Heatwave

Courgette flowers! These are male, with no fruit at the base, so can be snipped off and eaten - stuffed and fried is traditional, or else sliced and stirred through pasta or risotto, sprinkled on pizza, etc.

Written 27/06:
To begin with, I thought the characterisation of a few days of above-average temperatures as a 'heatwave' was a little excessive, but now we're in the middle of it, I feel more equivocal. It is unusually warm, especially for Scotland - over 30ºC in places, and obviously much hotter in sheltered, sunny spots. I enjoy the heat, and have ways to avoid it making things too uncomfortable (especially indoors at night), so it's great.

Lots of healthy kale plants have been one of the year's great successes so far. I've never grown them before, but they are so easy and so ornamental that they ought to be a fixture in the garden from now on.

It does mean a lot more watering. No rain is one thing - and June has been unseasonally dry, though less so up here than in parts of England - but this kind of heat dessicates everything very quickly, especially potted plants, and I have a few hundred of those. So at least two hours a day will be spent watering at the moment, although it's not much of a chore. I find it quite pleasant standing, or walking slowly round the garden, really looking at the plants,whilst soaking them. I have been using watering cans for the lower part of the garden*, as I find trailing a hose tens of metres more trouble, but even that is fine. There's a sense of achievement, as little by little, parched plants get their fill - and it doesn't have to be done every day (I do the garden in sections, otherwise it would take hours more!).

*I did use the hose the next day as the beds themselves needed a good soak.

Against all odds, there are pods swelling on the broad beans in the polytunnel. Small and few, but more than I expected from these poor neglected plants.

Some crops will suffer. Lettuces are very susceptible to drying out, though they recover quickly. Peas are said to hate hot weather, but so far they look fine. Cooler-weather crops like brassicas may or may not mind, but again they all look healthy at present. On the other hand, the tomatoes, chillies, aubergines, and courgettes are basking, and so long as they don't dry out, they will thrive. Had I known this weather was coming, I would perhaps not have felt so rushed to build the greenhouse, where even with the door and all the vents fully open, it's almost too warm at the moment - it's been as high as 39ºC, and today has hovered well over 30ºC all day. However, this weather cannot last, and when things return to normal, that's when it will come into its own.

Harvests are still thin on the ground. Ample lettuce, some leafy greens, herbs, and beets are about all the garden has to offer right now. My fault for not planning better or starting earlier in the year. But soon things will surely change - peas and beans, onions and garlic (and if I continue, there will be much more this time next year). Surely soon there will be more substantial crops. But for now there's plenty to do. I've been clearing the beds that will be taken up by cucurbits (courgettes, summer and winter squash, pumpkins), and summer beans, which have been utterly derelict since we came here four years ago. The vegetable garden is less and less a tiny island surrounded by weedy wilderness, and more orderly and full of beautiful edible plants, and as that change continues, I am sustained and willed on. Normally I have a slump at this time of year, but at present I feel there's such a weight of plants and progress that it has a momentum of its own now. And the weather helps with that too.

A dream coming true: ranks of vegetables swelling in the sunshine. Here are beetroot in the foreground, garlic to the right, and sweetcorn at the back.

Harvests
26/06 - 40g chard, 30g spinach, (approx. 200g elderflowers)
28/06 - 190g beetroot*
YTD total: 1.73kg

*note, this is trimmed of leaves, washed and dried - although the leaves are edible, they're not great once the bulbs are ready, so I compost them, and they aren't weighed.

 Here is a female courgette flower, not yet open, but the embryonic fruit is already distinct. It's the variety 'Burpee's Golden'.

Homecoming

A real cause for celebration - the first tomatoes are 'setting' (the fruits are forming). This plant hasn't even been put in its final position, but they are irrepressible.

I was only gone a week. Actually, I expected everything to look very different on my return, but it doesn't really. A few things - especially the smallest plants, seedlings in trays especially - have increased considerably in size, but most things haven't. Which is not to say the garden doesn't look different. While I was gone, there was a fair bit of rain, but also mild sunshine, which is good growing weather, and most things have survived and done fine. But it's just a week.

