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Garden Diary – Does the sky look bluer this week?
Last week, in between the pretty good balance of sunny spells and showers, I kept feeling that the blueness of the sky seemed much more intense, so much so that I googled it. I know we say this all the time now, but, what did we do before googling? I suppose we just wondered! Anyway it turns out that I am quite right, the sky is bluer in autumn and it’s all due to the temperature dropping and humidity levels falling. This drier air means less scattering of the blue light, allowing more of it to reach our eyes and making the sky appear more blue. I thought that was…
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Garden Diary – Turning the harvest into Curry & Pear Cake
The first week of September had the house smelling of curry and pear cake, as the harvesting continued. We make other ready meals for the freezer but we do love curry and cake. Not necessarily at the same time, you probably know by now that we eat our low sugar fruit and vegetable cakes for breakfast. Although, the gardeners mate would happily eat curry for breakfast, he rarely has! After hearing on the radio this week of how, what you consume affects your mood and mental health, I felt really sad that as a nation we’ve moved so far away from scratch cooking being the norm. It’s not that many…
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Garden diary – Cheers! The garden finally got a drink.
Just as the borders were starting to look incredibly sad, the rain finally came and the garden had a drink. We still need more, but it certainly does look better for it! I’m so glad though, that the warm sunny weather lasted over August bank holiday especially for those still holidaying. It is quite a rarity! As I’ve previously mentioned the white garden has suffered the most, mainly because it is underneath our enormous walnut tree, which casts its shadows over the whole area. And also must require a huge amount of water. We’re actually quite worried about it as it is looking very droopy! Unfortunately the bit of rain…
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Garden Diary – I’d rather be in the garden!
We’ve reached that time of year where I spend as much time in the kitchen as I do in the garden, turning all the produce into ready meals for the freezer. Don’t get me wrong I do really enjoy cooking, but when the weather is lovely outside, I’d rather be in the garden! But with more ripe raspberries on a daily basis and a basket full of pears that ripen so quickly once they are picked. There is lots of baking to be done! When out picking yet more fruit the ‘gardeners mate’ shouted me over to see a butterfly he thought looked smaller than usual. I said, “oh it’s…
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Garden Diary – Is it a record breaking tomato?
I’ve been watching this tomato get bigger and bigger, thinking, ‘this is definitely going to break my existing record’. But sadly it was 20g short. The original record was set back in August 2017 by a ‘Brandywine’ tomato. Although they do get rather large, nothing has come close to that huge fruit. Last year I ordered some seeds for a tomato variety called ‘Gourmansun’, but they were not what they claimed to be. Luckily the plant did produce some huge orange tomatoes that I named, ‘Orange Sunshine’, and they were delicious, so I saved the seeds and grew them again this year. The plant has grown tall and thin like…
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Garden Diary – From escaping Aubergines to rescuing Dahlias
I don’t know what’s going on with my Aubergines, but both plants have set fruit so low that they are having to grow outside the pot, it looks ever so funny like they are trying to escape. Also in the greenhouse, the variegated chilli plant that I mentioned a while back has turned out to be quite a stunner, with purple in the variegated leaves. The chillies are growing vertically, initially black but then gradually turning scarlet, which we all know is a sign of danger! I’ve been spicing up my food with the reasonably hot, and beautifully purple ‘Buena Mulata’, but the ‘gardeners mate’, – his new title after…
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Garden Diary – Grateful for good health & a tidy greenhouse
Last week marked the twelve month anniversary of a rather nasty fall I had, involving me cracking my vertebra. I felt extremely lucky at the time that no long term damage had been done and a year on I still feel grateful. Without good health, nothing that people think of as important actually matters, but sadly most of the time we take it for granted. The ‘under gardener’ got his promotion this time last year, up from ‘garden apprentice’ with having to take on many more gardening jobs than he’d done before. Some of which he’d not actually been allowed to do before! Lol. Anyway he’s now having a steady…
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Garden Diary – Picking fruit with butterflies bringing rain
Don’t they say, that a butterfly in Brazil fluttering its wings can cause a tornado in Texas? Well it must be true! As, no sooner did the garden fill with butterflies fluttering all around than we finally got thunderstorms and rain! Joking apart though, we have had more butterflies than I’ve seen for years, possibly in all the years we’ve been here. But I don’t believe that they are in any way responsible for the thunderstorms! My butterfly identifying skills occasionally need a bit of work though, with me regularly mixing up the Meadow Brown with a Gatekeeper, luckily social media is full of lots of knowledgeable people that helped…
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Garden Diary – Eating Tomatoes, & Admiring my Agapanthus
All that heat has made my tomatoes, and sun loving, South African, Agapanthus go into overdrive! In just one week I’ve gone from collecting the tomatoes in a small bowl, to a large plate and finally I’ve had to get the trug out and de-cobweb it! The tomato production normally cranks up a bit slower, but the unusually hot weather has brought everything on so quickly! Meaning I’m having to make time to transform the produce into meals for the freezer, in between renovating the house, and of course using the temporary kitchen! Everything in the greenhouse has had a boost, and the cucumbers have finally burst into full production…
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Garden Diary – Too hot, to be gardening!
Well, that was certainly a hot week! Far too hot to be gardening, unless you count constant watering, which I don’t as I find it quite boring! To me it’s frustrating seeing all the jobs I’d like to be getting on with instead of standing there sweltering. A number of the crops have been loving the heat, one being the tomatoes. We got our first ripe beefsteak tomato ‘Brandywine’ last week, which I know I go on about a lot, but you would if you’d tasted it, it’s delicious. It’s not at all like those big tasteless varieties, it’s soft, creamy and full of flavour. We made it into our…
