End of month view: June

It's been a month of making progress, if slow: the mad rush of spring has calmed and I'm just planting out the last of my young plants (looking a bit the worse for wear, I have to say: this drought-ridden spring hasn't been kind to plants in pots).

But for now I can enjoy the garden burgeoning into colour, everything growing at the rate of knots, and my earlier work coming - sometimes - good.

It won't surprise anyone who knows me that the veg garden is seeing most of the action: so that's where I'm concentrating for my end-of-month stocktake this time.

There have been a few surprises as I'm trialling one or two veg varieties this year: first up is an amazing pea, due to make its debut in the Thompson & Morgan catalogue next year I believe. If you're not yet convinced that veg can be as beautiful as ornamentals, take a look at this:

The all-important taste test, of course, has yet to come: at the moment the pods are rather a muddy purple tinged green, not unattractive but not exactly wow-value either. We'll see: just love those flowers though.

Another splash of colour is the double row of marigolds I sowed on both sides of my onion bed:

I'm so doing this again: it makes me smile every time I see it. It's supposed to deter onion fly too: they get confused by the strong scent of the calendula. Well - there aren't any onion flies as far as I can see: so it seems to be working so far.

The spuds haven't been so lucky.

I've never had early blight on the new potatoes before. It's making my heart sink for my so-far hale and hearty maincrops. I should know, of course, that in damp and rainy Somerset the chances of escaping fungal disease of any kind are pretty close to zero: but such an early arrival has come as something of a surprise. The spuds themselves don't seem affected: these are 'Foremost', nice enough, but rather bland for my taste.

And finally: a visit to the engine room.

Packed with growbags this year: there are over 20 in there, at last count. It's not how I usually do it - I'm a big fan of growing in soil in the greenhouse borders as a rule, as plants look after themselves so much better. But this is the greenhouse I inherited (rather than the one I brought back from the allotment: that's still being planted up with cucumbers, melons and sweet peppers). So it's on a hard standing, and I didn't have much choice.

Fortunately I was after some experiments to do for t'other blog, so I've got all sorts of things going on in here: product reviews, trying out different supports, you name it. Oh, and those baskets in the back are my sweet potatoes: all of them T65 this year after they won my undying support by producing my best crop last season.

Elsewhere, the whole garden is getting decidedly woolly around the edges, and I am, frankly, dreading July: it's hedge-cutting month, and strim-the-undergrowth month, so I'm looking down the wrong end of a lot of hours strapped to either strimmer or hedge-trimmer. I have half a mile of hedge here: this is no small undertaking. Here's what we're looking at: the back slope gives some idea of the jungle-like undergrowth:


...and here's a typical hedge.

Luckily they're not all quite that tall, but since they're all hazel-dominated mixed hedges they're pretty much this overgrown. Wish me luck.

Thanks as always to Helen at The Patient Gardener for hosting the EOMV!

End of month view: March

What a difference a couple of months makes.

Last time I did the rounds with the camera was the end of January: barely a leaf had burst its bud at that time, I hadn't even started the post-winter clearup, and everything was looking decidedly bleak and not a little scruffy around the edges.

I woke up, along with the garden, some time in mid-February. And in the six weeks or so since then, everything has changed.

First up (of course) is the veg garden: always my first priority at seed-sowing time. I've been ferrying eyewatering quantities of scaffold boards back on the roof of my poor groaning family estate to divide up the long, thin space into 4ft x 10ft beds. At first they were all re-covered with the black plastic which has been keeping my soil protected over winter: but now, gradually, it's all coming off.

January:

...and now:

The far end is well up and away: with the addition of a bit of bought-in soil improver (not yet quite confident about how good my soil might be), new potatoes, onions and shallots have joined the overwintering broad beans and autumn-sown onions.

Under those cloches are two varieties of pea; Feltham First (early and robust) and heritage variety Telephone, which reaches up to 5ft tall, so I'm told. Further down there are rows of leeks and carrots under fleece for protection against carrot fly.

Greenhouse no. 1 - unheated - is filling up: the other day I had to rig up the coldframe (in bits since the post-move chaos) in a hurry to get the first of the sweetpeas, chard and overwintered marigolds ready to go out.

But just look at Greenhouse no. 2 - the one that's frost-free. I have run out of room. There is no other way to put it. The windowsills in the house are groaning with seedlings too. What am I going to do!

Right, never mind the veg: what about the rest of it?

Here's the rock garden, or rather the herb garden to be. Nicely trimmed these days: and I've started placing a few pots of bits and bobs around the place ready to be planted.

January:

...and now:

In the blue pot is an olive tree, about six inches tall when I got it (it was a freebie which looked a lot better in the magazine than what actually arrived on my doorstep).

I nurtured it and nursed it, and now it's about 5ft high and a lovely healthy young tree. Then it got left outside in the snow and ice, and I resigned myself to losing it: but no. It didn't even lose its leaves.

So since it's survived that, I figure it'll breeze being planted outside. It's moved around this patch a few times now, trying to find the right spot for what I hope will one day be a fetchingly gnarled evocation of Italy on my doorstep, and a rather fine backdrop to all my Mediterranean herbs.

