Thursday 11 June 2015

In the garden: the good, the bad and the ugly

blueberries
pea flower

grapes
raspberries


tayberries
Fruit is a fickle thing isn't it.  One year there's a bumper harvest, the next, almost nothing.  Or in the case of my pear and plum trees, actually nothing.  

A grape vine that grows by the back door has buds on it this year, after two years of just leaves.  Although the leaves were in a league of their own, a whole green bin full at least twice during the summer, as if the plant put all of its energy into foliage and had nothing left for grapes.  It's a Lakemont Seedless, and really delicious.  I wish I'd chosen seedless varieties for all of the vines I planted because the grapes I have tend to be small and the pips tend to be large and plentiful.  It's not a good combination.

There are absolutely masses of blueberries, after a year where a hungry blackbird family ate the few that there were.  I quite enjoyed seeing the blackbird parents bringing their big blackbird chicks down to feast on the blueberries though, I didn't begrudge them at all.  We shall see if I'm that indulgent this year.

Apples are forming, although it seems like only five minutes ago that there was blossom.  Peaches were forming, but now most of them seem to have mysteriously disappeared.  The golfers and footballers are denying all knowledge of it.

And so on to the bad.  Apples again, but the foliage is curling up and underneath there's quite a blackfly infestation.  



I sometimes spray with a little dilute Ecover washing-up liquid to deter them.  I'll probably wait and see how extensive the problem gets.  This particular apple (a Worcester Pearmain) has had aphid trouble before.  I'm not sure if it's particularly prone to it or whether it's shadier spot doesn't help.

And now my epic fail of the year.  At least I hope this is it and there's nothing worse still to come.  Strawberries.  Sigh.  We do so love strawberries here, but something has gone horribly wrong.  I potted up these runners from the allotment last year, and then planted them out at home.  They haven't thrived at all, they are just utterly miserable.  




You can see in the last picture that just one (out of eighteen) looks healthy.  Here it is next to one of the others.


I really don't know what the problem is.  The soil at home is very poor, and I wonder if at some stage some manure that had weedkiller in it was added to the beds.  Quite often if I plant something it just turns yellow and completely stops growing.  I find this particularly with cucumbers and courgettes, which I only ever grow at the allotment now.  I think I may dig up the strawberry bed, take the top few inches of soil off and replace it with some new topsoil.  Although it's possible that the plants have a virus.  Anyway, it makes me cross every time I walk past them.  I know I should probably have taken all the flowers off in the first year, but I find that kind of thing really hard to do.  

Elsewhere there are a few healthy plants, and a few fruits starting to ripen.  A few garden beasties have caught the scent of them though.


Let's go back to the good again.

Herbs, in the biggest boy's raised bed, doing not too badly.  And more fresh green salad leaves than you can shake a stick at.  Rocket, mustards, sorrel, Greek cress, pea shoots, radicchio and all sorts of lettuce.  I never get this successional sowing malarchy quite right, it's all happened at once again.  






The tomatoes are recovering for the most part from the cold unfriendly spring.  Outside tomatoes are always a lottery so I never have very high expectations.  So far so good though.  


And look, look what else I have...


Carrots!  Teeny, tiny, actual carrots.  It's sad that the guinea piggie isn't still around to see them.  Really, they were for her.  And some celery I have as well, she would have loved that.  I shall have to find a small boy to eat it all now instead.

And finally the ugly.  Maybe you remember the perfection that was my hosta a few weeks ago?  Now they are hideous rags.  I think I shall put them in the front (gravelly) garden.  To be honest I just don't want to look at them any more.  I stand at the kitchen sink washing up, just staring at them.  Can't tear my eyes away.  I need something pretty to look at.  This is not it.



Just to take the taste away, I shall leave you with a strawberry.  


Perfection non?  I shall be eating it shortly.  Assuming of course that I get there first.

