Slow Slow Quick Quick Slow

Well actully it more like slow slow, slow slow , slow ! I spent this evening pottering about with the veg, so I thought I'd put up another post to let you know how things are progressing,
First off I lifted my Garlic this evening. It's not he best but as it for kitchen  use it will be more than sufficient. It is now on a rack on the greenhouse floor to dry off. The variety is Thermidor and it cost me next to nothng for three large bulbs on E Bay last Autumn. I might try one of the better known varieties next year but we'll see how this variety tastes first.

I also extended the collars on my leeks - they now have a full 18" collar on them - this will last them til they are required for our local show on 18th August.

I weeded my onion sets and lifted any that were poor or had bolted -this has left me with only those below plus another 6 for showing so I hope they start to get a move on and bulb up soon

I am checking my first sowing of caulies every couple of days now - I have caulies tucked waway in all sorts of places, including two that are growing in the Victorian chimney pots that were rescued from the roof when we moved here.

Finally, curiosity got the better of me and I took a look at one bag of each of my 5 varieties of tatties. Casablanca, Sherine and BlueBelle had very small tubers which worries me slightly, but the Kestrel and Amour were better -here they are after a quick rinse under the tap - nice and clean, no sign of scab, just needing a bit more time....

Broad Beans are starting to form, as  are the Fench Beans, tomatoes going well, beetroot quite a bit behind last year, peas in flower, runner beans climbing up their supports well, Kelasae onions very slow to start bulbing up in any meaningful way,  and stump and long carrots are slow too. Parsnips seem to thriving if the top grpwth is anything to go by as are the long beet...

More to come from me on Sunday after our first local show up here - Sutherland County Show.

Veg and other stuff

Been really busy recently but still managed to get a bit of time to do some bits and pieces in the garden, so I thought I should update the blog with some piccies of what I've been up to and how some of the veg are doing (or not doing for that matter !)
First off is the non-veg side of things.  I have finished putting the kids summerhouse together and all that I need now is some dry weather to get it painted (apparently, according to my 4 year old daughter, "Aqua" is the in colour, so "Aqua" it has to be !!

Also awaiting a break in the weather is the decking which I threw together last Saturday night which still needs to be stained.

On the veg front, I am quite happy with how my Pendle leeks are doing. They have been outside for most of the season, in 25 litre tubs filled with JBA's Leek and Onion Compost and have really moved in the last month or so. They have 16" collars on them and are 7" in diameter currently.

However my Kelsae onions have been slow to start bulbing up and my Hercules and Centurion onion sets are still putting on green growth and showing very little incilation to bulb up at all !

The Cabbages and Caulies are looking nice and green and no signs of any pest damage (touch wood !), the peas have produced their first flowers, the French Beans  have started to flower (in 5litre pots in the greenhouse), the Cedrico toms have set their first fruits, and the Parsnips have a top growth of about 2ft

However, my carrots (both long and stump) are still slow, although they have come on a bit.... but not enough. And the same can be said for my Pablo beetroot - miles behind where I was with this last year. I am also happy with the size of the top groth on my long beet but the centre ribs of the leaves are looking more orangey red than dark red and this is something I will have to google or seek advice abuot on the NVS Forum as I have little or next to no knowledge about these plants. Anyway, will get some more piccies this week and give a fuller pictirial update then.

Has Summer arrived ?

According to the weather forecast up here, we are to see a mini heatwave this week - this could last all of three days ! I hope we do see some sun, as the veg certainly could do with it. First up is a shot of the greenhouse floor

The floor of my 8 x 6 is currently home to what remain of my Kelsae, bought as plugs from Mr Fothergills - nowhere near as large as some of the onions my friends in the NVS have but as I have never tried large onions before, we'll see how they do now that the longest day has passed and they should satrt to bulb up.  These will over the next few days, all find their way out of their 5 litre pots and into the 25 litre tubs that three are in already (the red tubs at the back of the photo.It ios also a temporary home for another six chilli plants though these will be going into the house as soon as I can get some more pretty bowls to hide the pots - wife's orders!
My six Cedrico have strated to put on a spurt - not before time - and will hopefully keep spurting as the root system gets larger.. There are also a coule of caulies that are yet to be planted out - ned to get some space for them somewhere, but it ain't easy now.
Also in the greenhouse are my French Beans which are also getting a spurt on......

Outside, in the barrels we have the parsnips, foliage is about 12" high

the long carrots, whose foliage is a disappointing 7" high

and the long beet, one of which has bolted, so was removed. This only leaves me 4 but these are an experiment this year. If any make it to a showit will be a miracle!

Having said that, the one that had bolted had a tap root of exactly 15".......

Next are my spuds - all looking good and the foliage is supported as it is just about 2 ft high and was beginning to flop over the edges of the beds. These have had their first spray of Bayer's Dithane replacement as I received a text late last week from Blightwatch advising of  a Smith Period for my postcode/

And the apple tree isn't in the middle of the bed, there are two beds, one either side of the apple tree.
Now we have my leeks - these have been outside for what seems like an age, throughout all the crap weather but they are still looking okay to my untrained eye. I loosened the collars at the weekend as the plants are starting to put on some girth now - the collars are 16" from soil level.

And here is one of my caulies - remeber I said I was running out of room - I have 4 in the ground, two more in old victorian chimney stacks (as pictured) and the rest will be going from 5 litre pots into 25 litre tubs shortly.

Finally we have the stump carrots - way behind where they were last year, the foliage is only about 12" high on the best of them.

So that's it for now - feel free to pass comment / judgement :)

It's June for Chrissake !!

WTF is happening with the weather - one day of scorching sun, getting my hopes up for a decent spell of warm weather, then the next three or four days seem to consist of torrential rain and cold north easterly winds. It's no wonder most of my veg is way behind where it was at this stage last year.
Anyway, managed to scrounge a few hours away from the girls this morning so I cut the grass and thought I'd have a look at the wooden childs summerhouse I was given recently -without any insructions. It is built up on a platform so I need to get the platform set in the ground first then the summerhouse will be assembled on top of that - but there are bound to be some readjustments made as I go.

Anyway, it's a good job that I love my daughters as much as I do as they have started a bird"hotel" in the garden to encourage our feathered friends to visit. This is in itself, not a problem but when the feathered friends start to investigate my veg, it does become a problem.
I do not know ehich particular variety of bird has taken a liking to my veg as we have about 25 species regularly visiting (everything from seagulls to wrens) but my money is on the sparrows being responsible for this....

This is what is lect of my first sowing of Show Perfection Peas which I was given by Ian Stocks at the NVS Scottish Branch seminar. So taday I have planted out some replacements and sown another batch. This is what the peas above should have been like by now..

Elsewhere, the Broad Beans, courtesy of Frank Taylor also NVS, are slowly starting to grow away ....

and to complete the lugumes, here are my Runner Beans (self saved Stenner seed) followed by my French Beans (again from Ian Stocks reselection). The latter will remain in pots in the greenhouse until we get some decent weather forecasts

My show spuds are looking reasonable too at the moment,,,,

The photo show the bed with BlueBelle and Amour, I also have Kestrel, Sherine and Casablanca. They all seem to be doing well although I did receive two text warnings yesterday for Blight in my postcode from "Blightwatch"so tomorrow I will make a trip to the local GC and invest in some Bayer Fruit and Vegetable Disease Control which helps counteract blight.

As I said earlier, this mixed up weather has put a lot of things behind the stage of growth where I would have expected them to be by now and have started to feed my brassicas (Cauliflower and cabbages) with Chempak No 2 High Nitrogen Feed once a week to try and boost thier growth a bit. (Cabbages on rhs, two of my caulies on lhs of photo)

Now my root crops. Again after a slow (very very slow start, I am beginning to see a bit of growth, so first are my stump carrots......

followed by my long carrots (of which 20% of the stations had to be resown).....

Parsnips seem to be doing okay though.....

And so does the long beet (though not having grown this before, I'm not sure if they are behind where they could normally be expected at this stage of the season)

Now, on the subject of my daughters bird hotel, I am normally quite ken on keeping the sand from the tops of my plants, but with the garden occassionally looking like a scene from Alfred Hotchcocks movie, the tops of my barrels have now become sand baths for the little feathered beasts too. !
Now we have my onions and garlic. The first shot shows my Hercules onion sets and Garlic Thermidor, the following shot is of the stray elephant garlic plant that I had forgotten about and nearly cocvered with a growing box.

I am also trying some Kelsae onions this year - these were bought as plug plants from Mr Fothergills and are now in 5 litre pots but the best ten or so will be shortly moved into the same type of tubs as my leeks are in - 25 litre animal mineral lick tubs - of which I have a never ending supply.

And as for the leeks that I was given by Helen Vincent (another NVS member), here they are being modelled by my youngest daughter Niamh,

And finally my tomatoes are now in their final positions - in bottomless flower buckets and grow bags. I only have six plants this year and am already wishing I hadn't deceided to take a year off from the polytunnel as I just do not have enough room at home. These are way behind last years and whilst I know that over the next coming month or six weeks a lot of my stuff will catch up with those of growers further south, as we have up to 23 hours daylight on the longest day :) , it is frustrating to read other blogs  and see people with not only fruits on the plants but also picking fruit from their plants already!

