Kitchen Garden Forum

A lovely story from the past, Clive….how things change!

I never saw the Lancaster, Clive…..

Having let the bins 'settle' a little I've just got a few more bramble briars in them that are climbing over my bottom fence...from beyond.

Lancaster passed three quarter mile South East abeam you Old H', literally as I clicked submit on my earlier post.

The thought is that the old chicken run might get the mower over it another time in a possible resurgence of the..back lawn...maybe...

C.

Well the brief respite from the high temps is finished & back to over 30C tomorrow. I will have to go down to water & should be OK to do a few bits until late morning. I had a quick look at the long term forecast & it looks like we could be in for an Indian summer, which would be a bit of a compensation for the late, wet start; but the down side is it won't suit the Chinese veg so think I will leave them for a bit & sow later. Of course it could turn out very differently!

I think the Lancaster came over about 10 mins ago…..I nearly broke my leg trying to get out of the shower to see….there are other planes going over at the moment!

Our allotments are bone dry, Westi……

I'm glad these hot days have a similar pattern here, where it is perfectly fine; warmish but not stinking hot during the morning while outside, then really warm & humid in the afternoon so I can hide in front of the fan at home! 32C showing on the home thermometer & it is in the shade.

I did not waste the time down there; all 3 asparagus beds weeded, blackberry cut back around the shed, flower pots weeded, apple tree cut back as new growth is getting caught up in the hedge row but not enough to be pricked by the spiky stuff; (yep railway still mucking around so hedge row still not been trimmed), & everything watered. Watering is becoming a right pain as every time I use the hose, it either pops off the tap or the sprayer pops off the other end. The expandable hose just does not totally stretch out so I have to use the cans for the back so defeating the point of having it, so back to the old one which is well past it's use by, hence the pop offs. Too late in the year to be too bothered but definitely going to be on my research list over winter as so time consuming.

Varied the food bank contributions today, hope they like beetroot as had an overload of that, plus more courgettes, but they will soon be getting runners & lettuce so I should be forgiven!

that all sounds very productive & exhausting Westi! You've been harvesting a lot then? I seem to have had little to harvest yet. The tomatoes are remaining stoicly green, green beans second sowing are now finally flwoering after the first sowing were slugged. I have a few big cooking apples on my columnar 'Lord Derby' tree, potted balckberries....I think soemthing is eating them, theres always lots of green ones, then when I go to pick them, there's not many ripe!! Greenhouse cucumbers & chillies are doing well now, might have to start donating the cucumbers to neighbours soon.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY OH!

I hope you had a wonderful day! Thanks for all your participation, humour & advice! X

It’s so interesting hearing how varying parts of the country differ in their harvest.

we’ve been chomping our way through various tomato varieties, potatoes, lettuce, carrots, mangetout and cybees. Not much else come to fruition sadly. the green beans are well behind and not seen any flowers on them. The aubergine (thanks for helping to ID it) had only just set flowers. The cucamelon is all foliage and no fruit, same the sweet potatoes but they’ll hopefully be working away underground. Leeks are so varied it’s hilarious, everything from 4mm to 15mm diameter.

Our neighbour is seemingly well known in the vegetable showing world up here and judges the same. He showed me around his back garden and OMG, his leeks were almost as thick as my wrist. He does have them growing in a specialist compost that he skirted around what make it is, in big blue barrels with a two foot dug down sand mix below. His onions were also spectacular.

Funnily on another forum, (Soz KG, but you are number 1), I mentioned pretty much the same regarding differing parts of the country having very abnormal harvests. Folk up north were being overwhelmed by ripe fruit, folk down south with a potential great harvest were finding their's stubbornly refusing to colour. Mine are in-between with just enough ripe to cope with & not the usual overload!

I was thinking this is probably global warming, which is undoubtedly being closely monitored by clever folk, but is their's in controlled environments? Whose monitoring the real affects around the country? Are these clever folk out & about as well? Are these area's up north slowly creating their own micro climates as a result of global warming? I know it's my erratic brain overworking but maybe they should investigate the real world we grow in & get involved with all the growing forums to collect info, whether to confirm their findings or highlight differences. Might help in the long term?

Oooo, I wonder what the other forum is called….grapevine, maybe?

No more blackberries! I did have some when down on Friday but not quite ripe, but all had disappeared! Oh well, it sorted the required chores for today anyway, so outside front of tunnel beds all trimmed, weeded, cut back, tied in etc. Even tackled the tarragon, not to the point of digging it out but thought I'd make a small hedge of it as it's the Russian one which is a right thug! Had a lovely time chasing the bind weed there as well! Missed the bus that goes closest to home, but kinda didn't mind the extra couple of blocks walk home as very satisfied as to how good it looks.

Looks as if we are in for some crop damaging winds! Hope we get some rain though, as we keep missing it……

My attention was drawn to my poorly looking pumpkins today, mainly leaves dying off. I abandoned the other plans to investigate & my first thought was to weed around their growing holes as they seemed to be enticing the weeds big time which was not unexpected as nice warm heavily fed soil under the membrane as I prepped this site over winter with the last of my cow manure. Not easy tip toeing around all the vines but mission accomplished & nothing to note, but did loose 1 plant. Along came the dog to investigate this empty space & have a dig & got over enthusiastic digging so went to investigate & she had found a nice rat run. Thought I best check where this went & when I did it went under all but 2 of my pumpkins. And here I was thinking how easy it was to pull the weeds!!! All the rest sorted & stomped on & hopefully saved, but pretty confident as big long vines with healthy leaves as well. Best not reprimand the dog for digging for a bit so I can track what beds the rats will move to next!

Missed the rain again today but, Saturday is looking promising…

OH! You should have let me know I would have directed some your way. It has been non stop down here from drizzle to the odd sharp shower, along with the gusts; & seems to be here until Sunday, then finally a run of sunny weather. I will finally be able to get the spuds up some time next week - fingers crossed! Haven't seen too many slugs around so hoping the little black ones are not having some rave in my spuds!