Grow Food in 2021

Life begins the day you start a garden. – Chinese proverb

Now is the time to make a real difference in your life, and in the world.  How? 

By growing your own food.

Not to put a too finer point on it growing food in a garden, allotment – even on a balcony – can bring massive rewards.  I’m not joking either.  There have been formal studies conducted on the benefits of growing your own food. And spending more time outside is now a recognised health referral option.

It’s great for you because it brings all sorts of wellbeing when you sow, when you dig or when you harvest a potato or a runner bean.  It’s great for your health as well – not only bringing natural exercise into your life but having more control over what your grow means you know it’s as organic as it possibly can be.  And it’s good for the planet – less packaging, less plastics, less mileage to get your food to your plate.  Less chemicals, pesticides and more good nutrients being put back into the earth.

I’m probably blogging all this to the converted.  If you’re reading my blog you probably already are sowing or growing, or gardening or aware of what food comes from what place.  But, it’s always worth telling this news again.  Anyone who has spent any amount of time tilling away at the soil knows – feels, the benefits of what a garden or allotment can do to your very soul.  That first excitement of seeing seeds germinating on a windowsill, or popping the first-ever pea from a pod that you’ve lovingly looked forward to after so many weeks – watering and tying them up carefully.  

And I wish I could bottle those good feelings up – that calm and serenity, being proud, being in awe.  Wouldn’t that be great?  But, it’s not possible so instead, I want to support as many people to grow food and feel the way I do when I’m outside gardening.  

Even if you have no room, there is a way.  Even if you’ve never grown anything in your life – now is the time.  And even if everything you think you’ve ever grown just ups and dies on you, it doesn’t mean it will again.  

Instead, let’s come together, share our growing trials, our knowledge and our experience to help others do the same.  

Spread the message – let’s get growing.  Now is a perfect time.  Spring is nearly here.  There are seeds to choose, pots to find and a little space for growing plants to make ours.

I’ll share what I grow through this year in the hopes it inspires others.  If you are growing something, share what you learn with others near to you – physically or online.  Let kids and adults alike see how great gardening is.  And lets more people feel the wonderful feelings that come from growing our own food.  You don’t have to be a gardener.  You just have to be curious to learn.

Thank you for reading.

Image by Pitsch from Pixabay

Weekend Gardener – October Update

October has seen a lot of rain and now the daily temperatures are starting to plummet as well which doesn’t make for great gardening weather.  But, I have still busied myself around the garden.  There has been plenty to do to get the garden ready for the colder months.

Interestingly after the deluge of rain, we had last weekend I woke up to swamp of a garden.  I’m not sure if it was the gutter soakaways being directed under the lawn or just the sheer amount of rain we had, there was a lot of sitting water.  Even the polytunnel had a pond in it.  It was impossible to walk over the lawn.  Fortunately, within 24hrs the water drained away and everything was back to normal.  It made me think carefully about how important having raised beds are.  Anything growing in the ground would have struggled I think over that period.  This is the second time that the lawn has flooded but this was worse than the last time.  Even heavy clay soil has a saturation point if not given the time to soak it up.

Generally, the garden is slowing up now and going to sleep.  More and more leaves are beginning to drop and the birds come into the garden actively seeking out the feeders (as does the squirrel).  Some perennials are still busy flowering, including the fuschias and even clematis but regular low overnight temperatures will start to cause the flowering to cease.

Raised Beds

The strawberries are dying down now.  I spent a good amount of time tidying the plants and pruning the asparagus so that I can add straw to the bed.

The brassicas have recovered pretty well from the caterpillar onslaught that they bravely tried to battle but I’m not sure I’ll actually get any sprouts.  I am however harvesting lots of kale again now the weather has become cooler.

Two of the beds are now all but empty (a few salad onions will be ready next year).  The second batch of carrot seeds that I was hoping to test the soil with got eaten by slugs.  So I’m still not sure if there is some kind of root issues underneath that bed.  I intend to fill the beds with straw, grass cuttings (if I manage to get another cut) and any cardboard I find.  Then in February, I’ll top them up with compost again.

The leeks are ready to be harvested.  I’m quite excited because they look such a decent size.  Another crop I never used to have any luck with.  No-dig for the win again!

Polytunnel

I harvested another good crop of tomatoes and found four more cucumbers which I was pleased about.  I cleared it all out leaving just the chillies behind which are also doing exceptionally well.  Considering I haven’t mollycoddled my chillies they have done okay left to their own devices.  The jalapenos actually look like jalapenos!  Big and green and ready to pickle.

