Archive for previous years' diaries dating from 2007 can be accessed by clicking here
Weekend 2 November On the plot
After listening to forecasts of severe frosts and maybe even snow during the week we braved the cold and dug up all our beetroot which will be stored over winter.
After the forecast frosts the plot looks devastated, most of the flowers have blackened. The pineapple sage that was looking so good last week has been caught by the frost – only time will tell next year whether or not it will recover. The leaves of the kiwis are also brown and crispy.
Any flowers left on the strawberries no have blackened centres so no more strawberries this year.
The main activity of the week has been gathering – the weather has been too awful for anything else.
One thing that does seem to have survived the cold weather is the whitefly which I noticed on the back of the swede leaves.
Weekend 9 November On the plot,
I always have a look back on the previous year’s diary before writing the current one. A year ago this week we were all happily asking for a visiting farmer to leave us piles of manure – if only we had known then what we know now!
The ground on the plot is absolutely saturated so there is no chance of any digging. We are on heavy clay soil so any digging now – if we could actually get the soil to leave the spade – would result in hard baked clumps as the soil dries out. The paths are all very soggy too.
Straw was bought in readiness for covering the dahlias and some other tender plants.
Other work has been confined to tidying dead plants away and trying to keep off the soil as much as possible.
The winter onions are shooting – they were late arriving from the supplier so we were a bit worried that they had been planted too late so we will just have to wait and see what growth they manage to make. No sign of shooting on the winter shallots though!
The cardoons are also sending up some fresh new leaves.
The above video has a sound commentary so make sure that you have your sound turned on!
In the garden,
Like the plot the garden is also sodden.
The magnolia leaves have turned to yellow and are now falling.
The squirrel paid us a visit – or should I say a squirrel as I know we have more than one. It was disgusted to note that all the peanuts had disappeared from the ground bird table and so turned its attention to the black sunflower seeds. It hung down expertly and bat-like and tucked in. Couldn’t watch the River Cottage bit where he was cooking squirrel - YUK
In the greenhouses
Both greenhouses are also being given a bit of attention and being tidied.
The plot greenhouse:
The gladioli bulbs have now been trimmed and prepared for winter.
The garlic is still sprouting well and just needed a little water to keep it happy.
The garden greenhouse:
Some of the tender plants have been potted up and brought into a spare bedroom to spend winter cosily. We don’t heat our greenhouses and so they would have little chance of survival in there. What to do with the large banana currently housed in there. Shall we risk it over winter with some protection or shall we somehow find room indoors. This variety – Musa Ice Cream - is supposed to eventually form banana so it will be worth the effort to keep it going.
We bought a jostaberry last year which by the time we got round to planting it in the ground had become leggy so these were trimmed back and cuttings taken. We noticed this week that they have actually taken so more jostaberries. I hope we like them! No doubt it will be a while before we have any fruit but when we do they are a cross between a gooseberry and a blackcurrant. Anybody out there know what they taste like so we can decide how many we should keep!
Out and about
This week yellow seems to be the colour of the moment. Some of the leaves are a really golden yellow and look beautiful – especially during the milliseconds when the sun has shown its face!
Couldn't resist the bullocks giving me the eye when we went to collect the straw!
Weekend 16 November On the plot,
We managed a bit of time on the plot again mainly clearing up. All the straw has now been removed from around the strawberries and added to the compost heap. One or two plants even had a couple of unripe strawberries.
Also tidied up the sprout plants by removing most of the bottom leaves – many of which were turning yellow. In spite of the poor weather they still housed their fair share of whitefly. The actual sprouts haven’t grown very big but I am sure they will taste great. It seems that the world is divided into two camps as far as sprouts are concerned. Those who hate them and those who love them – like marmite! I love sprouts – hate marmite – well I know I would hate it if I actually tried it. Maybe likewise, it’s the idea of sprouts that turn people off or possibly bad experiences where the vegetable was soggy and overcooked so that when bitten into it gushed water into the mouth. One Christmas I bought some sprout and chestnut soup as it sounded rather festive – big mistake as it tasted foul!
Much of the debris left over from the flower area has also been removed although in most areas it is too soggy to dig over the ground. In our clearance work we came across yet another squash and a few beetroots that we had missed.