There's also plenty going on here quite independently of my own feeble efforts to spruce things up. Little pretties keep popping up all over the place. I keep stopping in my tracks on the way out of the house: the other day it was because I spotted a clump of pulsatilla. Pulsatilla! In my garden!

Aren't they lovely? Those palest grey fluffy feathers set off the dusty mauve of the flowers so perfectly.

And look at this: in the hollow between two sides of the old stone wall, partially collapsed, a little colony of windflowers has sprung up.

I've spent many thorny hours clearing the bank above where my tropical edibles patch will eventually be. It's not only painful, but also slightly unnerving as this bank is about 12ft high and much of my bramble removal was done while hanging precariously off a handy branch. Must invest in a ladder.

January:

...and now:

It's all looking a lot better now, so I guess the splinter-pocked fingers were worth it.

There's more pot placement here: you can make out the fig in the far corner, and just out of sight there's a Pawlonia tomentosa I was given - half-dead on arrival but now, rather excitingly, reviving.

And other things are popping up here, too: lupins and a carpet of some kind of small white comfrey. It's beautiful, the bees love it, but it is obviously a little invasive: I shall have to think carefully about where I move it to.

So on to the only other bit I've done anything to; the circular bed around our shady seating area.

January:

...and now:

I've recently been told by someone who's lived in the village a lot longer than me that this was once a pond. This is answering a lot of questions: why, for example, a hefty Rodgersia (usually a bog plant) can survive so well in a free-draining, chalky soil.

I have an uncomfortable feeling this circular bed may be hiding a pond liner of epic proportions. We're talking probably concrete; maybe not even split. We are talking bog garden.

This may rather alter my plans to turn this area into a scented garden full of daphnes and Christmas box and wintersweet.

For now however I have just cleared the winter debris and I'm about to launch into a huge weed-through, followed by my standard fall-back in situations where I have little time and large areas to fill: I'm planning to sow this lot with seed from Pictorial Meadows, already sitting in an inviting little packet on my desk as I type.

It isn't all weeds and bog plants though: tucked up on the bank, a little higher than the rest, there is a paeony already swelling into bud.

A paeony! In my garden! (another chalk-loving plant I have never been able to grow before. My cup brimmeth over: snowdrops, primroses, pulsatillas and now peonies. Can it get any better than this?)

And last but absolutely not least: I haven't touched this bit but I have been in love with it for a whole month now. I have, on the hill that rises at the back of my garden, a host of golden daffodils.

There are hundreds of them, across the width of the garden, and we have been giving them away to friends in big fat bunches as well as stuffing every vase in the house. Whoever planted them, many decades ago: I hope you are somewhere just as beautiful right now.

Thank you to Helen, aka Patient Gardener, for hosting the End of Month View: the perfect opportunity to take a step back and take the big view for a change.

The post that wasn't

I went to the Edible Garden Show last Friday.

I was going to tell you all about it. On, say, about Saturday.

Could have done with this advice this week, really

Then Sunday came along and it was lovely and sunny outside and my first earlies were just itching to get in the ground and... well....

So it turned into Monday. And there was a big deadline going on and panicky emails flying.

And then Tuesday came around and.... well, you get the picture.

A fine crop of forced rhubarb at the Potting Shed display

So I meant to write a much better, more pertinent, more insightful post; one which highlighted a few of the rather gorgeous things at the show, like Joy Michaud's covetable dark purple leaved chilli seedlings (new variety: 'Fairy Lights' - one of which is now snuggled down in a 10cm pot in my greenhouse) and the funky (but possibly rather impractical) water butt on show at the Urban Allotment stand.

Funky... but wouldn't survive five minutes in my hugger-mugger garden I'm afraid

I meant to give some pithy comments about how the show had a bit of growing into itself to do: the venue was small and a little on the gloomy side (taking pictures was an interesting exercise in holding the camera still long enough for the agonisingly slow shutter speed to go through its paces).

Yeeeesss.... photography was not easy in these conditions. In focus, these are the rather wonderful 'Fairy Lights' chillies I failed to resist

And it tried to be all things to all (wo)men: cookery shows jostled shoulders with James Wong and his Incredible Edibles, just a short stone's throw from a tiny marquee full of snuffly pigs, impossibly fluffy chickens and slightly smelly goats (are there any other kind?). And for me there wasn't enough of anything.

Inbuilt crop protection from Home Grown Revolution: practical, sturdy, but why do things made for allotments have to be so darn ugly?

I meant to express the hope that next year, they'll do the same thing again, but this time they won't dramatically underestimate the level of interest: when I arrived, ten minutes before the show even opened, the carpark was already packed and there was a queue out of the door. So much for the GYO movement peaking. Next year I'm hoping to see a venue triple the size (and preferably at least partly outside in deference to people taking photographs).

Uhh.... hello

Instead you will have to read the eminent Emma Cooper, who was also there and got her act together far better than me, as well as bagging the most adorable piggy photo ever (although I think her other half may have had something to do with that).