Fruit

I really have to get my espalliers done.  The growth on both the plum and apple has been immense this year and now need to be shaped.  I shall wait not until the leaves have dropped and the plants are in hibernation mode because the pruning will be quite severe.

The raspberry canes have caught autumn rust which isn’t really surprising with the amount of rain we’ve had and many grey days with no sunshine.  They shouldn’t affect the canes too much at this time of year which is good.  I just need to make sure that all the leaves that drop get picked up and put into the council garden bin and not the composter otherwise the spores will just cause trouble for other plants next year.  The autumn canes are still fruiting and I’ve enjoyed handfuls of fruit throughout the month.

The blueberry leaves have all turned a beautiful stark red.  It’s stunning to see and is a flash of colour to behold.

While everything else that lives in containers stays outside, the peach has now been moved into the polytunnel.  It had unfortunately rooted in its spot in the garden so it certainly won’t have liked its roots being cut like that but it should recover okay and it’s better than it comes inside to avoid catching peach curl.

I’m looking forward to November which will include bulb planting and digging up some more couch grass (a favourite past time of mine!).

Thank you for reading.

 

Weekend Gardener – September Update

Departing summer hath assumed
An aspect tenderly illumed,
The gentlest look of spring;
That calls from yonder leafy shade
Unfaded, yet prepared to fade,
A timely carolling. –

William Wordsworth, September

I’m writing this early in the morning and it’s still a warm 15 degrees.  We’ve experienced a couple of chilly days this month but on the whole, it’s been as good as August.  The only difference is the light.  I’ve noticed the change much more this month.  Shadows appear in the garden earlier, shading the lawn in the afternoons.  And it gets dark around 7:30pm, if not earlier when the rain clouds threaten.

Most of my time in the garden this month has been spent watering and harvesting, tinkering and tieing plants up for their final parade before autumn sets in.  A slight lull before the work cranks up in earnest again next month.

I’ve got a resident frog in the polytunnel who has now been joined by another one that I nearly mowed over the other day when cutting the grass! I picked that one up and took him into the polytunnel.  Hopefully, they might become a pair in which case I had better get started on a pond because the current abode might not work.

Raised Beds

I’m not sure if the asparagus was supposed to send out shoots again but it has.  Another three which have turned into feathery flags amongst the strawberries which are still fruiting!

The brassicas are still standing but without much greenery attached to them.  However, since the caterpillars have moved off there are some new leaves beginning to form however the now warmer weather may well encourage yet more caterpillars.  So it’s a waiting game.  While the plants themselves don’t look particularly pretty they are not doing any harm by staying there.  I am just curious to see what happens to them.

The leeks continue to grow well although I have started to see rust on some of the leaves.  This has probably been caused by too much watering (which I’ve now cut down on) and the soil might be lacking potassium so I need to raise it.  I need to find some seaweed fertilizer to help do this.

The salad bed just has the odd beetroot in it and a courgette plant which is still throwing out yellow courgettes to eat.  The carrots sown last month are taking an age to get going.  I think the growth was somewhat nibbled on which hasn’t helped.  As soon as they grow a bit bigger I’ll be able to divide them.  Next year I plan to grow some from seed in pots, that way I can keep a closer eye on them.  In fact, July and August sowings are a must.  I have quite a few gaps now in the beds that could be filled with winter veg so I’ll try and plan that better next year.

The runner beans are only now ready for harvest.  The plants have had masses of red flowers which the bees have loved but it’s been terribly slow turning into beans.  I’m hoping I’ll get a few harvests before the frosts set in but I must remember to sow the seeds earlier next year.

The summer squash is now ready for harvesting, as are the butternuts (which are huge!) but I’m leaving them on the plants until I can give them a home in the barn to store over autumn.  And while the courgette plants have succumbed to powdery mildew which is common around this time of year with the cooler nights and warm days.  I’ve had some cracking harvests from all the plants so I’m happy to start digging them up now.

Potatoes

These are growing extremely well and have started to flower this week.  Unfortunately, the tubs got a bit dry over a couple of days so I’m sure I’ll see some scab on the potatoes when I harvest them but for now the plants themselves look extremely healthy.  Once I can see the temperatures start to drop I’ll move them into the polytunnel to make the top of the plant last as long as possible.

Fruit

The autumn raspberries are clear to see now.  I’ve been outside and hand a handful of fruit nearly every day these last couple of weeks.  Juicy and tasty they are too.  Both fruiting canes have taken really well and are quite tall now.  The horizontal wire supports I had in place have broken so I will need to fix that but otherwise, I’m pleased with them all.

I had a rather disappointing harvest from the blueberry plants this year, mostly because the birds (or bird) got to them all first.  I think the older plants need a hard prune but that will have to wait until later in Winter to do.