Beetroot 'Chioggia' sliced horizontally. It doesn't taste much different to red beetroot, but it's a lot prettier! Note, the stripes lose definition if you cook it in water - it's best eaten raw, or as here, baked into crisps (or deep fried, if you prefer).

I pulled the first beetroot almost the moment I arrived. A bit premature, as it turns out - the largest are still only ping-pong ball sized (I guess? I've never actually played) - so I'll leave the rest another week before trying again. But they are very healthy, beautiful-looking, and sweet to taste, so I'm pleased. Elsewhere, the garlic that was planted (most never was) is healthy and should be ready in a month. Likewise onions and peas. I'm a little concerned with the broad beans; the bed that wasn't thriving looks really unhealthy now, to the point where I might pull them out (or at least interplant with something in case they don't crop), and the one that was has lost most of its flowers but there seem very few pods. Maybe they're still small, I really hope that in my absence they didn't get shocked somehow - or was it the storm? They are most sensitive around this time, when the fruit is 'setting', so  maybe I was unlucky. Which is a pity, as they're usually trouble-free.

An aubergine! The first plant to go into the new greenhouse beds. I've never successfully grown them from seed before, so I'm really hoping this is my year. This is 'Little Fingers', with narrow fruits that will hopefully stand a better chance in this northern location. 

Brassicas need planting now. The potted plants are almost all very healthy but too large for their current homes - kales are providing a light crop already (see below). One or two have been killed off by slugs or snails, but that's to be expected. Lettuces are mostly fine, and will be cropped again in the next couple of days (I took a load with me while I was away, more than I needed, and there will be as much again to pick). Cucurbits look okay but again a bit constrained. Sweetcorn is so-so.

Three varieties of pea are flowering now. This is 'Spring Blush', which has very ornamental blooms as you can see.

My next major task is ordering a big bag - around 900 litres - of good compost (edit - I did this yesterday so it should be here in the coming week). The manure hasn't been a success, and I'm running out of other options. I need enough to lay the final no-dig beds, and preferably before July gets going. More coir, too.

I may not manage a large crop of parsnips this year - very few germinated - but I should have some. The ones that did grow are large and healthy, if crowded, as you can see.

Harvests
23/06 - 140g beetroot, 60g lettuce, 20g kale, 5g strawberry
24/06 - 25g lettuce, 25g kale, (250g elderflowers)*
YTD total: 1.47kg
*Once again I'm counting these separately, not including them in the total, because I didn't plant them

Delay

13/06
So I was going away. But then the weather did what it has a knack for - something inconvenient. After weeks of mostly settled, warm, dry weather, an intense storm is due to blast through tomorrow morning. Things I could have left in my absence - pots and trays, but also the greenhouse - needed to be secured. So I've put off going for a few more days, because this year I will not be thwarted.

~~~

14/06
So the storm has come and largely gone. Little damage, thankfully. The trees were whipped about, and at this time of year when they are fully clothed, they can more easily be brought down by a gale, but we were lucky. The greenhouse was about the most solid thing in the garden as it turned out - partly because I bit the bullet and did what I had been putting off, namely fixing the base down to the platform beneath. I have a mild aversion to certain things, and drilling through metal and masonry is not a favourite activity, but it had to be done eventually, and I wanted the structure to have a good chance. In fact, the sheer weight of the glazing holds it down for the most part, but this was insurance (and prevents the whole thing shifting). Now I've started, it's less daunting, and I'll finish soon.

The greenhouse was warm and calm today, while outside it was cool and violently blustery. I've moved more plants in already than can live there permanently, but it was a wise choice. Although many tomatoes I sowed and potted on haven't thrived, I have enough plants now to get a good crop even if no more are useable. Ditto chillies, peppers, and aubergines. Melons and cucumbers, I'm not sure about, and the okra have sulked since I potted them on a few weeks ago.

I also took delivery today of a new thing - coir. I have consumed hundreds of litres of compost in the last few weeks - various types, though I try to avoid peat-based ones as those are environmentally damaging. Coir is useful as an alternative, and has the great advantage of being sold in dry, compressed blocks. I got three today, just to see - each one is 5kg and rehydrates to approximately 70 litres. I will mix it with well-rotted horse manure, which I've been using neat but leaves a bit to be desired, especially with regard to its texture, and some chicken manure/seaweed pellets as fertiliser, as I have them lying around. The tomatoes may do fine in this, but I'll use at least one other medium for some plants, just to hedge my bets.

