Easy like Sunday morning

We got down to the patch around 8:00 am this morning to get some work in before the heat of the day.

Heather staked the Galina tomatoes, then gave them a good feed and water. She then picked all of the remaining broad beans before cutting back all of the plants to ground level, leaving the roots to put some nitrogen back into the soil.


I pulled out all of the remaining garlic, Solent Wight. This was badly affected by rust (see below), but fortunately the rust doesn't affect the bulbs and we had an excellent harvest.... unfortunately the rust is likely to affect the onions and leeks we are growing nearby.

Next to get pulled were our shallots, Griselle. In quantity, the harvest was very good, but many of the bulbs were too small for the kitchen.

Having removed all the weeds from the area where the shallots and garlic had been growing, I applied a dressing of poultry manure and scattered some handfuls of growmore. This feed was hoed-in, two shallow trenches were created and given a good watering. In these trenches Heather first sowed broad beans (Aquadulce) and then peas (Kelvedon Wonder) which should provide us with crops up until the first frosts.

We had three Chrysanthemum plants which were planted between the fruit bushes to give us cut flowers later in the Summer. The varieties are Misty Cream, Allouise Orange and Regal Mist Red.

The fennel has been coming along nicely, but we are worried that it will bolt. So we lifted a couple of bulbs to see how it had been developing. They were a bit on the small size, but will taste fantastic when cooked with chicken for dinner tonight. On the advice of Gardeners' World, Heather sowed another row of fennel (Romanesco) which should produce good bulbs later in the Summer with a much lower risk of bolting.

To round off a very long morning we prepared another small row alongside the potatoes and Heather then sowed one more row of beetroot (Moneta)... and we should get another row sown before the end of the Summer.

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Kingdom of Rust

My Autumn planted garlic has been badly infected by garlic rust and some of the hardnecks have bolted... with even the individual cloves in each bulb starting to sprout.

The two varieties affected are Moraluz and Cristo. The Solent Wight crop has some rust, but has not bolted to the same extent.

I have lifted the Moraluz and Cristo crop and am very disappointed in the yield. Still, never mind, these bulbs should keep us going over the Summer.

Fixing the leeks !

It was a pleasant morning down at the patch and the threatened showers failed to materialise.

I lifted the Senshyu Yellow onions that were sown as sets last Autumn and hung them in the shed to dry off. This was done because leaving them in the ground meant that there was a risk of bolting... and bolted onions have a tendency to rot.

The sets purchased from Dobies produced a fine crop of large bulbs, but those purchased from Homebase produced much smaller bulbs and far lower yields. Next time round I will try to grow most of my onions from seed sown in August and September. These will be backed-up with a January planting of ABS101 sets from Thompson & Morgan. Apparently, these will mature quicker than any sets sown in Autumn.

In the space left vacant by the onions we transplanted the leeks grown from seed in trays at home and those grown in our nursery bed. As mentioned before, we sowed two varieties of leeks : Blue Solaise and Oarsman. Both varieties were grown indoors in trays from a January sowing and both varieties were also sown outdoors in a seed bed at the allotment in March... the plan being to see which method proved the most efficient. Unfortunately, the writing on the labels in the seed trays and at the allotment washed off. We now had four sets of plants but are unable to identify the leeks according to their variety !

So here's what we did :

I lifted one set of plants from the nursery bed where the largest had the slightest hint of blue in it's foliage (Blue Solaise, obviously !) and these were transplanted into a prepared bed with a gap of 12" between each one. We were five plants short of a complete row, so I took five from the ones that had been grown in trays.

Next, I lifted the remaining set of plants (Oarsman ?) and transplanted these into a row 12" apart from the ones planted previously. We then found that we had sufficient to plant another row alongside.

So we now have 3 rows of leeks : Two complete rows which will either be Blue Solaise or Oarsman and one row which will be whatever is not in the other two rows... apart from 5 plants which could be either !!!

In addition, there were some plants left-over which we are growing on in the tray as mini-leeks.

On a more thoughtful note, the plants grown from seeds sown outdoors in the nursery bed proved to be stronger and more vigorous than those started indoors in trays.

Lettuce with a gladsome mind

Heather's lettuces glistening after the morning rain :

We were dodging the showers down at the patch this morning.

Heather picked a good supply of broad beans and peas, then thinned the carrots... so we will be having some fresh picked veggies with grilled pork chops for dinner tonight.

I planted Cherokee Trail of Tears beans next to the sweetcorn in the Three Sisters bed. I have given them some sticks as additional support until the corn is high enough for the beans to climb up. The squashes will then snake around them to provide a cover that should reduce the amount of weeds.

The strawberries are producing some nice fruit, but the yields are not very good. Many of the plants have been taken from runners over a couple years, so I intend to plant some new stock in the Autumn.

We had been removing the flowers from the currants and gooseberries, but must have missed some of the gooseberry flowers. They fruited and, because they were not netted, pigeons caused damage to the lower branches and these will now have to be trimmed off.

The blueberry bush has some fruit which we hope to be able to pick and the raspberries are producing some new canes which should yield some good fruit next year.

The year-old Sturmer Pippin whip has produced some apples and we have thinned these out to leave just a couple to develop. The Egremont Russet whips were badly damaged by caterpillars earlier in the year, but now seem to have recovered and we are now thinking about training the three whips into a cordon.

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Golden Onion Rings

I used just over 3lbs of our new crop Senshui onions to make a sweet pickle.

Working to American measures, I made a pickling syrup using :

• 4 cups of cider vinegar
• 2 cups water
• 4 cups sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons ground turmeric
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

These ingredients were put in a stainless steel saucepan, brought to the boil and then simmered for two minutes.

The onions were sliced into 1/4" slices and placed into sterilised jars with a few whole cloves, mustard seeds and black peppercorns.

The hot syrup was poured over the onion rings, a skewer used to ensure that all trapped air was released and the jars sealed. They will keep for a year if stored in a cool, dark cupboard.

When the onion rings have been eaten, the syrup can be used for glazing hams.

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