Kitchen Garden Forum

Westi, I retired in early 2019. Up to the middle of 2018 I could say I loved & enjoyed what I was doing, then over the autumn of 2018 I found that it was a miserable grind, so made the decision over just a few days in February 2019.
I did know I could afford to, the undergardener had told me so several years ago. So I did. No run in, no slowing down.
I don't regret it and threw myself into the 'lottie, some voluntary gardening and was able to give more support to my sister over the last months of our father's life.

Once you have retired you will wonder how you ever had time for work....Enjoy your retirement Westi,

Yesterday's sunshine brought out the butterflies: small tortoiseshell, peacock, red admiral, wall brown, comma and lots of large and small whites. Alas, today it's warm but completely overcast again, so no more of them. At least there are lots and lots of different bumblebees, especially on the teasels, sunflowers and single dahlias.

Around 5 years ago my daughter bought my wife an olive tree as a birthday present I was given the job of planting it I didn’t think it would do anything as it’s too cold in this country even so we have around four in Spain and they never fruit today I give it a glance when passing and it’s full of small olives

Mine gets the little baby green fruitlets but rarely do they proceed to anything much - but I did actually did get one fully ripe olive one year! I had hardly mapped out my new career as an olive oil producer when the damn thing fell off!

I got 7 ripe olives on my porch tree last year. I actually bothered to go through the preserving stages to see if they were edible. My DH said they were fine!

Don’t go and flood the market, Retropants….

Retropants. Can I order a bottle of first pressing please.

Westi & Retropants. I,m sure you won,t regret your decisions. A full time working life leaves little time or space to "smell the roses" and if anything the Covid pandemic has made many people reassess the key values in their lives..
I hope you'll both enjoy having more time and energy for the things that are really important to you.

Primrose, I haven't so far! feeling a little guilty though, as we are very busy.

OH & shallotman, I'm not taking orders at present In fact I don't recall seeing any on there this year.

Although the tops of my Kestrel potatoes succumbed to blight, I was really pleased with the amount I harvested today….75kg off 2.5kg of seed potatoes. My Rooster on the other hand well, the biggest is the size of a hens egg…

I grew Rooster for the first time this year and was worried the seed were very small. The tops looked awful but had not fully gone to mush so I was never quite sure if it was blight but I cut them off and left the potatoes for a week or so. They've come up clean but they are on the small side but not as bad as hens eggs. Got 88½kg from ?, can't remember, just looked at order email says quantity 3 so guess 3kg.
I'm having a fruity time. Removed my third year strawberries and changed the soil (that's why the potatoes had to come up) and planted new runners and potted up 24 for forcing. Then pruned summer raspberries, black currants and red currants. Off down the orchard shortly to do the somewhat late Summer pruning.
By the way OH, did your runner beans get growing, ours have had a fantastic crop in the end with big trusses still coming, they are Firestorm.

Strange with the weather this summer. Virtually everybody I know who is growing beans is reporting good crops once they got going but everybody's outdoor tomatoes are cropping relatively poorly. Certainly our tomatoes (mostly Ferline & Primabella) are not cropping anywhere near as prolifically or ripening as early as last year. This slightly strange because I see the media are reporting that this summer temperatures have actually been warmer overall than last year. It certainly hasn't felt like it here. I think the lack of actual sunshine makes a big difference to the way plants grow.

Afternoon Geoff, yes, my beans are cropping really well now but, I don’t think there will be time for the usual second flush of flowers and beans….I did plant a second lot of runner bean plants and these are just starting to set their first flowers so, not all is lost.

OH, time for Late Summer Bits and Bobs perhaps? Certainly feels like it.