The gooseberries also got obliterated by the caterpillars and as they are such young plants I’m hoping they recover.  At the moments they just look like very spiky sticks!

I’m behind on pruning and espaliering my apple and plum.  They have put on huge amounts of growth over the last few months and need to be set in their positions but I just haven’t got around to doing it yet.  It is on my list though.

Finally, the peach tree growing in a container has also spurted.  That will need careful pruning before I take it back into the polytunnel to protect it over winter.

Polytunnel

While my tomato plants look rather fatigued and sulky they have produced a load of fruit which I’m starting to harvest and will become a glut by next week.  The chillies healthy and producing good-sized pods, so no complaints there.  And I’ve harvested about five cucumbers from three plants so far with still a few more to go.  I do think that homegrown tastes so much nicer than shop-bought cucumbers.  I can only assume (because I haven’t grown anything special) that it must be to do with the time delay between harvesting, reaching a shop and getting it home compared with picking it off the plant and eating it sooner.

The big project

Just a little update – it’s nearly finished.  The light fitting went up at the weekend in the barn as did the guttering which, via two waterbutts, will keep the garden stocked to water the plants with.  I can finally put this project to bed!

Thank you for reading.

Weekend Gardener – August Update

Fairest of the months!
Ripe summer’s queen
The hey-day of the year
With robes that gleam with sunny sheen
Sweet August doth appear. – R. Combe Miller

I’m sat here writing this in balmy warm weather.   Today has been one of the hottest, if not the hottest August Bank holiday on record with a startling temperature of 33.2 degrees Celsius recorded at Heathrow this afternoon.

Unprecedented and certainly not usual.  The beginning of the month was much cooler and a lot wetter.  But apart from having to water all the plants twice today, the garden is managing to cope and I’ve been enjoying a break from the showers.

The garden is just pushing over the peak of summer now.  There are signs it’s moving towards autumn but not before it’s ready.  I’m still harvesting strawberries, the raspberries are still flowering and the tomatoes are still fruiting.  Every day there is a nice little job here and there for me to do to keep the crops looking happy and content.  And there is one big project that has continued relentlessly.  More on that later.

Raised Beds

The strawberry bed has gone wild again but it’s still producing fruit and it’s deliciously sweet.  As well as that the asparagus sent up another two spears which have just started to go to seed.  I hope this means that they are settling in well.

The salad bed has become less salad and more courgette bed.  The salad went to seed, although I wasn’t surprised.  It’s not a good time to be growing lettuce because it’s just too warm.  The chard was exceptionally colourful but again got too big too quickly and I wasn’t really quite sure what to do with it.  The beetroot was harvested several times, as was the radishes but they also need leaving until I can sow again next week to hopefully get another crop in before the winter hits.

The big disappointment of the summer goes to the carrots.  I have never seen such small, deformed-looking things in all my gardening life.  They didn’t just fork, they took off like centipedes.  Having investigated the soil I was slightly worried because the raised bed appears to contain an awful lot of roots and yet there is nothing nearby (certainly no trees or shrubs), that could cause them so had assumed the roots may have come from the courgette or the chard but it’s unlikely.  Unfortunately, until the bed has finished for the year I can’t investigate further.  Then I discovered that forking is also caused by the soil being over fertilised.  And yes, I did add homemade compost and then added extra growmore a couple of weeks before planting the carrots so this may have been a contributor as well to their demise.

To understand more and I thought it worth trying again so I sprinkled more carrots seed directly into the soil to see what happens.    A few have germinated already and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that these do a little better.

The brassicas as expected have been obliterated.  Just a few stubby stumps are left in the bed now but I haven’t removed them.  I’m not sure if it’s a good idea or not but I figured it’s another experiment.  There is nothing left to harvest and the broccoli plants will definitely need removing but I’m wondering whether the Brussels sprout plants may be able to produce further leaves once the caterpillars have moved off and the weather gets a bit cooler?  It’s possibly just a high hope but you don’t know if you don’t try.  I just want one sprout to eat on Christmas day, it’s not much to ask for!

The leeks have taken off well and are growing nicely after the garlic which is stored in the polytunnel.

The runner bean and squash bed are spectacular, to say the least.  The runner beans are awash with red flowers and the squash plants have produced beautiful bright orange summer squash and the biggest butternut squash I’ve ever seen.  As well as that the courgette plants have produced an abundance of yellow and green crops.  I’m well chuffed with this bed but I know why it’s so good.  For a start, it’s had fresh compost added which contained all the nutrients required for a good start and being a new bed means so nasty pests or diseases have had a chance to build up.  I’m very conscious of this fact.  That’s why crop rotation is so essential and why I need to be able to get my homemade compost just right so I don’t just end up over fertilising plants (such as carrot gate).  In theory, no-dig ensures I don’t need to do much work with the overall bed soil structure but the top 6inches of top compost is the key to starting plants off right.

