Tag Archives: purple sprouting

Lockdown: Plant Me Out

Socially distanced raised bed

As we move into phase three of Lockdown in the Midlife Garden, restrictions are being gradually lifted as seedlings and young plants are allowed into raised beds and borders. We remain confident that the garden economy will make a recovery and start to get back to normal. Whatever that is.

Of course, we have no statistics or evidence to support this policy and, although we profess to be guided by the signs (more sunshine, longer days, that kind of thing), we are, for the most part, acting on gut instinct. Put another way: we’re winging it. We were winging it when we forgot to water the strawberries and they nearly died in the heat. We were winging it when we found random sweet peas and nicotiana in amongst the sugar snaps and we were definitely acting with little or no planning, fore-thought or intelligence when we left the beans out and let them get hit by the frost.

So now we are trying to look organised and have gone back to the core policies of social distancing and quarantine. We have applied these policies to the brassicas: the Purple Sprouting, Kholrabi, Sprouts and Cabbages. When they entered the garden from the greenhouse they were initially quarantined (hardened off) for fourteen days before they could take their place alongside the onions in the raised bed. There they were carefully placed a socially distanced 18 inches from the other plants, as we made the natural assumption that they probably all have underlying health issues. Initially, the policy seemed to be working, with all plants looking healthy with no symptoms of dry leaves or wilting stems. But that was when they were young. It seems almost as if, the older they get, the more susceptible they become to whatever it is that kills ’em. We started getting random casualties, just keeling over and dying, like sheep in a field. We Googled possible causes – club root being one, but discounted that. (We also discounted ‘Club Foot’, which, being a Kasabian song, has nothing to do with cabbages but does evoke memories of a very different time).

But the good news is that the social distancing measures are working, as there appears to be no spread of whatever it is that is killing the plants. When one plant dies, its neighbours are still able to survive – so now we are employing a policy of local lockdowns, even though no one knew we had such a policy till now. Including us.

In the absence of any conclusive evidence to explain these isolated deaths, we have come to the conclusion that these plants – unlike our Prime Minister – simply were not ‘fighters’. It is generally assumed by many that if you get ill, your chances of survival are greatly enhanced if you possess a pugilistic outlook on life. So we replaced the flattened plants with others who had been sitting warming the proverbial subsitutes’ bench in the seed trays. We put them in with a managerial motivational speech along the lines of “here’s your chance lads, go out and prove yourselves”. Results were mixed (even they weren’t all fighters, apparently) and we are down to our last super-sub for the Sprouts. But then, as 52% of the population would say, what have Brussels ever done for us?

In other news, we have had a delivery of PPE for the brassicas and the fruit. We have actually had two deliveries as we accidentally double ordered because the first order took so long to arrive – despite sending planes to Turkey to collect it. So we now have plenty of netting to prevent birds and cabbage white caterpillars from decimating our crops, although the holes in the butterfly netting look suspiciously large. But it’s not as if we would order PPE that is not of the correct standard, on a whim, or in panic, is it?

And as for questions concerning the spread of whatever is destroying the brassicas, we are not worrying. Why? Because (apparently) lockdown plants don’ give to you…

Don’t believe me? Just watch.

(repeat to fade)

Sowing the Seeds

When I started this post a week ago the immediate concerns surrounded the aftermath of another weekend bringing another storm – Jorge.  It seemed that our post-Brexit freedoms did not extend to naming our own storms with those Europeans coming over here, bringing their continental storms, messing with our rivers and flooding our golf courses.

Now we have the non-specifically named Covid-19 coming over here threatening to mess with everything and everyone we hold dear.  I wonder if we can comprehend the enormity of what we might have to face and the steps we can take to mitigate the the effects of the impending epidemic.  Back in 1976 when my father decided to buy a property with 6 1/2 acres of land it was, in no small part, because he wanted to be able to sustain a degree of self-sufficiency in case of a break down in the supply chain through either economic uncertainty of nuclear disaster.  I am not sure if he saw Opec or Russia as a bigger threat, but he was determined to be ready.

It seems many think we might be facing such a scenario now – which would explain the bizarre headline shortages in toilet rolls and hand sanitizer.  Really?  In his day, my father was concerned about shortages in proper essentials like, um, food.  So he grew vegetables on an industrial scale.  I cannot compete with him in the scale of my veg growing operation, but I have managed to maintain an element of self-sufficiency and am hoping that Mrs B and I will have a decent crop of vegetables for the summer.