36 comments:

  1. Oh my goodness, your poor hosta, it's been a meal for some very hungry slug. I think everything's looking great in the main. My fruit is a no go this year, nothing on the apple, plum or cherry trees at all. I have three blueberry plants, one is dripping in fruit, one has a bit of fruit and one has nothing at all. I'm not too concerned this year though as everything's been messed about with, i've repotted things and planted the trees from pots in to the ground. I'm hoping for much better next year. Your strawberries don't look too happy but they can take a while to settle sometimes. I'm hoping to make a new strawberry bed at the allotment ready for next year, if I manage to get round to it.

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  2. Oh no! Your poor hostas! The little buggers did the same to mine a few years ago and since then I seem to have sorted it by gravelling all round the plant.

    That strawberry does look yum, even if the other plants are a bit woeful. I don't know much about soil chemistry so can't help you there I'm afraid, but it does sound like something's out of kilter xxx

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  3. Your strawberry is gorgeous. You have some other very good things happening too. I have very few plums or apples this year, which is disappointing. I really like having lots of both because I do use them, but some years are just like that. I'm sorry about the pests and the soil troubles. I have no advice (I'm not very good at any of this stuff), but I hope you can get it figured out for next year. I really like the look of the green blueberries; I'd never actually seen them at that stage before your photo and I think they're interesting. I didn't know their leaves looked that way either. I've only ever had blueberries from the store, never fresh-picked. I like your grapes too; we planted grapes two years ago and this year they have their first tiny fruits!

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  4. You have some wonderful things growing, the salad looks amazing. I am not too good at the successional sowing either.

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  5. Your garden looks GREAT! All growing well and nicely tended. I'd love a fresh salad greens for a salad. We have some veggies going here! We have zucchini is sprouting 2 flowers right now, and we have a baby tomato and some white strawberries. ((hugs)), Teresa :-)

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  6. There is more good than bad! I'm sorry about the bugs and the strawberries, though.

    Love the little stick labels for the growing things. Many happy herbed salads to you. Mmm!

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  7. Oh dear your poor hosta, I gave up growing hostas for the very same reason - I seem to have the national collection of slugs and snails here, it was hopeless (I've since given up delphiniums too). You have some delicious looking fruit and veg growing and that strawberry looks divine, you been polishing it? Have a lovely weekend. Jane xx

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  8. Adhesive serrated copper tape has helped in the past on some pots but you have to keep them clear from other foliage otherwise the monsters leap across.

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  9. some sadness but lots and lots of goodness.

    my advice, if you don't already do so, is to consider several plants that attract predatory insects - that will help a lot on your aphid problem, and maybe even your strawberries.
    i've always used the simple old remedy of egg shells around hostas. those darn slugs love hostas!

    good luck, and you have wonderful garden!

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  10. I brought several varieties of hosta with me when we moved here and not one of them has survived. I'd tried everything, including gravel. Slugs are determined beasties when they want to be.

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  11. Looks like some things are growing beautifully! I'm sure it's hard, though, when everything doesn't sprout the way it should. What happened to your little piggy? I'm sorry if she's no longer with you. I'm sure she would have loved the carrots and celery you planted for her. Hope you're having a wonderful week and good luck keeping those nerf guns on lock down:)

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  12. Oh dear - I am suffering panic and grief in advance for my beautiful hosta!

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  13. We had hosta plants by the pond in our old garden and they always ended up eaten by the slugs.I am impressed with your carrots and the home made plant labels. The growth in our vegetable garden especially on the salad crops was huge after a week away despite the cold and windy weather that the South West has while we were away. Sarah x

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  14. I can really sympathize with your poor hostas - mine are looking pretty similar now. Your strawberry looks yummy though - I should get out there quickly before something beats you to it! I also love the fact that you grew carrots and celery just for poor Mrs. Armitage. Have a good weekend. xx

