Leeks

Some of my leeks are going to seed - which makes them completely inedible. I ODed on leeks this year - though I don't think you can have too many. The Hannibal leeks are still growing well, but the Bleu de Solaise seem to be an autumn harvest variety,(though they were sold as a good overwintering variety), and a good many of them are producing seed heads.

I should remember to sow those ones early, and the Hannibal later, to get a good crop from autumn on. And stick with the Hannibal, or another variety for winter eating.

Upside down Tomatoes - companion planting

 

The upside down tomatoes are doing well- though not many are ripe yet. Fingers crossed for a bit of sunshine.

The only thing I would do differently next year is to plant modest plants at the top of the bucket - ones which don't get huge and suck up all the tomato's water. In the greedy category are calendula (see above) and nasturtium. Even though it's not hot, I'm having to water the tomatoes daily, and I think there's just too much greenery to support top and bottom.

The good companions are French marigold, Night scented stock (the scent in the evening! Sweet and peppery at the same time - is there a perfume like this?) and Basil. They thrive above the tomato, but don't get so big that they compete.

Garlic harvest

My Garlic has all been harvested, and dried, and I have lots to plant next year, and to eat for as long as it lasts!

If you have been following this blog, you'll know that I got lots of garlic from a generous member (Spade Work) of the seed network. Here's my joyous entry last November.

All the garlic did very well - I'm delighted that I'm one of only a few people in the world growing Gazebo grande. And they all taste great - but I'm smitten with the garlic scape pesto (see bottom of the archive) so I'll be planting as much hardneck garlic as possible.

I have put aside the following to grow again next year - I think this is enough for me - hopefully next year, I'll have some to share.


Marco (softneck) - 7 cloves
Inchellium red(softneck) - 9 cloves
Prim (softneck) - 6 cloves
Gypsy red (hardneck) - 2 cloves
Gazebo (hardneck) - 2 cloves
Susan Delafield (hardneck) - 4 cloves
Misc - grown for supermarket garlic - 1 clove
Unknown hard neck - 3 cloves

Going into the end of last year, I was dismayed that I didn't have a good variety of garlic to sow - that's all changed!

Beautiful Frosty Morning

 

 

It's a beautiful fresh frosty morning here - the leaves are well decorated. This is the coldest that it's been since we moved back here in 2006, and my laissez-faire attitute to the root veg may backfire on me. For the past 2 winters I have left the beets, turnips and daikon in the ground through the winter, harvesting them as needed.

But since we didn't have much frost, this was a fairly safe strategy. This year, my fennel has already taken some damage from the frost, we covered it with fleece on Monday, but I have more or less written it off. It's not really supposed to overwinter. I was hoping for a few more Beet and Daikon harvests, though - I'm hoping that only the surface is frozen, and that they will be ok. The leeks are looking a bit limp, and some of them are going to seed, so probably time to use them up too. If things thaw in the afternoon, I'll go out and harvest a few to assess the damage.


Lesson learned - get in some straw in the autumn for tucking in the root veg!

On the positive side, this frost will break down the bed I prepared at the weekend, and will do a good job of killing the pests, it's a necessary part of the cycle, and welcome as such.

 

 

 

Autumn Review

So, it was a terrible summer. 'Nuff said about the weather. Here are the 2008 successes and failures.

Successes:
Leeks - growing well, ready for harvest now. Some were a bit shaded by other plants, but are doing ok now - next year devote a whole section of a bed to them, rather then bits and pieces here and there
Mizuna
Rocket
Upside down tomatoes - no blight! no slugs!
Autumn fruiting raspberries - some golden.
Blueberries
Calabrese
Oregano
Carrots - in planters and stove pipes
Sarpo Axona potatoes - no blight
Runner beans
Borlotti beans
Giant sunflowers - seedlings given to us by a neighbour > 8ft tall! loads of seeds!
Beets
Weiner Runder Kohlschwarzer
Black currants
Broad beans
Peas (didn't plant enough)
Borage - grew fast from seed planted in July.
Globe Artichokes


Failures (or less successful)
Courgettes and squash - poor yield, leaves got mouldy
Tomatoes - blight
Potatoes under plastic - slugs, plastic blew off - poor yield, green potatoes, blight
Daikon - early planting went to seed, and had worms
Purple sprouting broc - took up loads of space, and is now being decimated but caterpillars.
Dwarf sunflowers - slugs got them all
Red onions - went to seed.
Lettuce - slugs, etc.
Strawberries
Apples - blossom dropped off.
Corn - didn't get pollinated properlyGarlic - was in a poor location

Anyhow, of course we will try again next year, and already have our overwintering onions in, lots more daikon, kale, chard, mizuna, mispoona, brussles sprouts, and more carrots in planters.

Overall, we had a good amount of food from the garden, though not enough to feed ourselves. We did have some wonderful local dinners with either beef from my brothers farm - 3 miles away, or local venison.

The same brother is raising a turkey for us for Christmas, so that promises to be a good feast - we should try to get a local ham too. And some Ballinagore records.