We had one or two ‘courgettes’ that were left when we decided that we had our fill and these had acquired mammoth proportions.
The polythene that is protecting the dahlias has already developed a couple of ponds due to the heavy and persistent rain.
Took cuttings from our shrub roses and the sambucus nigra that lives in our garden. If they all grow I’ll need to open a nursery!
We also are continuing to prepare an area that will hopefully house a shed when we get round to buying one. It’s not so much for storage, more as a base in which to hide and have a coffee when we have downpours.
The main thing however is that we continue to harvest plenty of vegetables.
In the garden
The banana plants have been cut back covered in straw to hopefully protect them over winter.
Also cut back the sambucus nigra which if left to its own devices would grow as large as the common elder. I’ll pop some cuttings in up at the allotment to see if I can grow some new plants again this year.
There are only a few flowers in the garden now but plenty of interesting seed heads, berries and buds ready to burst into flower next spring.
In the greenhouses In the garden:
At last the chillies are ripening. Not sure how hot they are likely to be. They came as a freebie with a magazine. They are very large and could almost be mistaken for sweet peppers.
On the plot:
Garlic is still growing well.
Out and about
Still a few trees looking spectacular but the carpet of leaves on the ground is thickening. The red berries on bushes and trees are looking very festive.
Weekend 23 November On the plot,
Just a very fleeting visit to the plot this week to harvest a few vegetables, lettuce, leeks and cabbage which should get us through the week. Even then it was finger freezing weather.
In the garden
I had a bit of a surprise as I opened the bedroom curtains one morning. I saw a flash of grey wings and thought at first that a wood pigeon had just taken off. It was a heron – I just hope that we have taken sufficient precautions to protect the fish in our pond as I think we lost at least one fish to a heron last year. Our pond is partially raised so surrounded by a wall. We thought that it would be safe from herons as much that we read said that herons have to walk into a pond. There is no way that they can do this with ours so something is wrong.
Out and about
We have had some very windy and some very cold days this week. The wind has just about denuded the trees and deep drifts of leaves are piled up wherever they have become trapped. Just hope we don’t suffer from drifts of snow.
Weekend 30 November On the plot
Keen frosts this week lead to the water taps on site being frozen until midday. The conifers along the southern boundary are also preventing any sunlight that is available from reaching some of the plots and so they remain frosted all day.
We covered the carrots with straw to try and give some winter protection.
We managed to get a little more done on the plot this week, mainly clearing, burning and of course harvesting carrots, parsnips and swede.
I also found one or two more white beetroot that had been hiding under some other dead plants but I’m not sure that they will be fit to eat. We have tried roasting the beetroot this year instead of boiling. It hasn’t been through the taste test yet but it did mean we could cook more roots at one time and the house wasn’t full of steam and the smell of sweaty socks! Roasting is also supposed to preserve the colour of the red varieties -we will see.
The winter onions have grown quite a bit in spite of the poor weather but the winter shallots don’t appear to be making much of an effort. It’s the first year that we have planted the winter shallots so maybe they start to grow very early next season – time will tell.
In the garden
The magnolia has now lost all its leaves – it hung on to them for as long as it could. Once the leaves have dropped the buds, that will become next year’s spectacular flowers, are visible. It gives a little uplift to the spirits.
We tasted our first medlar – as we shared one fruit between two we didn’t really get much of a taste and so the jury is still out on that.
The tree fern has been supplied with some winter protection – a bundle of fleece stuffed into the crown.
In the greenhouses In the garden
The banana plant – Ice Cream has been moved out of the greenhouse into the house for winter. The leaves and top part of the plant had been damaged by the frost but the stem was still healthy. The top growth has been cut off and hopefully it will sprout again next season or maybe even sooner now that it has a nice cosy bedroom.
On the plot:
The garlic is still growing stronger – well one of the two varieties is!
Straw has been placed over the gladioli bulbs to give them a bit of added protection
Out and about
This week has seen some really frosty mornings and evenings. Some fog too! It seems that the cold weather has settled in earlier this year. We just need to hope that it is doing its bit to cull the garden pests.
I had an email saying temperatures in the US were down to -10C so it could be a lot worse!