This week we cooked the last of the stored squashes:  the recipe required “one large squash, 1 Kg”.  Half of my last Crown Prince squash weighed a whopping 2kg so perhaps it pays to grow your own.  We have almost finished the kale but the purple sprouting is doing as described (sprouting, in purple).  There are still leeks in the garden and the rocket has got its act together in the greenhouse, so we have green leaves.  And our hen – plucky Agatha – continues to lay eggs at regular intervals.  For the new season there are the green shoots of new garlic and shallots.  It might not be enough to ward off the prospect of self-isolation, but it is, if nothing else, pleasing to know that we can provide at least some of our diet for ourselves.

Most of the recent horticultural work has revolved around sowing seeds.  I have ordered all my veg seeds, which I will start sowing in trays this weekend, but in some ways the more emotionally rewarding work has been in planning the flower garden for the summer.  There will be a new border to be planted in Josh’s memory and I plan for the rest of the garden to be vibrant with colour and flowers for cutting.  Ultimately the new beds will be planted with perennials, but as these will take a year or two to mature, I am sowing more annuals than I have ever done to ensure the borders are more packed than the Greco-Turkish equivalent.  For flower seeds my go-to source is always Higgledy Garden and he includes old favourites such as cosmos, nicotiana and sweet peas, as well as newbies like Cleome Spinosa, amongst others, and a free packet of Godetia.

My father used to say that if you could not eat it, he did not want to grow it, but as I see the seedlings poking through and I look forward to sunny summer days and blooming borders in the garden it is a good time of year to remember Jesus being tempted in the desert and remind ourselves that we cannot live on bread alone.

Or toilet rolls for that matter.

Dafs surviving despite their broken home
Tree Peony?
Spring is coming
Frogs been busy
Plants getting ready for planting
Sweet Peas
Cosmos emerging
Droopy Cornflower
Stocks – rising
Echinops – the Great Blue Hope
Aaah – spring bulbs & Christmas Roses

 

 

 

Green Shoots

Back to a new term and the new garden as we prepare to put my father to rest on Monday.

Potting Shed being put to use

It has, of course, been a strange time – the combination of funeral arrangements, sorting The Old Man’s estate and domestic affairs, combined with family matters has kept me occupied through the latter part of the holidays. Having a six-day break in Arran was a much-needed breather and by driving eight hours north we also found far better weather than the West of England enjoyed.

We are now at school in at what is amusingly labelled the summer term. It would have been nice to have had a few days in the garden in the latter half of the hols, but the rain has been incessant and in one of the few dry intervals when I tried to cut the grass, the mower broke.  Getting the garden under control does is not coming easily.

Still, I am glad I made the investment in the greenhouse allowing me to plant plenty of seed trays.  The potting shed is coming into its own with the last surviving hen keen to help out on occasion.  Everything is late, but we finally have some tomato seedlings poking through as well as Cavolo Nero, cabbages and PSB.  I thought we had some chillis up, but they turned out to be mushrooms. Not what I was expecting at all.  They grew one day, died the next.  Hey ho.  Might need to look at a different brand of potting compost.

On the upside, the potatoes are looking well chitted and are more than ready to get into the ground. The down side being that I have not been able to prepare any beds in the waterlogged clay soil.  I have the frames for the raised beds, but no compost or topsoil to go in them.  That’s a plan for another week.

Help wanted?
One small tomato for man..

 

Late news from late summer

Sunrise on a wet field

It was a wet end to the summer and I never really got the garden under the level of control I might in other years have demanded.  I wrote this piece back in October, before a lot of other stuff happened so I will simply post this and update my loyal readership (both of you) about some of the goings on in my life in the next few posts. Here’s what I had to say in October:

I have continued to reap whatever I have sown, so we are, despite a certain lack of motivation, still harvesting a fine range of autumnal produce.

Some of the squashes are looking good, although I should probably have pruned them a little more:  they have produced an abundance of green foliage drawing on the rich soil in the pig pen, but there have not been a great many fruit.  The butternuts all failed to ripen properly, and I am seriously thinking about never growing them again.  The Uchiki Kuri have been pretty good (the ones that have survived the mice, that is) and the Crown Prince have produced some excellent candidates.  The plants grew up and over the fence and lelandii hedge and I discovered a couple of fruit on top of it this morning.

But looking ahead, I am increasingly like The Old Man:  just grow the reliable Crown Prince – stick to what you know.  They produce large, well ripened fruit that store well and so far as I am concerned, taste just as good as butternut.

