Coming Along Nicely

Just eaten a few blueberries picked straight from the plant.  Last year the cold, damp weather and wind did for  most of the blossom but this year I have a few lovely, large berries.  Not more than a good handful in total, so I'll savour every one.

I have a lovely cucumber which is almost ready for picking and many more coming along.  They're outdoor ridge cucumbers, tend to have a thickish skin but delicious flavour.  You can't beat home-grown.

The tomatoes have given up trying to grow upright and are now sprawling along the ground.  I can try tying them back up again but they just get beaten back down by the wind and the weight of the developing tomatoes.

Mean Green Chomping Machines

The Square Foot Garden is having a hard time this year - what with the wind, rain, cold and generally un-summer-like weather and then to top it all, I walked out this morning to head off to an early morning meeting to find an array of snails all over what's left of the runner beans. After I'd been away for a couple of days, I came back to find some of the plants had been reduced to just stalks. They've been slowly demolishing them and as fast as I pick them off, the quicker they appear. I spent a quick five minutes picking them off and added another dozen or so to the bucket and a few more when I returned a couple of hours later. It's going to have to be a daily vigil while I desperately try to coax enough to survive so that I get at least a few runner beans this year - but it's not looking too hopeful.

The mangetouts never got going and have totally disappeared. The lettuce I planted out a couple of weeks ago have amazingly enough survived quite well so far and are growing fast.

Two Days Away

Returned from a weekend in Wales to find that the garden has survived, (there was enough rain to keep it watered) although the snails have been at the runner beans and four plants have been reduced to nothing more than stalks and stems and the rest are looking bedraggled and a bit sorry for themselves. They've also had a chomp at the pepper plants on the patio - little blighters!

Only one slightly overgrown courgette and the rest yet to come. They really only look as if they're getting going now and are still very small.

Still picking spinach which is getting a bit straggly. The rocket went to seed ages ago but has some very attractive white flowers that I've just left, having planted some more seed which doesn't seen to have gone anywhere.

Picked a good half punnet of blueberries, which seem to be ripening up much more slowly this year and not in one great flush. Lovely big berries on one bush which seem to get large the longer they're left and it's more prolific that the other one.

Fresh Blueberries

The blueberries are having a hard time making it from the bush into the kitchen. They're just so yummy at the moment and ripening up nicely in small batches, so I can easily pick a handful every couple of days for breakfast ... as I said, if they make it that far.

Blueberries For Breakfast

Picking blueberries for breakfast straight off the bush. Not as many fruits as last year but the ones that are there are big, fat juicy ones.

September Update

This month has started dry and sunny after a dry but variable August.

I'm starting to harvest the runners on a fairly regular basis now - they're growing rapidly but I'm also actively picking off all the snails - large and small, that I can find, to prevent them totally ravaging the poor plants to just their bare bones. The one's I planted in a pot by the house are also doing well and after Cliff's comment that 95% of what he's harvested so far is water, I'm making sure that I water every night, as we've not had any rain for days, although as it's now cooler, there's often a morning dew.

The chard in the SFG has recovered and is now growing properly, although I've not yet picked any. I get a bagful in my veg box each week. It was suffering from the sun earlier in the year (when we had some) and seemed a bit stunted.

The salad crop is still growing well, so lunch is an easy shopping trip across the patio, although the tomatoes are taking their time to ripen. They've taken a bit of a battering from the wind as I wasn't quick enough pinching out the side shoots and most plants have at least two main stems. Not exactly as the purists would grow them but then they're vine plants so I'm really leaving them to grow in a more natural way. The sungold that I was growing in a hanging basket is looking a bit sad as it dries out too quickly and yet another tomato seedling/plant is now growing in with one of the courgettes. These aren't doing too well. Surprisingly, falling foul of the slugs and snails, like most things this year, despite their prickly leaves.

My squash plant is finally taking off although no sign of anything that might be turning into a squash as yet. It's being allowed to start rambling over the old bench outside kitchen window. It's sheltered from the wind and might last well into the autumn.

The chilli pepper has lots of small fruits on it but they seem to be growing only slowly and are still green in colour. The whole plant is fairly small and I don't know if it's just a small variety or restricted by the size of the pot it's in.

I've now defrosted the freezer ready for whatever produce I may have left over, which will probably only be the runner beans, as the rest of the harvest is slow in cropping and just about enough for a meal every now and then.

Amazingly enough - my blueberry has a few flowers appearing. Must be as confused with this weather as the rest of us.

Freshly picked blueberries for breakfast!

Well, you can't get much better than that. My blueberries have suddenly started to ripen in quantities. One or two have been ripening slowly but with the sudden spell of sunshine they are all starting to ripen at once.

I popped out this morning and picked a good punnet full of blueberries already washed by the morning showers, to have with my breakfast cereal - plus a handful of raspberries (sadly not my own).

The Blue Crop variety seem to be larger and ripening more slowly while the 'general' variety are smaller and have ripened in bunches.

June - What's Happening In Pots?

My courgette is in flower and looking pretty healthy. At least one of them is. The other is still growing and also has a flower but it's not looking as good. It's been plagued by black fly and I've been relocating a few of the newly hatched ladybirds (which are all over the garden) to have a quick snack - slightly gruesome to watch but I'm not that squeamish.

I've been watering them regularly since planting out, just to keep them as healthy as possible and ensure that suffering from a lack of water is not something they're goi
ng to succumb to. I'll also start feeding along with the water.

My tomatoes are sadly not looking that happy - probably doesn't help that they were battered by strong winds shortly after being planted and then drenched by rainfall so probably suffering from being water logged. The plant on the left is one that seeded itself when I planted up my blueberries and is the healthiest of them all. I have no idea what variety it is so will wait and see.

There's a tumbling tom version in a hanging basket which is currently hidden away behind the flowering current but is also looking healthy and has several flowers on it.

The blueberries have a reasonably healthy crop forming - not bad for the first year. The berries are still very green but just starting to turn a shade of blue. I have a few strawberries coming on nicely but again it's not exactly going to be a massive crop. I have no idea if the birds will venture this close to the house to share in the crop - depends how tempting they are. The gooseberry twiglet is growing well but it will be a while before it produces any fruit.

Soft Fruit

Already planted up:-

Rhubarb, blueberries - two plants and a gooseberry offshoot.

The rhubarb and blueberries I bought at the beginning of April and have planted up in containers. The blueberries are already in flower and looking pretty healthy. I'll need to cover them in netting to keep the birds off any fruit when it appears. The gooseberry was not much more than a twig which I brought back from friends I stayed with over Christmas. It had a small bit of root and amazingly it was sprouting this spring, so it's also been planted up in a larger terracotta pot. I'm not expecting any fruit from it this year as it's so small but you never know.

The rhubarb was looking a little worse for wear after the Easter weekend but recovered with a good watering and is now growing well.