~~~

15/06
Still blustery, cool, and largely grey today. The greenhouse seems perennially warm though, which is great. It shouldn't surprise me, but it does. I've started putting the planting medium down (the perimeter base is much higher than the internal ground surface - between four and ten inches - and the difference will be made up with whatever good stuff I can obtain). To start with I'm trying a mix as outlined above of about 40% coir, 60% manure, with seaweed fertiliser pellets for extra oomph. I'll also probably cut and lay some nettle and comfrey leaves around, to break down as a slow release nutrient source. The first plant has gone in, too - an aubergine. I'm using twine supports buried under each plant and tied to the roof trusses, although the positioning of the latter may mean I need canes for some plants too. It'll be a learning process this year - what works in *this* greenhouse. I've plenty of plants to fill the place, it's just a matter of keeping them happy now.

I leave tomorrow, for the best part of a week. I hope most things survive okay. The weather looks mixed, which is ideal - too much hot sun would dry everything out (although I'm watering as thoroughly as possible before I go), and wind would be unwelcome. But sunny spells and showers - more typical June weather - would be perfect for once.

~~~

16/06
It rained heavily this morning, so I needn't have worried about outdoor watering. I soaked the plants under cover - some really should be in their final positions by now, but they'll just have to wait.

Harvests:
13/06 - 40g spinach, 15g spinach beet
15/06 - 150g lettuce
16/06 - ~50g strawberries*
YTD total: 1.195kg

*not weighed, so estimated (two largish fruits, three small ones).

A break

For once I wrote this and took the pictures all in one day!

 A clearer view of some of the plants photographed in the last entry. Anxiety-inducing! Note the dark red-purple lettuce 'Bijou'.

 The one onion bed that is doing okay, which had a catch crop of radishes in between until I pulled the last ones today.

I have to go away for a few days. I'd rather not, but it will perhaps push me to do some chores I had been putting off.

A lot has changed in the week and a half since I wrote the previous entry (although I only published it today). The last of spring passed away quickly - the hawthorn came and went in a flash. The weather has continued mostly very dry and warm, although there's been more night-time cloud and fog, and a few showers. But not enough for watering not to still be necessary.

Crimson-flowered broad beans, looking healthy (I've never had a problem with blackfly and this year seems no different!).

The outdoor broad beans are now in full bloom. Two varieties, 'Crimson flowered' and 'Red Epicure' - the former with decorative blooms has thrived, and is now waist high with hundreds of potential pods, the latter with red-brown seeds rather than green does not look healthy. Why the difference? Hard to say, but the beds are in subtly different positions, one is filled with manure while the other got well-rotted compost and a bit of chicken and seaweed fertiliser. Peas in the thriving bean bed are also in bloom, with baby pods. I pulled the last of the radishes sown as a catch crop between onions, as the latter are starting to bulk up and were being shaded, and to be honest I've had enough radishes now (though I will sow some more today for later in the summer).

Beetroot sown straight into the ground about two-and-a-half months ago, under cloches at first. Lower left: spring onions, upper right: garlic.

I've set up the last wicker-edged planters - turns out we had more than I originally realised. Four are very large, divided into two compartments. One is split between vegetables (in a picture in the previous entry - beetroot, spinach beet, spring onions, and turnips) and flowers - a large white foxglove which will be replaced by sweet peas. Another with rows of sunflowers, ruby chard, and mimulus - all in reds and oranges. A third with red kale on one side, red cabbages on the other, which will host the catch crop of radishes I mentioned above. And the final one half with tall peas, and the other half with more red cabbages and probably a catch crop of turnips. Medium-sized planters with herbs (thyme, borage, hyssop, and chives) and flowers (cosmos and petunia), beetroot, and onions respectively. Small ones with lettuce, lettuce and spring onions, and calendula (classic 'English' marigolds) respectively.

