Gardening through a pandemic – Part 2 Summertime

June, July, August

As the calendar clicked over into June, lockdown restrictions eased slightly. People in England were allowed to meet outside, up to a maximum of six. And here in Wales we could meet outside with one other household.

This marked the point where you could see your friends and family in person again, as long as you stayed in the garden – which was fine with me!

1st June – Life in the pond

So I start the summer period in the same place that I started the spring period, by the pond. This time though watching my newts.

I’d been desperate for a wildlife pond for years, and we finally created one four years ago. I mainly wanted frogs and dragonflies, as I’ve mentioned previously. It never even occurred to me that we’d get newts, but they were the first to move in.

The day I spotted Nigel (as I christened him/her) I rang my husband in work, and could hardly get my words out I was so excited! He said have we won the lottery? I said “no it’s better than that, we’ve got a newt in the pond!!!”

Luckily we’ve had them every year since, but this year we’ve had at least three. I suspect two females and one male, as he’s been chasing them around. It’s been lovely having all the time in the world to sit and watch them, thanks to lockdown.

5th June – Damselfly rescue

Nearly a week after the damselflies had emerged, they were everywhere. Including getting stuck in the greenhouse. We have a wonderful gizmo, bought for rescuing bees. It’s for the end of the day before we close the greenhouse up. But it’s equally good for catching damselflies.

One though had surpassed itself by getting trapped in between the greenhouse and the sliding door. I spent ages carefully closing and reopening the door before finally managing to coax it out. Again the joys of having lots of time!

11th June – Helping a friend

A week earlier a friend had sent me a photo of her newly constructed raised bed, asking for help in planting it. I’d said that I’d got lots of spare plants that would be suitable and sent her photos of them to see if she liked any.

As you could now visited another household outdoors I went around laden, and we (the royal we) set about planting it up. She’d already bought a Festuca glauca, and for a newly planted border it looked quite good straight away. It just needed a couple more plants, so I gave her the names of a few suitable ones. She chose a salvia and a geum.

This year it’s looking really quite established.

13th June – Visitors at last

After three months, we have our first guests around for drinks in the garden. Thank goodness for the garden!

14th June – Frogs, beans and peas

Do you remember those little tadpoles back in March? Well they are now little frogs and I keep finding them all over the garden. They do make me jump when I’m not expecting them, but I love them, and they always make me smile.

Another good harvest of broad beans, and this year I’ve had time to sit in the garden podding them at my leisure. I’m not even bothered about them making my fingernails go black, as no one’s going to see them! The mangetout are as prolific as ever.

17th June – Keeping in touch

My niece sent me a photo of her excellent garlic harvest. You should see her onions, she can plait them as well as her hair.

19th June – Lots of beets

I have my best beetroot harvest to date. As I’ve had more time I’ve been keeping up with the repeat sowing which I normally struggle with, and of course regular watering. It paid off and we’ve had a sustained period of regular beetroot. I grow three varieties ‘Red Ace’, ‘Chioggia and ‘Golden Globe’.

Strangely I didn’t used to like it, but my husband loves it. I made him a beetroot tart from a Raymond Blanc book called ‘Kew on a plate’. I obviously tried it and couldn’t believe how nice it was, I was converted thanks to Raymond! Raymond’s recipe used golden beets which I couldn’t buy anywhere so I used the usual red ones. The following year I grew ‘golden globe’ and have grown them ever since.

24th June – The children’s Peas

I was absolutely thrilled to receive a photo from my nephew, of the bowl of peas his children had grown and harvested.

26th June – Cherry Bakewell anyone?

All this lovely weather had produced a bumper crop of cherries. The cherry tree had lived in a pot for a few years, but had gone from strength to strength since being planted in the ground.

We now had so many cherries that I made my husband’s favourite pudding, a cherry Bakewell – it didn’t last long!

2nd July – Plant shopping at last!

Finally I got to my favourite local plant nursery! Apart from food shopping for myself, neighbours and my elderly mother. The only other place id been since March, was a socially distanced walk with an old school friend just before her big birthday.

It felt like bliss to be wandering around picking out plants. As my husband and I would be celebrating a special anniversary later in the year this Campanula ‘Wedding Bells’ seemed rather appropriate.