And if you didn't make it to Stoneleigh Park yourself, you can be transported right there, courtesy of the National Farmers' Union, with a little film which I shall now shamelessly borrow.



But although it's a week out of date, and like too-old cheeses the joke is a little stale, I couldn't resist sharing this: it tickled me pink (though I am easily tickled).


Well.... it does say 'Invisible', but I think they may be taking things a little literally...

Hey, look at my stash!

Now of all my Christmas presents, the ones which most fired up my imagination were the series of intriguing little packets which dropped through my door one by one in the week or so leading up to the Big Day.

These are the contents of my Seedy Stocking Stuffers: a wizard wheeze dreamt up by Emma and taken up with enthusiasm by fellow veg-growing addicts Andy, Charlotte, Liz and Ali, as well as myself.

I did find myself rather humbled by the result: I save a little seed, but not that much, and blithely signed up before realising that actually, the contents of my seed packet shoebox weren't quite as inspiring as they ought to be.

I did manage to send out some rather lovely beans I saved: blue ('Kew Blue'), purple ('Cosse Violette') and brown ('Coco')as well as bog-standard green. But mostly, I didn't come anywhere close to the delights I received in the post: so here's a public thank you to all those who have given me the chance to try so many plants I've been wanting to grow for ages, and a sorry for fobbing you off with less interesting fare.

So from my box of treasures, here are the ones I shall most look forward to growing this year:

For my herb garden, I have some orach 'Magenta Magic' from Ali and some red and green perilla from Charlotte: the large French sorrel (also from Charlotte) should cope (and indeed spread like mad) on the shady side of the herb patch and look suitably handsome, too.

My tropical edibles garden has suddenly taken shape in a way it was struggling to do before: I can't wait to get my Achocha 'Fat Baby' in the ground (thanks Ali and Charlotte, again) and - yay!! - at last I have some oca tubers to sow (thank you Emma!) though I have to somehow prevent them rotting off before I get them in the ground. I may just plonk them in a pot in the (heated) greenhouse for now as otherwise I think they'll all be goners. Plus the giant sunflowers are making a comeback: I now have a pack of 'Russian Giant' from Liz. Tape measures at the ready!

And for the veg garden: can't wait to sow the 5ft high climbing pea 'Telephone' - Liz and Ali, and possibly another candidate for the tape measure - and my tomato needs are very nearly taken care of too, what with the plum tomato 'Scatolone' (Liz), good old 'Gardeners' Delight' (Andy) and 'Sweet Pea Currant' (Charlotte): tiny, delicious, and worth growing just for the name.

Of those plants I've never even thought about growing, I shall watch the 'Potimarron' squash (Ali) with fascination as it gallops around my plot; Italian capers (Emma) are a new one on me and I have no idea what to expect; and sea beet (Emma) I'm pretty sure I've picked wild on the seashore in my youth but never actually tried to grow.

Well who would have thought it. It's still only January and I have a list as long as my arm of delicious things to fill my garden. I have a feeling it's going to be a good year!

Bigamous blogging

OK I admit it - I've been two-timing my blog.

Those nice people at online retailer Crocus are branching out from their Chelsea medal winning range of herbaceous perennials and such like, and have started selling fruit and veg plants (and seeds). They kindly but perhaps a little foolhardily asked me about my allotment. So I told them. At length. Again and again.

So all my witterings have now become their kitchen garden blog. Actually I've been secretly wanting to do this for ages - I'm a compulsive grower of fruit and veg and have been for years, but only occasionally allow them onto these pages. They will still turn up here from time to time, but now I can also go on about them at great length and in more detail than you could ever have thought possible.

You, too, can live through the harvest of every pea pod by my side: all you have to do is click here....

Worrying about my veg

Until now I've had a separate blog for my allotment, but pleading severe lack of time to do just about anything, I've decided that my veg are going to invade the otherwise ornamental portals of this blog (so I've got rid of the other one).

It was kind of inevitable anyway, as I discovered a previously unsuspected vocation as a vegetable garden designer this spring (about five enterprising people were brave enough to let me experiment on their gardens and we got some pretty good results) and this has since mushroomed into a) a garden design course so I can at least pretend I know what I'm talking about, and b) a cunning plan to incorporate as many edible plants as possible into my back garden. So for some time now my veg-growing - previously banished to the allotment - has been shacking up with my more decorative plant-related enterprises and the two are now pretty much indistinguishable.

Only thing is - I've been pulled up short by the current concerns over contaminated manure. Since I'm mainly organic, not being able to be sure of my sh** is a real setback. I'm currently debating the options: buy the manure, but compost it for a year? (and if so, where?!) Spent mushroom compost (hard to get hold of, and besides wasn't that manure to begin with anyway...)? Super-expensive sterilised soil improver from t' garden centre? Or just take the risk?

They say nobody's going to take any notice of this until the market growers are affected. And I'm not sure how much of a crisis it is anyway: someone said to me the other day they thought it was only a problem in the London area (which almost means me, but since I'm just outside the M25 I usually exempt myself).

Will no doubt continue dithering until someone more sensible says something. Could be a while, then...