Harvest Time

Early August and we're beginning to harvest stuff from the garden - including the annual crop of 'only took my eye off them for a moment' marrows.

But we also have tomatoes from the greenhouse and sluggery, potatoes from the garden, and the apples won't be long now either.

Time to get cooking . . .

Return to Project Greenhouse

Back home from a few days visiting family, and it was time to pot on this year's crop of beef tomatoes into our newly 'paved' greenhouse.

And here they are - all planted up in their £1 buckets, sitting in trays to capture any water drainage.

So far so good - they seem to be taking to their new home well, and no rat holes to be seen!

Project Greenhouse

🐀"There's a rat in me greenhouse what am I gonna do?" 🐀

After repeated incursions, burrowing into one corner of the greenhouse, the filming of the ratty culprit, and its wily avoidance of any traps, we decided to deal with the issue by paving over the greenhouse - which would also make weeding a lot easier in future!
 

Martin started the work by levelling and compacting the ground. 

Paving slabs were duly ordered, and craned onto the drive - and Martin hauled them over to the greenhouse and started laying them in place.

A few hours later, and it's job done - leaving us with a lovely echoey space to fill with pots, etc.

Will post more when it is planted out with this year's tomato plants.

Hopefully that's fixed Mr 🐀 and we'll get a good crop of 🍅🍅🍅 in due course! 

Posts that Didn't Happen - September 2022

And on to September - traditionally our main 'holiday' month, but also the month where there is usually a glut of garden produce to deal with.

So the first week of the holiday involved lots of sorting through apples, tomatoes and marrows - freezing some down, cooking up tomato and chilli jam, etc. etc.

Then there were other domestic tasks, such as cleaning the upstairs carpets; a Covid booster jab for Martin; and on the recreational front a fishing trip with his Dad up to Dinas Reservoir.

Other notable pre-holiday activities, included a walk along the prom taking in the sights of the Rali Ceredigion, which ran a short stage through town and round by the Castle.

Then it was holiday time 'proper' - bags packed, and on the road for our first slightly more extended break since before the pandemic.

First 'in-transit' stop took us to Malvern - lovely town, nice walk up to St Ann's Well with some great views - ending the day with a pint or two, and a very tasty curry.  All in all a good start!

From there it was a cross-country drive to Norwich - via the National Trust's Wimpole Estate - arriving late afternoon to news of the passing of Queen Elizabeth II - truly the end of an era.

Had a couple of days in Norwich, exploring the city, and visiting the Cathedral - where the sights included the Cathedral Cat, Budge, enjoying a nap; tributes to the Queen; the Book of Remembrance (actually turned to a page with my Great Grandfather's name inscribed); and this rather macabre 400 year old ode to mortality:

All you that do this place pass bye
Remember death for you must dye.
As you are now even so was I
And as I am so shall you be.
Thomas Gooding here do staye
Wayting for God's judgement daye.

From Norwich we moved on to the Norfolk coast . . .  meeting family for a beach walk and lunch at Winterton-on-Sea . . .

Visiting Cromer (with its roaming Goats) . . . 

. . .  National Trust properties at Felbrigg and Blickling . . .

. . . and Sheringham, with its murals and historic steam railway . . . 

Loved this piece of WW2 signage at Sheringham station - no 'leaves on the line' excuses back then!

Left our cabin on the coast for a couple of night's visiting family in Cambridgeshire, before returning home again.

Back to the reality of hedge cutting and wood chopping, and my own Covid booster jab - before returning to work the Tuesday after the Queen's funeral.  Life was more or less getting back to normal, then the 'new' government under Liz Truss released its budget, and appeared to be in the process of bankrupting the country.

In other news, we had the end outside wall of the Folly rendered (as you can see it wasn't in the best of nick before all the Folly works started).

The addition of the chimney for the log burner hadn't helped matters, but now we have a nice solid wall - just need to paint it!

Finally, the end of the month saw us down by Tan-y-Bwlch beach enjoying some late September sunshine (while waiting for the car to be MOT'd!) - watching the sea, and the passing Hercules aircraft . . .

Stocking the Larder

It's that time of the year when the garden produce is coming in thick and fast, and has to be processed and either cooked or preserved for later consumption - and this in addition to the annual marrow mountain!

On Monday, we stripped both the apple trees - sorting, peeling and chopping, starting with the apples that the insects had already munched down on.

Stewed a couple of large pans of chopped apples, ready for the freezer, keeping aside those in sufficiently good condition to survive for a few weeks more.

Tuesday, and time to start on the first tranche of beef tomatoes from the main greenhouse.  

More chopping, and cooking down - yielding nine pots of tomato sauce for the freezer - and there'll be  more to follow as the tomatoes continue to ripen.

Finally today made up some redcurrant jelly from our first major(ish) redcurrant harvest frozen earlier in the summer - only two small pots, but it is a lovely colour!

Greenhouse One

Got our first tomatoes planted today - courtesy of a work colleague, after the almost wholesale failure of my cherry tomatoes to germinate.* 

So we have: 3 Alicante; 3 Cherry - plus 3 Tumbling Tom in the pot:

I'm usually even later planting up, so hopefully we'll get some eating tomatoes before the end of the summer this year!

*Fair play to Fothergill's they did send me a replacement packet of seeds, but a bit late for planting up this year.

Tomato Harvest

The tomatoes have done pretty well again this year - pots of tomato sauce are finding their way into the freezer, and we're finally harvesting the cherry tomatoes:

Must try to remember to plant them a little earlier next year - would be good to have some to eat in the actual summer months!