I've moved a lot of tender plants to the greenhouse, where some will live permanently, and others be put in the polytunnel -  chillies, peppers, tomatoes, and aubergines. The first courgette was put into its final position, a large pot, but many others are budding and need to be planted soon. Ditto summer beans - of which there are many, with more to sow. The other brassicas are pretty much all potted on, and will keep for a couple more weeks, but then I'll need to find somewhere for them - I have a couple more raised bed edges I can set up once I decide where. Hundreds of smaller pots contain lettuces, chard, alliums, and all sorts of other things, and again I'm not sure where they'll go - but at least the red lettuce 'Bijou' is attractive enough that I may use it as an ornamental edging in pots of flowers, or even the flower beds. Then there's seedlings of things sown in May - broccoli, more cabbages, more lettuces, beets, spinach, and all sorts of other things. Hopefully planting out will free up pots, and everything will move up a category - with the module trays then free for more seeds, things like beetroot and onions than can be planted after some crops are pulled in the next couple of months.

One of the first tomato flowers - several plants now have them open. Probably the variety 'Moneymaker'.

In the ground, the outdoor-sown beets are now growing well, at last, as is garlic and more peas. I want to plant onions, and the first courgettes, winter squash, and summer beans, as soon as possible - rather than clearing the overgrown beds, I'm hoping a no-dig approach of hacking back the invasive plants (like goldenrod), covering with a lot of manure and compost, and then black polythene will work - at least for the cucurbits which are spaced widely.

So I have to go away for a few days, and it feels frantic. But it has for weeks. Maybe it'll all be worth it. Perhaps this is the year I test my desire for a vegetable garden to breaking point.

At centre, a tiny embryonic courgette, the first of many, I hope! I've never managed a respectable crop of them, but this year I have enough plants to be in with a chance.

Crops:
11/06 - 90g radishes
YTD total: 940g

A crop to come: one of the first pea pods (this is 'Kelvedon Wonder').

Summer

Once again I wrote this well over a week ago, and it languished awaiting photos.

 Lettuce 'Yugoslavian Red' and some tiny spring onions, in a wicker-edged bag planter - I would not choose these, but they were freely available and I need all the planting space I can get right now.

As I may have said before on this blog, I consider the start of summer to be the 1st of June (as does the Met Office). That view was developed when I lived in England, and it's certainly less apt up here in Scotland, but nonetheless, it seems odd to talk of June as anything but summer.

Having said that, some spring things haven't yet happened. Hawthorn - 'May' - is only just coming out here. We have a fairly large, mature specimen in a far corner of the garden, and plenty of seedlings have spread around, one of which near the house is large enough to flower this year - it's started to open, sooner than the other one, but perhaps it's the impetuousness of youth. Alliums (the ornamental kind) are just opening. Whether their lateness is due to being planted in February (I am bad with bulbs), or if that's the normal way up here, I can't say - but they are also really late spring flowers, in my mind. On the other hand, the weather has been that of high summer - days and days of heat (up to the mid twenties Celsius), sunshine, and humidity, although nights have often been cool, and fog has crept in from the east from time to time.

Another wicker-edged container with probably-too-closely-planted beetroot, spinach beet, spring onions, and turnips.

The larger tomatoes are already forming flowers, and some courgettes are likewise developing embryonic buds, which is especially unexpected. It's been a case of watering and juggling plants around to find cooler, shadier spots, which I hadn't expected, but gardeners must be supremely adaptable in this country. I love heat, and sunshine, so I can't complain. Combined with the long days we get at this time of year - sixteen or seventeen hours between sunrise and sunset, and an hour either side of twilight - and there's enough time to do most things. It's langorous, or would be if there wasn't quite *so* much to do.

My major project of May, which I will reveal once it's done*, is nearing its end. Otherwise, I've done a lot of clearing, rearranging, and sprucing up of areas that have been neglected for a long time - not 'tidying', which is a noxious term in gardening I find, but just bringing things into focus a little more. There's still plenty of wildness in the garden, and that's good.