It is a constant surprise to me that I can go into a pretty tangled mess of a plot and still come back with a trug full of vegetable joy.  Parsnips, beans, beetroot, tomatoes, green peppers (best ever) all complement the stored items such as potatoes, onions, garlic and shallots.  Our food bills are minimal at the moment.

I have taken steps to use what we have.  I plan to dry some chillis, but have this year actually made some green tomato chutney.  But will it be as good Mrs Chippington’s green tomato chutney which my flatmate would bring back at the beginning of each term at university?  I doubt it – Mrs Chips’s chutney was legendary.

 

May Now

May is deceptive.  You think there is sunshine and warmth there, but look closer and all you see is grey and coldness. That’s the PM for you.

It’s no different in the garden, where temperatures remain cool and seedlings need to be tough to harden off before planting.  Even before getting to the veg patch they have to combat the “bloody difficult” slugs which continue to chomp on them, but enough are surviving the onslaught to make it to potting on.  Despite the snails rampaging through seedlings like the SNP through the Labour heartlands, I have managed to pot up plenty of Summer PSB, and enough Brussels to pay for ten thousand new policemen.  I think that figure is correct.  Give me a moment….

This weekend it did start to feel warmer and Mrs B helped me plant out the sweet peas in the goalposts.  Last year the first sweet pea blossomed on 27th May – a month and a half earlier than the usual Sweet Pea Day of 10th July.  I cannot see that we will have a sweet pea by that time this year, but perhaps one will bloom on 8th June.  We could do with something uplifting and beautiful to happen on that day.  I am not expecting any other wonderful surprises then.

Sweet Peas – “Back of the Net”
Korean Mint. Another immigrant flavour.
Hardening off
Coriander
Basil!
Brussels. UKIP’s favourite vegetable
“We’ll keep the red kale flying here”
Policemen
Ranunculus in the morning

 

 

 

End of Term report

161009-21
Sunflower in the cutting patch

It’s that time of the year again when the evening chill sharpens, the leaves start to turn and we spend a fruitless Sunday morning trying to purchase Glastonbury tickets.  And it has been months since I delivered any sort of news on this blog.

Some acquaintances cannot understand the reasons for writing the rubbish I do on this page, but I find a certain sense of unburdening happening when I write.  Essentially this is no more than an open diary – in which I record what I am doing in the garden, as well as describing the antics of dogs and other companions as they illuminate my life.  If people want to read it, so be it, but having a readership of sorts does give me another reason to do it.  So as each year wheels around into another I am able to look back and build on my experiences to ensure that the next garden season will be better than the last.

So what has gone well this summer and what lessons have I learnt in the last couple of months?

My peas and beans were excellent, albeit briefly.  Next year I am promising myself I will really get the hang of succession planting.  A fortnight’s glut is not the sensible way to harvest these things.

The winter leeks were left too long and ultimately ended up like a small petrified forest with the texture of fossilised wood.  But the pigs seemed to appreciate them as they munched their way through the lot.

Elsewhere the purple sprouting, cabbages and brussels look absolutely fabulous, which is because of this year’s other wonder crop.  I had read about nasturtiums as a “sacrificial” plant to keep the cabbage white butterflies off the Brassicas and I could not believe the effect that they had.  While the nasturtiums were being lacerated, the cabbages, PSB and brussels went unscathed.  If I had been trying to cultivate a good crop of nasturtiums I might have been peeved at the shredding of the leaves, but there were still enough flowers to adorn the regular green salads – which were another success this year (an area in which I did manage to achieve some sort of succession, with salad still flourishing in greenhouse and garden).

Experience has helped me grow a good batch of onions – where the return of the Red Barron brought a good crop, that is storing well too.  The same goes for garlic – with enough to see us through the next year – and shallots, which I have not only harvested, but have also learnt to use in cookery to good effect, and not be too precious with them.

The decision to plant early or late came under scrutiny once again this year. The OM would warn against being too preciptate with my planting (“Too early for runner beans”) and – weirdly – this year there seemed some truth in his seemingly inflexible ways with regard to the tomatoes.  The early Shirley plants suffered from the extremities of cold nights and warm days and never recovered while the later Sweet Millions were excellent and we will still have a few more to harvest this week before they finally succumb to the colder nights and shorter days.  (Mrs B’s pressure to plant early tomatoes to keep up with our horticultural neghbours should, perhaps, be resisted).  The beans all did well but are another which could do with a second crop of late planters

The cutting patch for flowers proved to be abundant this year and next season, with a decent marketing strategy, we might actually sell jam jar posies and other bunches of proper British Flowers.

