So we’re staying in Anna Maria Island, Florida. And I can honestly say I’ve never been to such a chilled-out, friendly and beautiful island. The sand is fine and white, the beaches are long and there is not a hill to be seen - perfect for strolling. But the best thing about this island is that the house where we’re staying has Orange trees in the garden. I kid you not - with actual Oranges on the trees.
Not only Oranges but Lemons too.
And Limes. What an amazing thing to be able to walk out of your kitchen door and pick a Lemon. Today, I made salad dressing with Lemon picked fresh from the tree. Actually, it didn’t taste any different than a shop bought one - but it felt different.
I would love to have my own citrus fruit trees. I actually have no idea how to grow Oranges or Lemons but I would learn, very, very quickly if only I lived in the right environment.
My Peach tree is starting to show signs of life. I can just about see some tiny pink flower petals starting to emerge under the deluge of rain we’re having here. It’s time to deploy my Peach frame.
So my exposed little Peach tree became…
…my protected little Peach tree. I don’t want any nasty Peach Leaf Curl setting in or my beautiful flowers giving in to some late frosts, do I?
What we ‘do’ want is a gorgeous Peach-laden tree, that you can smell when you walk by it - like I had last year. My mouth is actually watering!
While snuggled up in front of the fire watching my favourite DVD at the moment, The Victorian Kitchen, I came across something that caught my eye. They mentioned that Joseph Paxton, one time head gardener at Chatsworth, designer and engineer of the Crystal Palace at the The Great Exhibition 1851 and all-round great guy, had invented something called Paxton’s Strawberry Crinoline.
I was intrigued and went straight to the Internet to look it up. Was shocked and dismayed to find, nothing, not a sausage about Paxo’s Crinoline. What? Really? So I’ve made it my mission to furnish the Web with data.
Here, in all its glory is a reproduction of Paxton’s Strawberry Crinoline. Sorry about the quality of photos as I had to take a shot of my TV screen! But you can clearly see what it does. It’s a kind of wire frame (hence the crinoline name) that sits underneath your Strawberry plant and lifts the berries off the ground. Thus keeping them free from dirt and away from the slugs - a bit like straw but better looking.
So there you have it. What a great idea. I’m surprised no-one is selling this - or are they and I haven’t seen it?
I usually throw my coffee grounds in with the kitchen waste and they eventually end up in the compost bin. Yesterday, however, after I’d made my morning coffee I looked at the grounds and thought, I know, I’ll put them on my Blueberries.
Why? well mostly because they make the soil look all black and neat like new compost, but also because I understood that coffee grounds, being acidic, would make a lovely mulch for my acid-loving Blueberries. Makes sense huh?
I mentioned this on Twitter and got a reply that said when you make the coffee (ie run water through the grounds) that all of the acid is washed away. I’m not a coffee ground expert and I haven’t done said experiments myself so I turned to Google to show me the way.
It seems there is some confusion in the matter. Some sites say that grounds are virtually neutral by the time they hit the ground making them nothing better than a good mulch and worm fodder. Other sites insist that these tests were flawed and that coffee grounds are indeed acidic.
Well, I for one, am confused. Should I be wandering around the garden in my slippers at 8am on a Saturday morning with a pot of used coffee grounds in my hand or should I just chuck em in the kitchen compost as usual.
I’m thinking if they are acidic then the Blueberries are loving it. And if they’re not then the worms are loving it instead and the Blueberries are like, “it’s about time the worms got something, they have a hell of time of it.” But I can’t really say either way.
And… who knew that coffee grounds could be so useful outside the garden?
Do your Autumn-fruiting Raspberry canes look like this? Then it’s time to prune them. There’s not a moment to lose.
I don’t want to create panic or anything but this really is the time to prune Raspberries if you want a nice big Autumn crop. If you leave it any longer then the plant will start to put more and more energy into the existing canes when what you actually want is the plant to put its energy into this year’s growth, which will subsequently fruit.
I know that you can leave Autumn Raspberries unpruned and they will crop on the existing canes, just a little earlier. But isn’t that what Summer Raspberries do? Besides, I love my Autumn Raspberries.