As for specifics, the broad beans are flowering in the polytunnel, and budding outside. Radishes are abundant. Lettuces and spinach provide a modest crop every few days. Brassicas, still waiting for a permanent home, are being potted on and on. Most things continue to grow well, although some haven't thrived. I should have enough of almost everything, if things continue the way they have been. I'd let out a sigh of relief, but it's not time for that quite yet.

31/05 - 90g radishes
03/06 - 10g lettuce
04/06 - 250g radishes**
07/06 - 40g spinach
09/06 - 50g lettuce, 100g radishes
YTD total: 850g

Also several hundred grammes of lovage, but as I didn't plant it (it was here when we moved in), I haven't counted it. The plant grows fast - it dies back in winter, but by June it can get to seven feet tall, and when it flowers later in summer, even taller. I've removed the flowering stems this time, as I want to prolong it (though the seeds are edible as a spice, and the flowers very attractive to insects).

*I obviously already published the entry on this.
**Previously I was weighing the radish plants whole, including the leaves, because they were small and tender. But now the leaves are a bit big and prickly to eat (I guess you could cook them), so I just weighed the 'bulbs'.

Just some of the plants waiting to be put in their final positions - a bit daunting. Lots of brassicas, lettuces, some alliums (leeks and shallots), spinach, and ornamentals cosmos and scabious. Almost every plant here was grown from seed.

The big reveal

I've dropped a few cryptic hints on Twitter referring to a big project in the last few weeks, but only a couple of people know what it is. I wanted - for once! - to have completed a job before showing off the results, and finally, after over a month of hard work, and a month more of planning, I can say - it's a greenhouse!

I've never had my own "proper" greenhouse. I tried to build two a few years ago back home, but they were my own designs, built from the materials I could obtain locally, fitted into awkward sites, and never fully finished. When we moved here four and a half years ago, there was a small (~6x6 foot) one in the garden, but it was missing its door and a few panes of glass, so has never been usable. There's also a polytunnel, which in the last couple of years has also lost its door, but is still functional. However, finally I decided that for the vegetable garden to reach its potential, I wanted a fairly large, new, working greenhouse.

I found one online that was a bargain - still several hundred pounds, but reduced in price by at least 50%, with a few higher-end features than a basic model (a coloured, powder-coated aluminium frame, rather than bare metal, toughened glass, a louvred vent, etc). Then I looked into foundations - would it go on the ground, on a plinth, a patio... I decided on a perimeter base of slabs, which offered strength and solidity without taking too much more money or materials - a full patio base would have required more of both (and more work!), and I decided I wanted beds to plant into, rather than growing everything in pots, which would entail much more watering. Roughly a tonne each of ballast (mixed sand and stones) and sand, plus a few hundred kilos of slabs and cement were delivered, and I singlehandedly shovelled them into my barrow, wheeled them down, and laid the foundation. In fact, I've done the whole thing on my own - I wasn't sure if it would be possible without help, but I much prefer knowing that it was all my work. Below are progress photos from early May to early June.

Just after I started - a very overgrown section of the veg garden, with sedges, nettles, coltsfoot, and many other perennial weeds. I stripped them all out down to bare earth, also removing slabs of concrete, lengths of timber, and other accumulated rubbish from the site's previous incarnations. 

Here I've laid some slabs to roughly measure out the size of the base - length and width. I drew out a plan on my computer, but it's always good to see it in position.

The slabs have been removed again, and a perimeter of ballast put in place, followed by sand.

The first side has been laid on a bed of damp sand and cement. It was important for the perimeter to be as level as possible (it looks slightly bowed here, but this seems to be an artifact of the wide angle lens).

The frame is up! I build the four sides elsewhere, then brought them in and connected them. 

The roof beam and battens are in.

Almost fully glazed! Note also the base, which raises the height and provides extra strength.

The door is on, and it's pretty much done! A few twiddly bits to add, and the base needs securing, but it's now ready to use.