Summer planting

Was going to title this post - 'Preparing for Winter', but that seemed a bit chilly in August. July has seen me doing a lot of seed planting in preparation for the next growing season. So while the the Runner beans are not yet producing, we are planning for crops for the Nov-March 09 period - hopefully!

What we have planted:
Purple sprouting Brocolli
Cauliflower
Cabbage - Savoy and Holland
Ragged Jack Kale
Rainbow Chard
Mizuna
Mispoona
Weiner Runder Kohlschwarzer (from realseeds.co.uk)http://realseeds.co.uk/radish.html
Salsola (as above)
Orach (as above)
Spinach
Corn salad
Carrots
Borage
Onion seeds (Winterhecke)
Daikon


Since growth won't be as prolific, it seems to make sense to plant more, in the hopes of having something to eat from the garden later in the year. Last year leeks did great, but we only had 8, so this year I have 50 or so fattening nicely. Which will make up for the lack of onions and garlic this year.

Best Brocolli

 We had 3 excellent Calabrese plants, this one was the best. Leo is proudly holding it. I didn't leave the plants in the ground after we harvested the central one, though that might have resulted in side shoots - but they are huge plants, and we don't have a shortage of plants to harvest at the moment.
Interestingly, I planted Calabrese and purple sprouting at the same time - Feb/March - but it looks like the Calabrese has a much shorter cycle. The PSB doesn't seem to be doing anything interesteing yet, though they are growing big (and overshadowing everything else in the bed beside them)

 

Huge carrots

 

These ones went into a large planter in early March. We covered the planter in white fleece, so the cat thought it was a lovely bed. Eventually, though, the carrots greew, and this is the result - most a foot or so in length, and tasty with it! This is another experiment we'll have to replicate next year. The carrots have to be our best crop yet in Mullingar, in the 3 harvests since we started gardening here.

Purple carrots

 

Purple is one of our favourite colours - it was our wedding colour, so any purple vegetables are popular in our house. This year we tried Thomposon and Morgan's Purple Haze Carrot - and it's a keeper! We still have quite a few growing in the chimney pots, and they are doing great, and tasty when harvested! Definitely one for next year.

Dealing with slugs

Since we got frogs, I can't put down slug pellets any more. Returning from our week away, we were ravaged by slugs in our absence, so we have declared war.
We have been baking egg shells in the over, and surrounding seedlings - seems moderatel successful. Also trying broken mussel shells - but we have seen slugs crawling over them. Stapled copper tape on the raised beds - and have seen slugs crawling over that too.

So the best solution has been to go out at dusk, and pick them up, and throw them over the wall to the green area behind the garden. Or else add them to some salted water. The weather nhas improved in tandem with this, but the number we have caught on any given night has reduced sharply since the first few nights, where we were finding more than 100 per night. And the plants seem to be doing better, though dwarf sunflowers seem to be particularly susceptible.

Next year we are resolved to go slug hunting from March on...

Frogs out of pond!

 

This evening I have been laying down cardboard in the pathways between the raised beds to suppress the grass. As I was pulling up some of the longer grass, I spotted one of the froglets hopping around. We put him back carefully in the pond, but now, attuned to the little jumers, we see that there are several more out in the garden, so I guess that they don't need to be put back. Much excitement for Dara and Leo, and the undergardener to see and hold them.

We saw a ladybird as well - would hope to see lots more of them. The mizuna has been ravaged by a nice looking caterpillar (or 6) - we have put all the caterpillars in a jar, and they will be going to Leo's creche tomorrow, so the kids can all get a good look at them. And if they don't survive the journey home, well that's too bad ;-)

It has stayed wet since the last post, so any squash plants that were not big and strong have been munched by the slugs (come on, frogs!), and some lettuce plants are gone too. However, it's looking better than this time last year. I may have given away all my spare squash plants a bit too soon - but maybe I'll get back some of the fruit.

Note for next year - lettuce a bit safer in vegetable chips, almost no point planting in the ground if the weather is wet. Also, the Brassicas - specifically broc. are overpowering their neighbours. Maybe I should only plant one per sq. ft.

Alliums

My garlic went in on on Dec 24th, but with all the construction in the garden, I had to move a few, and the others that are left behind are not terribly well tended. So a recent harvest showed fairly small bulbs. However, they are staring flowering, so I think a pizza with scrapes is called for.

I will harvest them end July, sort out the raised bed they are in, and sow some Daikon in there for the winter.

Planted a full raised bed of red onions - they are all going to seed now without getting terribly big, so next year I think I should plant them a bit later, in better quality soil, and not all red ones. Probably need to make a call on harvesting them, and backfill with some autumn/winter veg - probably a better use of the space. But maybe I need to wait thill the stalks die off - anyone have any ideas?

The leeks are doing great. After last years successful crop of 10 :-) (one of the few successes of last year) I planted lots. I now have maybe 50 scattered around the various beds, doing well. And more seedings coming on. I have seen mention of mid-summer leeks, but I don't think any of these will be ready in time. September would do fine, though.

Have some Japanese onions (ishikura) to grow from seed - should put a few of these in too - they seem indestructible...