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  15. I think your garden looks fantastic compared to my tomato, strawberry, cucumber and cantaloupe plants. Max ate my strawberries, and caterpillars ate everything else. I am still finding them! I found two of them today. I am spraying them with a water/dish soap combination so my plants are clean but apparently still edible. Maybe I should stick with flowers?
    Hugs,
    Meredith

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  16. Wonderful images dear C.J., most of your fruits and vegetables look great, a shame about the strawberries not thriving but you might be fortunate enough to get a few to eat. So sweet of you to grow carrots and celery for Mrs Armitage, I'm sure your littlest boy will enjoy the carrots. I really like hostas, I had one given to me by a friend but the snails and slugs ate it and sadly it didn't survive.
    xoxoxo ♡

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  17. Let's stay with the good my friend as there is so much good to see!!! Look at all of those veggies spilling out all over the place!! And yes that strawberry is perfection!! I had horrible horrible soil in my front garden. Literally everything I grew shrunk and would never grow until I started really taking away soil and adding new soil in. I even did an experiment and left one section with the old and one section with the new organic soil and the plants with the new soil are thriving. So keep up the good work my friend!!! Your garden looks awesome!!! Nicole xo

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  18. Oh CJ, could you transplant eight of your best strawberries into a growbag, keep well-watered and fed and at the very least you'll know if the problem is soil or strawberry-borne. At best you may get enough strawberries to off-set the cost of the bag and your effort. I reduced the size of my strawberry bed by two-thirds last year in favour of growing the ever-bearing variety (not sure which, my allotment neighbour gave me runners) which crop from now until September. Keep a crop rotation plan, especially important when growing in raised beds. I wonder if your strawberries followed on from potatoes or tomatoes which supposedly is not good. I've just ditched a hosta and replaced it with a chocolate cosmos. Could you bear to manually remove the black fly? Then spray with dilute ecover which should prevent a further infestation. And compost everything, home-made compost is so much better than manure, it's less effort and saves using the green bin system. Make leaf mould, it makes a great mulch for raspberries. One more thing, keep sowing. I'm picking from my third sowing of salad leaves and I have four more sowings in the wings. I continue sowing short rows until the end of August. Use fresh ground, I'm out of space now but soon I will have room when I lift my garlic and first potatoes. Good luck. Can you tell I'm willing you on?

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  19. we moved last may (2014) and this year we have done some (very small) veg beds..they were purposely put where the chicken run had been in the hope that the ground would be lovely and fertile. The beans and tomatoes seem to be thriving..the courgettes, like yours are yellowing (and im sure are soon to die). I am kind of assuming that the soil is too much for them and am putting the other courgettes into tubs as I have had success with them this way before..

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  20. The poor strawberries!!! Those would have been so great to grow because they are one of the more expensive fruit to buy (at least here!)

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  21. I found myself nodding and sympathising with you when I read this post. I think that you should have added plenty of compost when planting the strawberries and mulched round them.
    Your tomatoes are doing way better than mine, and I also have carrots - well foliage at least!
    Happy gardening and enjoy the weekend. Flighty xx

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  22. Sympathy and recognition from me here. It can be hugely disheartening when plants don't thrive. Gardening and growing is a continual learning process and it looks as though there's great advice among the comments here. Keep at it CJ! Your garden and allotment are wonderful and it's really good to share the highs and lows with you. Sam x

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  23. Well, to balance out the strawberry loss, you have a bunch of other nice fruit coming in. My grapes have done the same thing as last year - look fantastic, smell fantastic, then boom - after the flowers they just shrivel up, turn brown, and the fruit dies. The vine itself appears perfectly healthy. Really frustrating. I'm hoping I will get a huge harvest of red raspberries, if we don't have a small white worm problem that also happened in the past. Gardening frustrates and delights us - often on the same day!

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  24. Your poor hosta!!!!! So unfair!!! I hope that you can encourage it to recover. It looks as though everything else is mostly doing well though, no wonder you were saying that you needed to clear the freezer out in preparation!!! I hope you can work out the strawberry problem, they didn't look so bad until you showed the one really good plant! Hope you have a good weekend in the garden. xx

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  25. Oh your poor hostas :( At least there are some happy slugs and snails somewhere! Interestingly, like you, we have hardly any fruit on our plum tree.