3rd July – Baking blueberry muffins

One bumper crop after another! This time blueberries, we got punnet after punnet. The birds normally help themselves and we only get a handful, so we decided to make a cage. With no shops open we used what bits of wood we already had, a bit of chicken wire and some garden netting. It didn’t look the prettiest fruit cage but it certainly did the job!

We had so many, we were obviously having them for breakfast each day, but we needed to do something to preserve them.

Luckily I already had self raising flour in the cupboard, as this was one of the items impossible to get hold of. Apparently everyone had taken to baking! Joining them I made blueberry muffins and froze them.

4th July – Back to work

After 13 weeks gardening leave, I was allowed back to work. I was going to miss the garden!

6th July – Figs at last

We had planted a fig tree ‘Brunswick’ back in 2016, it had produced a few small figs, but they had come to nothing.

But this was the year that they finally ripened, what fabulous timing!

We started eating them in July and had out last in October. Our favourite way to eat them was on toast with feta cheese and balsamic glaze.

12th July – Virtual Garden tour

I was thrilled to receive a video from my ‘gardening’ niece. It was a virtual tour of her garden. It included her chillies, sweetcorn and tomatoes.

16th July – Photos

Do you remember my friend sowing her first cucumber seeds back on the 14th April, in Part 1? Well she’s just updated me with her food growing progress. Her chillies and aubergines have flowers, but her cucumber plants are fruiting!

23rd July – Watch those horseflies!

I’d noticed horse flies in the greenhouse but wasn’t particularly bothered about them until… I had my first ever bite from one, I initially thought it was just a normal bite but it got so nasty and really hurt. Luckily with plenty of antihistamine cream it went eventually. But when I saw one on my Sarracenia Leucophylla (fly catching pitcher plant), I was willing it to go in.

31st July – Young gardeners

My nephew sent me the photos of his children harvesting their potatoes. I hope this is something they always remember and maybe when they get their own gardens might want to recreate.

1st August – Frogs and Brandywine

Through James Wongs book ‘Grow for flavour’ I discovered an amazing variety of tomato ‘brandywine’, it’s huge but unlike most large tomatoes it’s full of flavour and has a dense texture that produces the creamiest tomato sauce. We’d been eating the smaller tomatoes for weeks but today the first brandywine was ripe.

The tomatoes I’ve grown this year are, from top to bottom; ‘Brandywine’, ‘Orange Bourgois’, ‘Tomtastic’, ‘Sungold’ & ‘Rosella’.

As I was picking them I noticed a frog in greenhouse, this is now a reoccurring theme. I worry that it will be too hot in there for them, but they seem to like it in there. I always put a plant pot saucer with water in for them.

8th August – Get the family around

After the rules changed in Wales on 3rd August allowing up to 30 people to meet outdoors. I finally got my immediate family around, totalling nine of us. My husband and I spent all morning arranging small tables so that we could all socially distance. This was going to be a very different kind of family gathering!

11th August – Easy onions

My first onion harvest. I don’t think I had any idea how easy it would be to grow onions, especially from sets. This is what I’m always trying to put over to people, gardening isn’t complicated, anyone can have a go!

12th August – First flower show

Our local horticultural society decided to stage the annual flower and produce show virtually. I’ve never entered one before, but was intending to this year. This was my chance so I entered 5 in a basket and sent in the photo. Sadly I never heard anything back so I guess I didn’t get anywhere, but it was nice to try.

13th August – Jack and the bean stalk

Everyone that grows beans knows how prolific they are, you always have too many. I make a conscious effort not to grow too many plants, but I still have a glut. Something we do with them every year is make bean curry to freeze. This is then something we enjoy eating, unlike those bags of beans in the freezer that just sit there.

This year I happened to see a recipe for a bean salad, that I adapted. It’s just simply the young tender beans chopped up, a dressing made up in the mortar and pestle of, fresh mint and thyme, olive oil and white wine vinegar.

31th August – Enjoy the flowers

Even the flowers seemed to do better this year, but with all that early sunshine it was not surprising. The water lily was spectacular, the second flush of roses was better than normal and sunflowers took on a whole new meaning.

There were lots of sunflower seeds given away by newspapers, horticultural societies and villages. As they are so bright and easy to grow it was thought that they would add a bit of cheer to the gloomy situation. It’s hard not to smile when you see one!