Gorgeous handfuls of plump Raspberries in late August, September and October, you can’t beat it. My little boy couldn’t eat them fast enough! I pruned at this time last year and got a bumper crop so I’m doing it again.
And don’t forget the plants wouldn’t mind a nice mulch at this time of year too, rotted manure, home-made compost or wood chippings will do. Happy pruning!
My existing Strawberry bed is three years old. While it still has some life left in it, I’m plotting a new Strawberry bed already. I’ll probably leave the plants I already have in the ground for one more year, while at the same time starting a new one in a different part of the garden. That way there will be some overlap and I shouldn’t be left with my Strawberry baskets empty.
The Strawberry plants I’ve already got are pretty good (no idea what variety they are as a friend gave them to me). I’m using them as stock to create my new bed. I have five new plants at the moment. I’ll probably aim for around six or eight.
I started them off by letting a few Strawberry runners root in the soil. Once they had put down small roots I gently pulled them up and, while still attached to the mother plant, planted them up in terracotta pots, as you see above. When they have taken strong root I will snip them off from the plant and over winter them in my cold frame. Then in early Spring I’ll plant them out in their new bed.
Anyone recommend a specific variety of Strawberry. I’ve heard that Marshmello is quite good.
Plants have a one-track mind. All they want to do is reproduce. Sometimes we forget this. But sometimes it’s so blatantly obvious that we can’t avoid it.
Take my Blueberries for instance. These two plants are the same variety (Chandler), the same size, planted at the same time in the same sized pots, into the same ericaceous compost. One of them, however, has ripened all its berries and had them picked. After which it has promptly gone into Autumn mode in a bid to conserve energy for next year’s bee fest. The other one still has berries to ripen and is still looking all lovely and luscious.
Blueberries eh? Whodathought it?
Yes mtp has a Grape vine. I’m extremely lucky in that when we moved into our house the garden had not one but two established Grape vines. One of them was growing on a pergola that was in the middle of the garden so when we had our garden landscaped, unfortunately, it had to go.
The other one was conveniently situated on my south-facing wall, so that one got to stay. It was terribly overgrown. It was so big that it had grown under the roof tiles on our out-house. I had to cut it back quite severely and to be honest I had no idea what I was doing with a vine and so consequently we didn’t get any Grapes from it last year.
This is what I started with back in March this year - a fairly ragged, unpruned vine. I’m estimating that the main trunk of the vine is about 14 years old. I’m assuming it was planted when the garden was landscaped by the previous owners in 1995.
I decided to train the vine using the Guyot system of training. This relies on the fruiting branches growing from two main ‘arms’ which are replaced each year.
By May I had started to see some growth on the arms and was busy tying in new shoots as they formed. So far so good!
By July the vine had reached the top of the wall and had formed at least five or six good sized bunches of Grapes. Now, they are ripening and turning purple. Yes, it turns out that my vine is a black Grape not green. I never thought I would be eating Grapes this year!
Well, the short answer is, ‘when it looks like this’. But, okay I’ll give you the long answer then.
I had no idea how to tell if a Peach is ripe until a few days ago when I thought - hmm that Peach looks ripe but I’m too much of a wuss to pick it and see. So I turned to the ‘all-seeing eye’ (the Internet) for some friendly advice. This is what it said.
Your Peach is ripe if…
- 1. It smells like a Peach
- 2. The side facing the sun has gone a nice dark, peach colour (as above)
- 3. The side facing away from the sun is yellow (not green).
- 4. The yellow side is firm but not hard
- 5. The Peach comes away easily with a light twist
Under no circumstances squeeze the Peach - they bruise very easily.
So there you have it. Happy Peach pickings.
ps. It tasted divine - and Dad, no you can’t have any!
This photo was taken last week.
And this photo was taken today! My eight peaches are busy ripening. And it hasn’t even been that sunny here. They’re still pretty hard though. Not even close to being ready, yet.
I’ve been tidying up the fan as it’s been growing - taking away any shoots that are growing inwards or outwards. But other than that I’ve just let it be. I’ll do some formative pruning once the leaves have dropped and I can see what I’m doing in there.
Anyone else growing Peaches in the UK (or elsewhere unlikely)?
