The harvest begins

Starting to have more tomatoes and cucumbers and French beans than we can eat fresh, so freezing is starting in earnest. The chest freezer is nearly full already – but I hope to rectify the situation by making some jam with the black and redcurrants that seem to be taking up the most space. I’m happy to report that I picked the last of the blackcurrants last evening. I grow two varieties, ‘Ben Sarek’ and another one of the Bens whose second name escapes me. Having the second, later variety has kept me picking blackcurrants for a couple weeks longer.

This year in the vegetable patch I made a conscious effort to grow varieties that would mature over a longer period. It’s worked great for the veg – ‘Sweet Olive’ and ‘Stupice’ tomatoes have ripened a full month before the other regular varieties are even thinking of turning red (‘Gardener’s Delight’, ‘Alicante’, ‘Shirley’ F1, ‘San Marzano’, ‘Tigerella’, ‘Sungella’). And the ‘Sweet Olive’ ones are truly very sweet. I find it hard to eat raw tomatoes but I actually managed to eat one of these. They are only a biteful – the size of a cherry tomato but shaped, not surprisingly, like an olive.

I also attempted to prolong the pea crop by using different varieties, but as usual, I spent loads of times on the peas early on and then neglected them. I always have a problem figuring out which variety is which since they invariably end up in a tangle. I had a really nice petit pois type and can’t figure out which variety it was from looking at the labels. Guess I’ll have to go back to the seed packets and my notes. Was hopeless at succession-sowing my peas.

Powdery mildew is getting my courgettes. It’s jumping over to my pumpkins and cucumbers, which is really starting to piss me off. I don’t mind sacrificing a few courgettes but don’t fool with my pumpkins and cukes. I’ve been keeping it at bay with a concoction of Neem oil and washing up liquid. Think I might try the diluted milk solution today to see if that does any good. I think the really hot weather we had earlier in the summer might have set the powdery mildew off. By the way, I have it in the tunnel and outside as well. I’ll have to be more diligent at watering next year if we have any kind of summer at all.
Going through the Chiltern catalogue now. I didn’t have time to do it for spring sowing, nor did I know that I would be growing plants to sell. I’m looking for some easy-to-grow-from-seed perennials, old standbys and maybe some interesting new plants that I don’t have. I’m asking for suggestions from anyone that will give me them.

It’s bucketing outside so I thought it an appropriate time to come in and catch up with the virtual world. Garden club is at my house this Saturday, so, of course, it’s raining just to keep me from doing the things I need to do before everyone shows up. I have to come up with a few projects to do – it’s an especially good time to do things that are difficult to do on your own (such as rolling out and pinning down huge swathes of mypex over 4-foot high grass – yes, the battle rages on). And also, it’s a good time to do things you have been putting off just because... well, just because you don’t fancy doing them: such as, shovelling out the old compost bin material into the new bin. Then of course there is the monumental amount of weeding that needs to be done – I am buried in buttercup (not repens, the other one – but I do have a fair amount of repens as well). This is the time of year I curse myself (literally) for being unable to make myself spray (though the driveway and parking areas do need a good blast – Did I tell you about my dislike of tarmacadam? Tidy, but so unnatural...).

Perspective. Yes, it’s all about perspective. I walk around the garden and all I can see is fault (strictly, not true, as I was just admiring the poppies that are going full guns right now and the tomatoes are fantastic). But had relatives over yesterday, one of whom I would consider to have one of the loveliest smallholdings you have ever seen – his garden should be on TV or featured in a magazine. He gave me a few compliments on how the garden is shaping up, which was very nice to hear. I think maybe you can see your own weeds whereas other people see only the good stuff.

Speaking of weeds... the rain is slowing down now. Good time to get out there and get to work.

Hot and humid

It's great -- the weather feels just like home. I'm originally from the east coast of America and am used to summers that are like walking around with a hot, wet towel wrapped around you. After 2 of the worst summers I ever remember, it makes a nice change to be hot and sweaty and bitten to pieces by horseflies. Isn't it just divine?

Picked a pound and a half of redcurrants the other evening. The blackcurrants are nearly ready. They are deceivingly dark -- but dare taste one and you are in for a blast of sharp tartness that curls your mouth up. Lovely. The gooseberry bush isn't carry much fruit as I had to move it last year -- just a handful of lovely berries. But I'm still not sure about the gooseberry as it is not something that I am used to growing. Currants and gooseberries just don't do well in Virginia -- they'd just mildew to death. But they are fantastic here in Ireland. Usually get a few aphids on the currants but nothing I can't handle by blasting with a hose.

Ate the first cucumber yesterday -- it was great and really signals to me that summer is here. They'll start coming in fast and furious soon (though not as much so as the courgettes). I got a great recipe for making quick dill pickles that you just keep in your fridge. It's a great way to use up the extra cukes.