So that's where I am at the moment. Hopefully we will eventaully se an improvement in the weather and things will start to grow but for the moment it is just a case of grin and bear it !!

Veg Update

With a lot of othet things eating into my time recently, I haven't got round to updating the picture as regards my show veg - that and the fact that until this week, when the weather has improved beyond all recognition, that not a lot had moved since my last update way back when.
So here goes.

First off is the long beet - I wasn't planning on growing these as they are notoriously fickle creatures to grow well but as I was gifted some seeds I thought I'd have a go. They are growing in a barrel with 5 stations bored and filled with the prescribed compost mix.

Next are the long Carrots - these were slow to get going and the germination rate wasn't the best, and I had to resow two stations out of the 10 I have - again at 5 stations per barrel.

And to complete my barrels, I have two barrels of Parsnips. These have really started to grow away this week with the arrival of the warmer weather and are looking quite strong and healthy so far.

Myt atties have finally emerged from the JBA compost mix (with the exception of Sherine which was planted a week later due to my giving away too many of my polypots to a new grower and leaving myself short. I have 10 bags each of Sherine, Amour, Kestrel , BlueBelle and Casablanca but as with most things , these are about three weeks behind this same point last year due to the crap weather in April and most of this month. Pictured is a bag of Kestrel...

My Kelsae onions, bought from Mr Fothergills have started to grow away stronly now having bee a bit slow to get going. These started in 3" pots, then into 1 litre pots, then a select few were potted into 5 litre pots and there will be one more cull when the creme de la creme will go into the 25 litre mineral lick tubs I have.
My Hercules onion sets and Garlic are looking nice and healthy too.

With the arrival of the good weather, I have also got my Show Perfection peas out, as well as my French Beans - both lots of reselected seed courtesy on Ian Stocks of the NVS. I have also plantd out my runner beans. These are from self saved seed off the Stenner plants I grew last season. And the final plants being grown from reselected home grown seed (rhough not necessarily my home) are the Heathfield Broad Beans which I got from Frank Taylor, also of the NVS. Pics below

And finally, the leeks that I was given by Helen Vincent, also of tyhe NVS, are in their large mineral lick buckets and outside. Now I have never tried to grow these for show so this year is very much a trial run, although given the quality of Helens leeks, I feel duty (and honour) bound to do my utmost to bench a decent set at one of my planned shows this year.

Over and above the following, my first sowing of Cauliflower Raleigh are in, the second to be planted out next week, when the third is potted on, my Cabbage Liberator are in and my Cedrico toms will be planted into bottomless buckets and growbags shortly.

I think that's it for now. Will try and update on a more regular basis now that things are starting to grow !!

Castle Garden update

Another update from one of my work gardens. This is Ballone Castle which is where I spend my Saturdays. Although the weather has been pretty crap, there always seems to be plenty to keep me occupied.
Pictured below are the raised beds which were constructed for Lachie's parents. One thing to note is that nothing, and I mean nothing is ever straight forward here. "We'll build a couple of raised beds for my mum and dad" he said. No bother, nice and easy, 8 lengths of timber, some long screws, a pile of manure, some topsoil and Bob's your Uncle I thought. - NO!
Lachie drew up a rough plan of what he wanted and here is the result. Two beds, shaped like an abstract thistle leaf (this matches a lot of the design features in both the castle itself, and his parents house at the back of the castle.

These have still to be planted up but are filled with well rotted horse manure with some really nice topsoil - planting to commence soon (weather dependent of course!)
With the weather being really good this weekend, I managed to get the tatties planted. These are not in the veg patch at the castle but in a veg plot at the farm at the end of the track. There are two first earlies, Arran Pilot and Swift, and the maincrop is Desiree.

Back at the castle, the greenhouse is beginning to fill up with veg seeds of all sorts as well as a lot of sweet peas.

The greenhouse is also home to two grapevines, one white and one black, and these are really starting to motor on now

And not to be outdone, the fig tree is also bursting with fresh growth - hopefully we'll get a nice crop again.

The greenhouse is situated against one wall of the Courtyard Garden, which when viewed from above (ie from the castle), is laid out in a pictish / celtic design (copied from a local standing stone) with the pattern being formed by Laurel, Escallonia and Olearia hedges. These also form a lot of small beds which are home to a lot of bulbs and perennials. It is also home to a dozen aple trees and about 24 gooseberry bushes. (they like gooseberries a lot)

Next job is to finish preparing the veg plot which is on the foreshore below the castle. I managed to spray off a goodly area where I shall be planting a rosa rugosa hedge as well as a decorative hedge of Globe Artichokes, and sprayed the pathways and also the stone wall (built from stones dug out of the veg patch - more on this when it is in a reasonable photographic state !!

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