the diversity of that show garden. Anyway, it seems a possible answer is to seed it with yellow rattle, which is semi-parasitic, attacking the underground stems of perennial grasses.



So - I think I'm going to give that a go. I might then have a space for wildflowers such as these



which come from a seed packet being distributed earlier this year by Kew Gardens,



and which I only had space for at the moment in this planter.

(Googling this, I found a scare story in the Telegraph that some of these plants are poisonous

Project promoted by BBC spreads poisonous wild flowers across Britain

Somehow, I suspect the Telegraph here was more interested in bashing the BBC, and in any other outdoor activity would have poured scorn on such nanny-state scaremongering.)

As was almost inevitable, just as happened when visiting Chelsea, I came back with a few seeds to try from Hampton Court too - two types of pansy and perilla, a.k.a. Shi-so

which I will try in a planter bag like this, where I've been growing some turnips



with the idea of harvesting them young, before they become at all woody, so like this



I'm not sure, though, if this is really worthwhile. I have better hopes for the carrots I'm growing in the same way, but they take longer.

OK - let's just finish up with a few purely decorative photos

The Asiatic lilies are now blooming, and I think looking great as cut flowers



the carnations grown from seed this year are about to bloom



and in this pot, mixed in with sedums and cotton lavender, actually are flowering

[Tim Lund]

Another fairly full on weekend of gardening and harvesting. Blackcurrants and redcurrants are now being picked, from bushes which seem overburdened with fruit, trailing on the ground as here



I suspect this is to do with my having failed to prune them properly. Looking on theRHS web site, this seems to be what I've missed:

prune new growth back to two buds in early summer to keep plants compact

Well, thanks to the dry weather, the fruit in contact with the earth isn't rotting, and the freezer is filling up.

It's also just about passing the peak of the raspberry picking, although there are still a good number of fruit yet to ripen



My neighbours also have autumn raspberries, which invade my garden, which will come later in the year.

The other soft fruit which I expect to come in a glut is mulberries, but that is only just showing signs of ripening



Somehow I thought they'd be ahead of this, but according to the RHS, August & September is their season.

We're also still getting fruit from the tayberry - nearly over - and the blackberry - which will go on for a few weeks yet.

Beans - runners and dwarf French - seems to be suffering from aphids, which I guess is due to the dry weather



although I notice that some other plotholders' runners are doing much better than mine. I think I'll just have to ask to find out possible reasons why.

Beetroots are doing OK





although occasionally they bolt, so these get pulled. A couple of Swiss chard plants also bolted this week, but they had a good number of leaves on them already, so they didn't go to waste.

The butternut squash is away, sending its shoots in all directions, including over the paths. They're quite effective ground cover plants when they get going, and previous years I've noticed the adventitious roots coming from the shoots, which presumably eases the physiological effort in getting water from the original point of planting when the shoot has reached too far. I'm also interested by how the plant, in effect, decides whether or not to invest in developing fruits, because of those which set, such as this



many will just die back, while others go on to mature. Somehow the plant must be reacting to the conditions it finds itself in.

The potatoes are also looking fairly healthy, although some of these



are a bit yellow. They were next to the broad beans, so would not have had as much sun, but I'd have thought they would have adjusted by now. Looking at neighbours' plots, I see they also have some variations in how healthy their potatoes are looking. Just one of those times when I'd like to have studies more plant science.

Of the more experimental crop on the plot, the Wahaca peppers are now flowering and setting fruits



and the chickpeas are also flowering



I also had a look at my apples, where I failed to do anything about codling moth, as a result of which there is a a little hole visible here where a grub will have got in



and which will have to be cut out and the apple cut up and cooked gently before bottling or freezing, rather than be stored whole. That was a Charles Ross. My other tree, a Discovery, seems overcrowded with fruit.



The natural 'June drop' has accounted for many,and I've been picking off some fruit which are never going to come to anything, but I suspect I should he more ruthless, and systematic. OTOH, given the height of the tree - maybe 20' - I've not going to be able to reach everywhere.

Back home, I noticed that I have my first courgette coming



which isn't that big a deal, since I noticed many more in my neighbours' garden which I was watering last week while they were away. The difference will be that I didn't get them in in time. The problem about growing courgettes is that within a couple of days they grow into virtual marrows, which don't taste anything like as nice, so you have to keep watching them. That's one reason I'm growing this in a planter bag in my garden, not on the plot.

I also noticed today that my first tomatoes (Gardeners' Delight), in the greenhouse, are ripening up



and I've lifted all the turnips grown in a planter bag as mini veg (they did taste good) leaving the line of carrots in the same bag to have their chance in the sun



and some chicken wire to keep out cats.

I also, at the third attempt, have some healthy parsley - the two previous times it having been eaten by slugs or snails. To this time it gets some special treatment



Much of the morning today was spent trying to bring order to a corner of the garden behind my compost bins which had become a sort of glory hole for bits of plastic, polystyrene, metal and wood I'd imagined at one point could be used in the garden, but was being overrun with ivy and hop. This is how it's looking now



with flower pots graded by size; I wonder how long that will last. And below, showing old pallets being used as racks



and the compost bins full to over flowing, and the paving slabs in front visible for the first time in years.



In the greenhouse, I have a couple of healthy enough looking cuttings of fig (Brown Turkey) and vine (Black Hamburgh)





even though I've no good idea what I'm going to do with them - there may be a space for the vines in my front garden, although I'm also thinking of getting a plum there - maybe more another week.