More recently I harvested the squashes which were a mixued bunch – but again, probably enough to see us through the winter with plenty of heart soups!  But teh stand out crop of the moment are the chillis which are still growing adn ripening in the greenhouse in abundance.

So next season will be so much better, but like a really good round of golf  it is never perfect. We will continue to practice and strive for perfection.

Red Barron Onions
Garlic
Shallots
Small crop of squashes
Pigs consuming greenery
Chillis: Hungarian Hot Wax, Bolivian Rainbow and Joe’s Super Long

 

New Term

160407 (11)And so here’s the summer, and what have we done? Another Easter over and a new term begun…

Easter is an exciting time of year, with the greenhouse beginning to burst at the seams with seed trays which themselves start to creak under the weight of rapidly shooting plants. The earth is beginning to warm under the longer days of a more powerful sun.

Not that the Old Man thinks that we should be thinking about planting anything out right now – way too cold. And my age is showing as I was in a mind to agree with him.  But Mrs B went on a day course to learn about preparing flowers for weddings (not one in our family I hasten do add) with Georgie Newberry at Common Farm Flowers (author of several books on flower farming – available, as always at Bailey Hill bookshop). Georgie was firmly of the opinion that down here in Somerset we are able to start planting seeds outside as we are not likely to get anything like a major frost. So what do I and the Old Man know about it?

So I will shortly be planting all sorts of exciting things in the garden, but in the meantime I have, over my luxuriatingly long school holiday, managed to plant and germinate a whole host of stuff:

160407 (7)Courgettes (two types), Chillis (three types), Purple sprouting, Brokali, Peas, Sugar snaps and mangetout, Broad Beans, Runner Beans, French climbing beans, Squash (three types), Aubergines, Sweet peppers, Brussels Sprouts, Cabbages, Leeks, Basil, rocket, lettuce and tomatoes.  In addition there are some random seeds that came as a surprise package from the seed company such as celery and melons.  I have also planted numerous flowers to stock our cut flower patch:  zinnias, Rudbeckia, Nicotiona, Cape Daisy, and some marigolds which are being grown to be a companion plants.

We did plant stuff in the great outdoors over Easter getting the potatoes in on time and also onions and shallots.  And this weekend we broke out from the greenhouse by planting the broad beans and sweet peas.  Fingers crossed we don’t get that late April cold snap the old gardeners like to warn us of..

Please throw the ball

 

Feed the Birds

Pied Wagtails in central Bath (poor pic)
Pied Wagtails in central Bath (poor pic)

Mary Poppins the musical is back doing the rounds and so I somehow got an ear worm in my head that is straight out of the show. Ear worm is an apt description as the song is “Feed the Birds”.  It was always something that the parents did and the Old Man has always been diligent in keeping the feeders full of nuts.  in recent winters the main recipients have been rats who have climbed the wisteria to hang on the wire cage and feast.  This year TOM has not been putting food out for the birds (or the rats) yet. Whether this is because the weather has been so mild our feathered friends really do not need any more sustenance I am not sure.

In years gone by we would be asked to delay pruning the Cotoneaster until the birds had been able eat all the berries, but frankly I have never seen any self-respecting fieldfares helping themselves to the red plenty.

But we have found other ways in which to provide for the wild bird population.  A year or two back the starlings would flock around the hen run and clean us out of layers pellets and corn. It cost us a bomb to keep re-filling the feeder – making for some of the more expensive free range eggs around. We now have a feeder that is not accessible to small birds so that is sorted.

Equally, I have put an end to providing fodder to the pigeons, who after I had netted the purple sprouting, turned their attention to the kale and when I covered that, they started to shred the brussels. Can’t fault them for taste, but it amuses me how easily they are put off feeding by a bit of green net.

Birds I am happy to aid in their five-a-day nutritional requirements are obviously the robins who appear as soon as I pick up a fork. Robins act like they are your chums and at Christmas they appear all sweet and festive on cards and the like. But they are fiercely territorial and pretty damned belligerent towards each other. So not all that cute.

The other piece of bird-friendly activity I finally did yesterday was to take the netting off the raspberries – thereby allowing birds to rummage in amongst the canes for any old fruit or other stuff.

And all day long I was humming along “tuppence a bag”…