Potatoes

The potato harvest has been pretty impressive so far.  I harvested the Desiree earlier this month and got a combined weight of approx 7kg from 3 25ltr containers.  The Pink Fir will be harvested next week as they take a little longer.

After the International kidney were harvested I filled up two of the containers again.  One each of International kidney and Pink Fir in the hopes I can have winter potatoes (with high hopes for Christmas potatoes).  As you can see, they have sprouted well.

Polytunnel

It looks like a jungle and I can hardly get to the containers to water them but so far I’ve managed to harvest four cucumbers which had been a great delight because I usually suck at growing these.  The structure to support the cucumbers is slightly lacking and I’ll need to do something a bit more robust next year but I like the variety and would be happy to grow those again.  The tomatoes have gone wild.  I’ve tried to tame them but every time I turn my back they end up shooting up all over the place.  There are many green tomatoes.  In fact, only one has turned to red so far (it was lovely though).

The big project

Oh yes, that.  Well, the big project which was supposed to take place last year but didn’t end up starting until March is still ongoing.  That is the area for a shed and barn.  The concrete was laid, the shed moved, the barn erected and electricity has been added to both.  And the never-ending saga to the shed base has finally ended.  The barn started off just being put directly on the concrete (as it had no base), which was fine until it rained, ran off the roof and pooled under the shed.  So we added various fillers and foams to try and prevent it that never worked.  In the end, we gave up and bought a raised base for the shed to sit on (that was no easy task to get it to fit under either) and now the rain can run off and under as it sees fit. The barn in contrast never having this issue as it did come with a raised base.  That took up about three months and now we’re at the stage where insulating the barn is the second-longest job in history.  I can honestly say that DIY is not my forte.  Dare I say by this time next month this project will finally see it’s fruition?  I’ll let you know.

Thank you for reading.

Weekend Gardener – Mid-year Update

It’s been a busy few months in the garden since I last wrote.  The garden has been on a constant path of developments and is coming along now.  It never sleeps and is gently showing me what it can really do if given the time and cultivation to help it.  And to help me achieve this no-dig has been the fundamental driving force to make crop-growing even quicker.

Let me give you an update

Since February I’ve only added one further raised bed because the size of the other beds has allowed me to grow so much more than I am used to.  Space is being used wisely though and through the months I’ve learnt that little and often is the way to sow to ensure I get the best harvests, especially when it comes to salad crops.

Raised Beds

Bed 1 – Strawberries and asparagus.  I added three asparagus roots in April.  They all sprouted and I let them grow to seed, as instructed.  The three spears are a little bit of an experiment as I’ve never grown asparagus before.  However, because they take so long to mature and grow, planting them in with the strawberries means they won’t get disturbed.  The strawberry plants are now in their second year and have flowered well enough.  However, the fruit has been slow to mature.  I’ve had just one harvest so far.  I’m diligently cutting away any runners but the speed at which the plants throw the runners out is almost frightening!

Bed 2– Salad crops.  I had sown a handful of spring onion seeds sometime around autumn last year, into this bed, and left them to it.  After rain and frost, they still survived. I was most surprised when from about April onwards I’ve managed to keep myself in onion supplies ever since.  Beautiful tasting spring onions and all I did was top up the bed (sometime in March) with homemade compost, some of which was “lumpy” and leave them to it.  Since then I’ve also added radishes, which when left turned into giant red globes, lettuce, carrots, chard and beetroot.  On a whim one day I also added a summer squash plant as I had it leftover from another bed.  I had my first beetroot harvest last week with plenty more to eat and the lettuce is a constant supply for lunches.  I’ve sown more spring onions but they seem to grow very slowly and I wonder if I’ll ever get the hang of growing them.

Bed 3 – Brassicas.  I may have gone over-enthusiastic in this bed.  It’s filled to absolute capacity.  It started with spinach and kale but has since expanded to included broccoli, purple sprouting broccoli and many, many Brussels sprout plants.  It needs thinning out really because there isn’t enough room for them all but I’m playing roulette and hoping the more plants I start with the more I’ll end up with after the butterflies come, and they will come.  My experience of growing brassicas has never been an easy one. Edit – the butterflies have since appeared.

