Garden Diary: 4th October 2020

 Really need to do this more often...

Final tomatoes are ripening on the plant in the sunny porch. I am very happy with my harvest this year considering I only planted my seeds at the end of May. It was not by choice as seeds were hard to come by, but it was much easier than planting on a propagating mat in February and minding them like babies for months. The most satisfying thing about the tomatoes was having enough ripe ones, all at the same time, to bring a little lunchbox full when visiting my family. I grew sungold this year, which are nice, but next year I want to do big red lumpy tomatoes and forego the cherries.

I grew a very flamboyant carrot! The variety is Autumn King and they are very tasty. I also grew Rodelika, which I found to be a little soapy in taste, but still palatable and they gave me nice long carrots.  Bonus points for the Rodelika is that they came from organically grown Irish seeds (Brown Envelope Seeds) and I think origin is as important as taste. I planted far too few carrots however. I took my time preparing the ground before sowing (although the photo would say otherwise) but totally underestimated how many carrots we consume. I don't like to completely plant a bed full of the one crop, and rather mix all types of plants together. This reduces pest and disease but leads me to underplant as it is more difficult to keep track of what you are planting, and you end up losing crops to shade from overhanging vegetables. Better design is needed next year.

I am happy with my leeks. I make sure to earth them up regularly and applied plenty of seaweed. They took a battering in one of the storms but have much recovered, since taking this photo. They look spectacular on a frosty day so I am not dreading the winter at all, thinking about how they will look. 

I planted a mix of salad leaves, mizuna, little gem and both a green and a red variety of pak choi, at the end of August, and they are doing excellent. I've been pulling leaves off for my sandwiches and burgers and am not getting slug damage. I use no pellets or pesticides of any sort.

I've preserved my cooking apples and beetroot into various jars including spiced apply chutney, apple sauce, beetroot and apple chutney and pickled beetroot. This is really the main reason I grow fruit and veg. I love relishes and chutneys and anything vinegary. I've lots of recipes under the Preserving/Canning tab at the top of the page.

A lot of my energy is now going into growing flowers for next year. In the last month I have sown lots of wildflowers (poppies, cornflower, calendula, yellow rattle, scabious...) among my grass. I have also sown sweet peas, Californian poppies, delphiniums, black eyed Susan, verbena, wallflowers and others in pots and will overwinter in my porch. I really have to get a table as I will not have enough floor space. I've lots of spring bulbs planted in the ground and in pots and cannot wait to see how they look as I really tried to create designful combinations. It's hard when you are arranging bulbs and trying to envision them as flowers. So exciting and full of expectations though.

That's the most of it. I am awaiting my delivery of seed garlic and onions and have a bed prepared for them. I am also anticipating bare root tree season so I can add about 10 trees to the garden, a mix of fruit and native including but not limited to hazel, hawthorn, pear, cherry and apple.

Till next time (hopefully within a month!)