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Early Autumn in the garden – Harvests, flowers & sunshine
Still feeling like summer These days, early autumn is indistinguishable from summer. In fact we regularly have better weather in early autumn than we do in mid-summer. The only real clue to the season is the shortening day length. Initially, hardly noticeable until we head into late autumn and the time change. It was so warm in September that our al fresco eating carried on well into mid-autumn – including some breakfasts! September is the month of bounty. Back in the days when we used to go on holiday, we’d come home to courgettes transformed into giant marrows. Which resulted in stuffed marrow and marrow chutney – we do hate…
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Super Simple Bean Salad with Mint & Thyme dressing
If you’ve ever grown climbing beans, then you’ll know that once they start producing, there’s no stopping them! So what do you do with all those beans? Well one thing you can make with the young tender beans is this delicious, quick and easy (5-10 minutes) bean salad. You don’t have to grow your own, it works just as well with shop bought beans. Why not give it a go! It makes a tasty accompaniment to a main meal. You can also eat it on its own, especially if you add a few chopped nuts, or some cheese (feta’s good) for extra protein. And some pasta or grains. It also…
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Beans – French, Runner & Borlotti
Growing beans in a pot Beans were the second crop I ever grew, after tomatoes. I only had the tiniest little veg area, so I grew some runner beans in Grans old dolly tub. I really don’t know what she’d have made of that! Now that we’ve moved house and created a kitchen garden, with six raised vegetable beds. I grow tulips in Granny’s old dolly tub, I even managed to find a matching one at the local auction house. Space to grow more beans Now having so much more space, I grow three types of climbing beans, French, Borlotti, and the good old ‘Runner’. I grow two varieties of…
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Tomatoes – My first crop
Tomatoes were the first edible plants I grew, which I’m sure is true of many gardeners. I’ve grown them from seed for more than 20 years now and February wouldn’t feel the same without the excitement of starting the tomatoes. Losing my dad as a teenager meant I lost all of his gardening knowledge, built up over so many generations. I still feel sad for all the gardening chats we would have had, as us gardeners do like to talk about our hobby. By the time I got into my mid-twenties, the gardening bug had got a hold of me. I knew so little and was desperate to learn more.…
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Time to bring the chillies in!
When we lived at our last house, we had no greenhouse, but we were desperate to grow chillies. We decided to have a go at growing them on the window sill. There was however a slight issue. The plants looked really healthy and were growing well, we just couldn’t understand why all these flowers weren’t producing fruit. Then it dawned on us, there were no insects in the house to pollinate them! We got one of my makeup brushes, and did a gentle dust on each flower. Eureka, fruit appeared! Keeping Chilli plants over winter All the guides talk about discarding the plants at the end of the season, and…
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Gardening through a pandemic – Part 5 Spring 2021
March, April, May 2021 Who’d have thought this time last year, that twelve months on we’d be in a third National lockdown! Admittedly the second was only a mini break, but still! They always say “it’s a good job you don’t know what’s coming” and it’s true! The amazing news however, is how many people in the UK that have already been vaccinated. Something to be truly proud of. So here we are in spring again! Luckily nature and the seasons know nothing of a human pandemic and carry-on regardless. I do think most gardeners would pick spring as their favourite month, I certainly do. All the trees and plants…
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Gardening through a pandemic – Part 4 Winter 2020/21
December, January, February So here we are in winter, we’re now in a full blown second wave of Covid infection. With the pandemic showing no signs of abating. We’re facing another lockdown and gardening alone isn’t going to get me through this one! I guess I’m finally going to have to tackle that list of indoor jobs. Luckily the first vaccine has been given approval here in the UK, so there is light at the end of the tunnel. We all feel cautiously optimistic for next year. December is probably the quietest gardening month for me. A bit of mulching and tidying on the nicer days. Flicking through the seed…
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Gardening through a pandemic – Part 3 Autumn 2020
September, October, November Sadly three months after lockdown easing at the beginning of summer, the infection rates are climbing sharply. It’s hard not to fear the worst, that we are sliding headlong into a second wave. We knew the pandemic was far from over and we’d all resigned ourselves to this happening come the winter, but we certainly didn’t expect it so soon. Luckily the garden is still providing me with a refuge from all the bad news. And after such a fabulous weather year, it just carries on giving. The late flowers of the Heleniums, Asters and Rudbeckias, just to mention a few, are still providing lots of colour.…
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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,…
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Gardening through a pandemic – Part 1 Spring
March, April, May. As we progressed through March 2020, coronavirus was becoming more and more alarming. When Italy put their country into lockdown, followed by Spain, panic buying ramped up here. As everyone else clambered for toilet rolls, my biggest concern was, have I got enough compost? I knew that as long as I could garden I could cope with anything! On 23rd March 2020, Britain followed others into a nationwide lockdown. Like so many people I found myself stuck at home. I am not a keyworker and I can’t work from home. So there it was, an unspecified period of time off work, with nowhere to go. 24th March…