Regarding flowers for cutting, I felt I'd had enough sweet peas, so these are being allowed to go to seed



but suddenly flowering heads are appearing on the gladioli



Last photos are of the pear I have trained against a south facing wall, with three varieties grafted onto the same tree. Nothing like as many fruit as last year, but still some

Conference


and William Bon Chretien

[Tim Lund]

Well, this is a bumper year for soft fruit, especially currants



This was today's pickings, and it could have been more. Blackcurrants were just dropping off the bush, which, lying on the ground to get at the low branches, I felt as gentle taps on my hat. With so little rain, and the dry mulch underneath, I was also just picking them up from the drifts they were forming.



Just the occasional one showed signs of decay, but they were easily picked out, while the rest have now disappeared into the freezer. It's well over 10 kilos of blackcurrants so far, and I'd guess about half as much again, and similar totals will probably be reached by the gooseberries and red currants.



One day this week I sat or knelt in exactly the same position for over an hour, all the time picking more red currants. Even when I do move picking fruit, there are some non standard gaits - so walking on knees for picking raspberries, avoiding having to keep bending down to see the lower fruit but able to reach up for the mid height ones, before a final, more conventional walk to get the highest. For gooseberries, however, a sort of bottom shuffle seems most useful.

Mulberries are just about starting - those were two at the front to the first picture in this post - and tomatoes also started this week



although I'm thinking I should perhaps be taking off some leaves to let the sun get at the fruit to encourage them to ripen. Here also is the Wahaca chilli pepper setting fruit



and here the butternut squash, invading the space of some french beans



Even if 2015 is proving good for soft fruits, it's not so great for beans. I assume this is mainly to do with the lack of rain for the last two months, but I would have thought this affected the squash as much, but they seem to be doing ok, forming quite a few fruit



I also noticed a nice adventitious root when I pulled up a stem to redirect it



It's not all about growing, of course, so here's what the chioggia beetroot I've been growing look like when sliced thin and eaten as salad - an approach with also works well with the turnips harvested last week.



This evening, we had some gooseberries flavoured with rosemary, which was really nice - apparently the idea comes from Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall. The gooseberries also had enough sugar of their own to need only half the normal amount of sugar added.

And finally ...

the gladioli are now flowering (and they are a lot less fiddly to pick than sweet peas)


I find that it is not just hop leaves causing an obstruction in my watering can


and yesterday I went to the Weald and Downland museum, where cottages and gardens from various eras are restored and recreated ... I think next year I'm going to try growing some carlin peas.

[Tim Lund]

Suddenly the weather changes, and watering is no longer a problem. Even watering in the greenhouses is easier, with the rainwater butts filling up within 24 hours



(that bit of wood is to help frogs get out)

I hope it means that my runner beans start doing a bit more, although, following comments from a group of gardening friends who came round my plot, it may be that I should have dug organic matter into a trench below where I planted them out. I'll try to remember that for next year. However, the most pressing task on the plot has been getting the rest of the currants and gooseberries picked. We were down there earlyish this morning, under the mistaken impression that the rain wasn't due to start before 11.00, but it did. No photos, except for the back of my jacket after I got home, soaked, and with bits of straw sticking to it from lying on the ground to see the really low hanging fruit. They aren't really the easiest to pick.



With the rain coming down, and me lying on my side, my ear canal filled up with water, making it feel all the more as if I was underwater. Anyway, all the gooseberries are now picked, and about two more litre tubs' worth of black currants to go.

Back home, I notice that the figs are starting to ripen up



I'm also taking on board other comments from my gardener friends, about the need to prune the fig, since the fruits only develop at the end of the branches. Seems like that's something to do in Spring

I'm also feeling a bit embarrassed about my apples, which are clearly over crowded. If I'd found the time, I might have got round to it, although my trees are 5 metres high, so I'd have to have got some step ladders to do the higher branches. By this time last year I was getting decent fruit off my Discovery, but so far this year they are only small, and rather sharp. Hmm.

I'm not having the same problem with my pears, where the fruit set was not good, but what fruits I have look OK.


Conference


William Bon Chretien

These are trained against a wall, so getting at them is much easier.

Having had two attempts to get parsley going thwarted by slugs, the third attempt took fewer chances, including a few blue slug pellets



Some fennel is getting similar TLC, although I'm not sure that it needs it. I grew some in my plot last year, where it also did fine. As much as anything, this was just using up some of last year's seed, and filling a pot which needed something in it. It's an elegant looking plant anyway.

I have some courgettes growing in a fabric bag, but I suspect they need more space than this, since the fruit don't seem to be growing as fast as those I've had in open ground. Even so, they are now starting to produce.



There are recipes using them, but I'm advised that life is too short for stuffing a courgette flower.

My few onions this year look as if they may soon be ready to harvest, but they're not very big, and have suffered from being in too much shade in the garden.



I'm also a bit disappointed by the cosmos I tried growing, which don't seem to want to flower.



According the online advice I find, it seems it is to do with the soil having too much nitrogen. I suppose it's possible. Maybe it's time to do some soil testing.

I'm happier though with the carnations



Finally some herbs - the basil in the greenhouse is producing a decent amount, so there is now a bag in the freezer where surplus will go.



I was also tempted to try growing French tarragon, having been told how much better its flavour is than Russian tarragon.



but that is quite tender - so this pot will get taken into a greenhouse over winter, and of we have a sharp frost, taken inside.