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  26. It's funny how years can be very inconsistent where fruit is concerned. Last year our native cherry was covered in blossom and subsequently cherries, but this year it's been quite sparse. I'm sorry to hear that your strawberries aren't thriving. Perhaps a change of soil will do the trick. I gave up on hostas years ago - maybe some pretty annuals would be a good replacement while you wash up? :)
    Cathy x

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  27. i find that my brain gets too full when i try and organize succession planting. far too many things to think about. so it's feast or famine....with the safety net of various farm-stands hereabouts.

    that's a terrible tragedy with the hostas --- we have all manner of pests and vermin, but slugs aren't one of them. just as well, i might have to throw up my hands in despair....visions like that are enough to bring about great fits of weeping.

    i hope you enjoyed that strawberry...it looks ever so delicious! xo

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  28. oh dear. bad slugs. first my courgettes, now your hostas........
    love everything else that is growing though, and your stick plant labels are quite brilliant x

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  29. Oh CJ, don't throw away those vine leaves! Get a recipe for Dolmades (stuffed vine leaves). My daughter would eat these every day if you could. She drools as soon as the leaves appear. Off the top of my head, I get a packet of mince, half a mug of rice (uncooked), chop one tomato (without the seeds), soften a chopped onion and crushed clove of garlic, a tbsp of dill, salt and pepper and mix together in a bowl. Meanwhile, blanch about 30 medium vine leaves (without the stalks). Then drain. Lay one on a board with the top of the leaf furthest away from you. Get about a tbsp of filling and put at the base of the leaf. Fold the sides of the leaf to the middle and then wrap the filling upwards to make a tight parcel. Put this in the base of a heavy based saucepan and pack in tightly with the other parcels. Then once complete, add a pint of stock and put a sauce on the top of them to hold them together with some dots of butter. Put on the stove and bring up to a simmer, then turn down to low for about 45 mins. By then the rice and mince should be cooked and serve with a salad or whatever your choice along with some lemon to squeeze over them. We love them in this house and it makes good use of those leaves. Have a great weekend xx

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  30. I wouldn't give up on the strawberries yet. Can you give them a foliar feed? We have been spraying our hostas with Grazers repellent. Either it's working or we have less slugs and snails this year.

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  31. Take heart in the good ...

    That strawberry does look good.

    All the best Jan

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  32. Strange how your strawberries are so mixed, and it is frustrating isn't it when as you say, there seems to be neither rhyme nor reason as to why sometimes you have a bountiful crop and other times little. Your crops in the raised beds look good. I do feel that there has been plenty of growth in the plants in my garden this year so I wonder if the weather has encouraged foliage growth at the expense of fruit?
    I look forward to seeing more of your produce
    Caz xx

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  33. If you have Clint Eastwood tucked away in a corner, I'm coming over.
    Amalia
    xo

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  34. I hope you got to that strawberry before anyone else did. Maybe the peaches were nerfed? Looks like you'll have lots of blueberries to enjoy soon but what a shame about the hostas. Better move them away round the corner so you don't have to look at them. Well done to the boy, you have a budding grower there! xx

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  35. That strawberry looks lucious, I do hope you got to it before the pesky slugs. Although I imagine they are so weighed down by hosta just now that they can barely move.

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  36. Well I think your garden is looking gorgeous and delicious, such variety of salad leaves, I need to be more adventurous in my seed choices I think! I have been so impressed with the number of little apples already formed on my tree, last year was dismal! If even half of them make it to formed fruit it will be a record year for me! I really recommend Richard Jackson's strawberry plants, mine are going strong in their second year, his plant feed works miracles too! lets hope there plenty of sunshine to come and get everything ripened up! Katie x

    http://long-may-she-rain.blogspot.co.uk

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