Bed 4 – Garlic.  I’ve recently pulled up 53 bulbs of garlic and each one was perfect.  Some were huge in size and others smaller due to them getting regular disturbance from the blackbird.  But this was, without doubt, my finest garlic growing season – ever!  As the garlic bulbs were growing I set to sow some leek seeds.  I didn’t think they would do anything because again the blackbird took such a fancy to the bed that everything kept shifting in the compost.  But I pulled out three good clusters of leeks that had managed to grow and now I’ve thinned them out and used the whole bed as a leek growing area.  The shift and disturbance caused the leek-lettes (that’s a made-up name by the way.) to temporarily droop so I had to ensure the compost was kept moist until they perked up again.  It’s another experiment because I topped half of the bed up after the garlic harvest with the potato compost that was left over from harvesting the first earlies.  I’m not sure if you’re supposed to re-use potato compost but as the plants never experienced any blight and I thought it would be a shame to waste it.  I added fertilizer granules to the bed, stamped it over to get the soil relatively even and in went the leeks.  That’s as hard as no-dig really gets.

Bed 5 – Runner beans, squash and courgettes.  This is a new bed for 2019.  As before this one was created using just 8×4 gravel boards, placed on the lawn and filled with cardboard, homemade compost and shop-bought compost.  The courgettes were slow to start and I was worried at one point that the homemade compost may have been too strong or not properly composted because some leaves started to turn yellow but I think this was my over zealous watering to get the cardboard to start breaking up beneath the bed.  Within a couple of weeks, both the courgettes and the squash plants took off.  I added runner bean seeds but left adding any poles until the beans germinated and started growing.  Of the 10 seeds sown only 4 germinated so I planted another three and in the end, I got five runner bean plants to grow.  Now they have taken off it’s time to add the pole which I intend to do this weekend.

Fruit

Earlier this year I planted ten raspberry canes, 5 summer fruiting and 5 autumn fruiting.  Unfortunately, I lost the labels so now I don’t know which is the autumn and which is the summer.  It’s also meant that I haven’t been able to prune them either because I don’t know which is which.  They are all growing well and the birds are thoroughly enjoying the fruit.

I decided against pruning the cherry tree  (Stella) and instead just planted it in the ground as it was.  It’s put on an extra 40cm of growth since February and although there wasn’t much blossom I did see three cherry’s before the birds got to them.

Both the apple (spartan) and plum (opal) haven’t been espaliered yet.  I fully intend to but wanted to see what new growth I’d get before doing so.  And they haven’t disappointed.  I’ll have plenty of choice as to how and where to prune now so it was definitely worth doing.

I now have two gooseberry plants and one peach tree, all sit in separate pots for being able to put undercover in winter.  I was disappointed that the peach (Saturn) didn’t blossom, which means so fruit this year.  But it seems to be okay in it’s 40ltr container. The leaves have experienced some bug eating away at them but nothing too detrimental and the colour of the leaves turn a deep shade of red the larger they become on the plant.  It’s a very colourful tree.  I just need to ensure I prune it right before the year is out to ensure it blossoms next yr.

Polytunnel

I was a bit hesitant as to whether the polytunnel cover would keep going this yr.  During one particular wet and windy weekend back in February, the cover was again being caught by gusts of winds, even with pots and bags of soil to hold it down.  I thought it was a goner but the wind died down and the cover stayed on.  For most of the year it’s been an outside storage solution surrounded by trays of seedlings!  It has also been home to the peach tree (until Mid-may) and is now home to 10 tomato plants, six chilli plants and three cucumber plants.  All of which are growing well despite obvious slug/snail damage.  Fortunately, I appear to have (or have had) a resident frog in there who kept the slimy critters at bay until the plants became more established.

Potatoes

This year I upped the anti on growing potatoes in containers.  I went from three to seven this year due to the success I’d had.  So far I’ve only harvested the two International Kidney potatoes.  The harvest wasn’t all that huge.  Both containers came in at just over 1.8kg of potatoes which is slightly disappointing but what they lacked in quantity they definitely made up for in taste.  I’d definitely grow them again but would need to perhaps either start them off earlier (I didn’t plant them up until April), or explore another supplier perhaps?  The Pink fir and Desiree containers will be harvested at the end of this month.

You made it to the end!

And that is my growing journey documented.  I would say it’s been terribly hard work but I’d be lying – the plants themselves have done all the hard work.  I just made the space for them to grow.  The hardest bit is keeping on top of the watering during particularly dry times (although to be fair there hasn’t been many of those this yr in my part of the world!).

Interestingly the weather this year has hindered some plants, like the courgettes but encouraged others, like the tomatoes.  In the end, you can’t control the weather, so all I can do is sit back and enjoy the gardening ride (ensuring to keep watering, where needed of course!).