I hate pruning. I get really nervous when I’m about to cut something off and get obsessed with reading how to prune the same bush in as many different books as possible before I make my first cut.
As I mentioned in an earlier post I had no Redcurrants this year. Unlike last year when I had tons of them. I think there’s a couple of reasons for this (fixable, hopefully). Firstly, the bush is a new one. I planted it in the Spring when the garden was finished so I wasn’t really expecting a bumper crop. Secondly, I didn’t prune the bush when I put it in the ground (too scared to) - hence there is a lot of growth around the edges and none in the middle. So, after consulting the RHS book of Fruit and Vegetable Gardening, I decided to take the plunge and summer prune my bush to five leaves on each branch.Â
Redcurrants fruit at the base of old wood and on spurs so I left all the spurs I could find and cut back each branch. Hopefully this will mean a more stocky, well-proportioned bush next season and each of my existing stems will fruit. Fingers-crossed.
The plot is being a bit random right now. You know what I mean - a bit of this ready, a bit of that ready. I brought in this little harvest a few days ago. Not much of anything really. A few Courgettes are ready (and you have to pick them before they grow too big). I grabbed one of the Shallots drying in my mini-greenhouse. One carrot - I was testing to see if they are big enough to eat yet, the answer is, not quite. A few Runner Beans and some Parsley & Sage, well, just because. Maybe it was me that was feeling random that day. We had the lot, cooked up in some butter with pasta. Except the Carrot. That one didn’t even make it to the kitchen.
I’m the person who buys a bunch of flowers from the supermarket, unwraps them, chops the ends off and dumps them in the vase, ready-arranged. I’m certainly no florist. But there’s something about Sweet Peas and their mouth-watering scent that makes me want to throw caution to the wind, pull out my kitchen scissors and cut a new bunch every day. Once I started chopping there was no stopping me. The few Cornflowers that were flowering quickly found their way into my new garden posy, as did one or two unlucky Lavender heads. Of course I had to tie it with string to give it that true Victorian look - all I need now is a sweetheart to give it to. Or better still - I’ll just keep it myself.
Courgettes (or Zucchini as some will have it) get a bad press. They are stupidly easy to grow, produce large, sometimes overpowering, plants and pump out produce until we are so sick of eating them that we need help coming up with new ways to eat them. Of course then there is the curse of the marrow. Go away for a few days and when you return you find that your lovely, dainty little courgette has turned into Shrek’s baseball bat. Yes Courgettes get a bad press - even at mtp - but today, for one day only, all that has changed. Why? because they officially have the most beautiful flowers of all the vegetables.
I love the way that the green blends into the yellow here - is it a leaf or a petal - I like to think it’s both.
Inside, the petal-leaves protect this delicate, furry mini-flower which looks like it’s spent a lot of time getting ready for a hot date with Mr Male Courgette Flower.
And last of all - the colour! Was there ever a yellow as intense as this that didn’t say, ‘Summer is here!’.
A few of you have been asking for an updated photo of the garden - well here it is. We’re in full swing here at mtp. The Peas have come and gone, we’re one row of potatoes down and currently munching through our 50th lettuce (or thereabouts). Everything is going really well with the new design. I have more than enough room to grow everything I want to - maybe just a smidgeon more lettuce? No?
Things that have gone well: Runner Beans looking fab on old-fashioned bean-poles, Sweetpeas that smell gorgeous, the biggest Strawberries in-the-world, Tomato jungle, Mange Tout for the first time, the promise of some corking Sweetcorn and 8 Queen Cox apples (still) on the apple tree!
Things that have gone ‘um’ not so well: Peas taking over the garden, ants eating the Pear buds (if I ‘ever’ find out where they live…), no Redcurrants ( I know not why), some onions going to seed, the usual Cauliflower debacle.Â
Other than that my garden, like Mary Poppins, is practically perfect in every way and I love it.
This week we’ve been holidaying at a place called Bell Vue Farm which is part of the Featherdown Farms network. I call it ‘posh camping’ because while you do stay in a field under canvas in the usual way you also have your own running water, flushing toilet and wood-burning stove in the tent too - not exactly roughing it, is it?
As we were running out of the door, with the car fit to bursting and enough baby burp cloths to sink a small boat, I rushed into the garden to harvest some fresh produce for our camping trip. In the bag went a fresh Lettuce, some new Potatoes, a handful of fresh Herbs, some Mint, a few sticks of Rhubarb, a clutch of Spring Onions and this little box of the soft fruit that happened to be ripe. As you can see there was a mix of Strawberries, Blackcurrants & Whitecurrants (sadly no Redcurrants this year). Not a bad harvest.
When we arrived at our new home - and after we had petted the geese, chickens, donkeys, goats and lambs - we lit the stove and I started to make use of the berries. As I didn’t have very many ingredients to hand (usually I would use Balsamic Vinegar), I just cooked them up with some sugar on the wood fire.
Once cooked through but still whole I poured them over some fresh vanilla Greek yoghurt and tried to find some poor soul who would eat my creation. I didn’t have to look far!
Summer is in full swing and most plants are in the ground now. You should be harvesting salad crops, peas and potatoes by now with some strawberries and other soft fruit for pudding.
- Gather the last of the peas and clear the ground
- Sow late Carrots
- Turn your attention to Autumn crops and sow things like Raddichio, Pak Choi, Mizuna and Endive
- Keep cutting Sweet Peas to encourage more flowers
- Harvest Shallots, Onions and Garlic as their leaves goes brown
- Cut off any Potato leaves affected by blight and burn
- Feed Tomatoes every other week with high potash liquid feed
- Cut off Strawberry runners as they appear (unless you want to make new plants)
- Plant a second bed of Sweetcorn in between your onions - once the onions are gone the Sweetcorn will have enough room to grow
- Buy some ‘ready-grown’ lettuce plants to fill gaps where needed
If you have any more suggestions for July jobs, add them to the list.
As you can see, the Peas are in full swing. I have learned some useful things about peas this year that I want to share with you. Firstly, I grew two varieties, Kelvedon Wonder (my usual) and Rondo (a new variety for me). Early on in the year I sowed both seed separately in lengths of guttering in the coldframe. Then once it got a bit warmer I put the guttering peas out and started to sow peas directly into the ground. I alternated between Kelvedon and Rondo so that I would have a successional crop of both varieties.
This sounds nice and neat on paper but in reality it didn’t work out so well. This was for several reasons. The first was that the two varieties germinated and grew at different rates. So even though I sowed them at different times, the Rondo seeds seemed to catch up on the Kelvedon pretty quick. Secondly, Kelvedon is a very short, squat variety that produces short(ish) pods with big fat peas inside. Rondo is a tall variety (1.5 metres at least) that produces larger pods with the peas spaced out inside. However, the pea sticks that I put in were really not designed to support a pea that tall and eventually the Rondo peas started to flop over - putting them at risk of slug attack and also they started to shade my carrots (which incidentally I planted way too close to my peas).
So now both varieties are pumping out at the same time and I have more peas than I can eat. So I’m busy harvesting peas everyday and freezing them until I can use the. I’m also stuffing as many into my mouth on a daily basis too - don’t want to miss out on that fresh, green taste.
So what I’ve learned is that if I grow two varieties then they should be grown in separate beds with appropriate support. And maybe choose some more distinct early and late varieties.