Where to Start?

The garden has been yielding more courgette / marrows, and the first tomatoes are emerging from the greenhouse.

It all looks a bit daunting at the moment - the marrows in particular!

Tomato sauce, courgette bhaji, and courgette lasagne here we come . . .

Planting Up

Time to get the greenhouses and vegetable garden planted up - at this stage the plants always look so small - beefsteak tomatoes in the big greenhouse - cherry tomatoes in the small (with the vine):

And courgettes in the large veg patch (the small veg patch already having been planted up with potatoes and onions):

At the moment the courgettes have all been surrounded with a slug pellet barrier, as the young courgette leaves have definite slug-appeal - hopefully, with time, they'll become less tasty.

Barring disaster there'll probably be marrow postings in due course!

Last of the Tomatoes

Finally cleared out the last of the tomatoes from the greenhouses today - thought we better had since November is creeping on, and we might actually have some properly cold weather soon!

We were a a bit late getting the tomatoes started this year, but all in all it's been a good harvest, and the freezer is already well stocked with pots of tomato sauce.

A few here to keep us going as well - some already ripe, some for the ripening 'box'.

Final Harvest?

As autumn draws on it's time to start shutting down the greenhouses - harvested most of the remaining tomatoes and cucumbers from the main greenhouse today, and the grapes from the small greenhouse.

Unfortunately our grapes are still a tad on the measly side (mostly skin and pip) - so boiled them up to make grape jelly or some such.

Got a few courgettes from the vegetable patch as well - think I might be making soup over the next few days!

Mutant Tomatoes

Good crop of tomatoes again this year - but some of the beef tomatoes took a bit of a funny turn:









Not sure what happened - they probably tasted ok, but the skin was so enfolded into the tomato it was difficult to get at the flesh.


At least the mutant gene seemed to be limited to the one plant!

Garden Update

Haven't said much about the garden recently - so time for an update on progress:

14 / 15 April - started on veg plots - dug over the small plot, and planted out the broad beans we'd been given -  then the potatoes (some in pots).

23 April - dug over the large veg plot - planted more potatoes and the red onion sets.

12 / 13 May - prepped greenhouses - put weed control fabric down in the larger one and planted it up with main crop tomatoes (cherry varieties have gone into the smaller greenhouse).

Also planted up one of the raised beds with rather flimsy looking asparagus seedlings (pictured - not sure whether these will survive).


Courgettes and butternut squash have gone into the large veg plot.





That leaves us with aubergines and a few more tomato plants (for outside planting) which are still being brought on in the large greenhouse - and implementation of this year's new and improved 'pea' strategy (more to follow on this).

Dehydrated . . .

Got my new 'toy' the other day - a food dehydrator - just in time to deal with the small mountain of cherry tomatoes harvested from the clearing of the small greenhouse.

And - Ta-Da! - 6 hours or so later, sun dried tomatoes!

Well, machine-dried anyway . . .




Got a bit experimental with the one tray that didn't get taken up with tomatoes, and tried a selection of pepper, chilli, mushroom and apple . . .



All seemed to work quite nicely - nice intense flavours - and the right kind of texture - so all in all rather pleased with the results.

Filling the Freezer

Spent much of the Bank Holiday weekend processing more garden produce!  Finally pulled the last of the onions / shallots - not an impressive crop I'm afraid - hopefully the leeks will do a little better.  Also dug up the last of the potatoes in the main vegetable plot.





Made up some more tomato pots, and used some of the glut of cooking apples we'd been provided with to make up some apple and chilli jelly.




The rest of the apples are chopped and in the freezer, along with a rather large bag of chopped courgettes, and 5lb of damsons that someone had given us.  Damson brandy anyone?

Taming the Jungle . . .

Decided it was time to tame the jungle in the small greenhouse, in the vain hope that the cherry tomatoes will actually ripen.  Not sure that I haven't gone from one extreme to another, although so far no signs of imminent plant death!  I'll live in hope . . .





Tackled the tomato plants with a pair of secateurs, but Martin also has a new toy for tackling those hard to reach bits of hedgerow.  It also comes with a strimmer attachment, so no excuse for anything to get to the jungle stage now!

Green Stuff

Time for a garden update  . . .

We've rotovated the main veg plot now, and planted out the courgettes and butternut squash - waiting for the green beans to come on a bit before they go out.  Potatoes have gone in both the veg plot and some pots.

The tomatoes aren't too far off being ready for planting on as well - the peppers and aubergines are still at an early stage though - sorting out the greenhouses has to be one of the next tasks on the list.






The fruit cage pretty much takes care of itself - the raspberries and strawberries are promising a bumper harvest anyway.



Still considering potential approaches to keeping the mice out mind you - there are plenty of strawberries to go round if only they finished one before starting another!

The biggest success story thus far is probably the broad beans - although Martin's Dad did the initial work of bringing these on - that said they seem to be doing very nicely thank you in one of the raise beds, safely tucked away from the bunnies behind a chicken-wire fence!

Signs of Life . . .

Planted the first lot of seeds  the other weekend, and finally there are signs of life from most of them: courgettes; tomatoes (cherry and beefsteak); shallots; onions; and cucumbers.

The peppers and butternut squash are being a bit slower off the mark but I'm living in hope!

The greenhouses have been cleaned and weeded ready to receive the seedlings, and the potatoes are chitting on the windowsill.  Next job, digging over the veg patches, and planting up some beans, sweetcorn, aubergines, chillis and leeks.

Watch this space!