I'm debating about my ornamental beds -- or lack, thereof. I've lots of perennials that need to get out of their pots and stretch their legs, but I've nowhere to put them. I think I'm going to have to make some nursery beds to home them for the time being. Plus, I'll be wanting to propogate them, so they really need to get growing well -- this just isn't going to happen if they are stuck in pots. Plus, I'm getting tired of watering them. I've a couple of lovely Astrantias, a nice Geum, a Rosa 'Gertrude Jekyll', 3 or 4 Dieramas, and a couple of primroses.

But before I get to do the fun stuff, I have to finish mowing the grass -- this includes cutting my big path in the rough field. It's getting easier every time I do it and it does make the place look almost civilised. I walked through it yesterday evening -- this is a field full of scutch grass and other kinds of field grasses -- and I hate to say it because it is so unmanageable, but it was lovely. The seedheads on the grass are a lovely lavender and they were rustling to and fro in the breeze. Really lovely, especially in the fading light. This is the grass that I regularly curse and cannot seem to get rid of in an organic manner. But yesterday evening, I stopped and appreciated it, for just a moment anyway.

My friend's first plant sale

My friend is having a plant sale next week. Guess it's a good way to get rid of all those extra seedlings and plants that you've been nurturing along but don't have a notion of planting out due to time and space constraints. I'll be taking some of my extras up to her to try and flog. It has to be said that we've already tried to give a lot of these plants away to people in our garden club (for free of course). But as we only have about 10 members, there is still more to be had.

I think my friend has lots of vegetable plants and some perennials and annuals. I have mostly perennials. I do have teasle seedlings which become these huge plants with lovely tactile flowerheads. They were used in the old days to comb out wool. I have Verbascum 'Violetta' which is a lovely purple verbascum -- one warning, if you live in a windy area a little staking will help keep the flower spikes upright. I find it a good alternative to Delphinium which I have a problem with due to the enormous slug population in my part of the world. They don't seem to bother the Verbascum too much. I have a couple of Geums, 'Mrs Bradshaw' is one, the species coccineum is the other. And I have Knautia, Melton's pastels and the species macedonica. It's a great plant.

So we'll see how it goes. I have this dream of selling a few plants from my home. I love talking about plants and sharing them as well, so it would be as much to meet kindred spirits as it would be to make a few bob to cover the cost of seeds and compost (if not more so).

The First Post

Well, I might as well just start this. I've been blogging for a while now on a couple of other sites, I guess what you might call safe sites as there are a lot of other things on them besides blogs. I've decided to go independent (Look, Mom, I'm all growed up now).

The one thing I can honestly say I'm passionate about is gardening. You name it, I'll grow it. Well, strictly speaking, that's not true. I don't do house plants -- mainly because I live in a little bitty house, so any spare windowsills are devoted to seedlings, and cuttings attempting to root. I'm sure if I had a mansion of a house it would be full of houseplants. But probably what I'd really have is more seedlings and cuttings attempting to root.

I'm gardening on an acre in the far west of Ireland, just about as far as you can get without actually being on the coast. I'm about 10 miles inland so we get a good blast of a westerly wind... let's see, how shall I describe it... often. And since I'm in Ireland, we get a lot of (yep, you guessed it) rain. This means loads of lovely fungal diseases and millions and millions of slugs (my arch nemesis -- well, them and scutch grass). At least we don't have to water that much outside... except when... we have a dry spell, like right now. Anyway, I have to water the polytunnel which is a burden, but it's my own fault because I refuse to put in an irrigation system. Why, you ask. Because it is so damp here at times that fungal diseases build up like nobody's business. So I like to direct my watering to exactly where it needs to go. Thus, lots of Evian bottles with their bottoms cut off, turned upside down and plunged in beside the thirsty little plants. It works well and makes feeding a doddle.

I try to grow organically and I dabble in saving my own seed. But I'm about to go medieval on the scutch grass and blast it with some Roundup or Scutchout. I should've done it when I first got here 4 years ago... but noooo. I was all starry-eyed and grow your own organic blah de blah. I'm paying for that now. In some spots in my garden it is just too dodgy to spray (because the wind never completely stops here). So when I read about running the hoe over weeds to keep on top of them... that just doesn't work with dock, scutch grass, nettles, thistles and the like -- noxious (or obnoxious, as I like to call them) perennial weeds.

So I've a polytunnel as I mentioned. I'd be lost without it. I've lots of raised vegetable beds outside, a small orchard (6 apples and 3 plums at the minute), currant and goosberry bushes. I've a bed of lots of different willow growing from cuttings. I've 4 long rows of cane fruit (really should've killed the grass and weeds here before planting, but that would just spoil the fun, wouldn't it?). What I'm missing is ornamental beds. I had one nice big bed dug over when the TGF (that's the Tall Ginger Fella, aka, my husband) informed me that the footpath around the house was being busted up and re-poured. That means a digger, and a digger in my newly dug bed... foiled again. So I've loads of lovely perennials in pots and the vine weevils chomping at the bit... and nowhere decent to plant them. But, I can worry about that tomorrow...

Reading... The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry