Fruit, Veg, Flowers and Slugs

It has been a while since my last post for one reason or another so I have quite a bit to report on.  I mentioned in my April posts some of the experiments I had undertaken for the growing season, taking Olive Tree cuttings and sowing Clover into my lawn; so far so good with both I am happy to report. I have two Olive Tree cuttings that appear to be coming along nicely; it is of course a slow process as they are so slow growing, but two of the three cuttings appear to be forming roots. The Clover has germinated pretty well and I plan to add to it over the coming weeks hopefully leading to a lawn that is as much, if not more, clover than grass by 2026. I have also sown some Purple Creeping Thyme seeds as another little experiment to add to the garden all being well. The seeds were sown thinly onto a potting mix of peat-free compost and perlite in a seed tray and gently pressed into the mix to ensure good contact; the seeds were not covered with any further compost or vermiculite, ...

In the lovely spring sunshine we experienced in early April, as well as enjoying the blossom on the Cherry tree and the display of the Tulip Fire Wings amongst other things, I have been experimenting somewhat in the garden.  I have taken three cuttings from the Olive trees I own, I have five in pots on the patio at the end of my garden, in the hope that I may be able to grow two or three new trees from these. I have never tried before so it is very much trial and error. From research I discovered the best time to take Olive tree cuttings is in the late spring or early summer when the tree is actively growing and have the highest chances of rooting successfully. Each cutting taken was roughly 6-8 inches in length and I removed all the leaves from the bottom of the cutting, leaving only a few leaves at the top. Each cutting was then dipped into rooting hormone and the cutting placed into a terracotta pot filled with a potting mix of peat-free compost and perlite, about 75/25 percent ...

 At the start of the growing season 2025 there are many things to do on the vegetable patch and in the garden. For personal reasons I have been unable to update the Blog recently but I have been busy 'behind the scenes' and much has been going on.  For the last few weeks there has been little spare space on windowsills around my house with various seeds germinating here there and everywhere. Greyhound cabbages and Lancaster F1 leeks have been residing on the windowsill of the spare bedroom, four different tomato variaties were on the front room windowsill and the Scarlet Empire runner beans were threatening to take over the conservatory. Lavender cuttings and Agapanthus seedlings (seeds saved from one of my established plants) were also to be found in the conservatory. The Salvia cuttings I took last year from an established plant had been moved to the logstore at the bottom of the garden along with the Geranium cuttings in March ‘hardening off’ along with some Nasturtium seed...

The Christmas Potato experiment, for those of you that have been following developments, was a bit of a damp squib. A Christmas cracker with no crack, the Christmas present you smile about but really, did not want; a toilet roll dolly, a jar of wrinkle cream, comedy socks! I got a few spuds, but nowhere near enough for a festive feast as you can see from the photo; the Eskimo Carrots you will note from the picture have been a success again and they are on the list of seeds I am ordering for 2025. I think I probably sowed the seed potatoes too late. I will try again next year. Cheers 🍺

With the British weather really doing its worse of late there has been very little time or chance to actually get in the garden or on the vegetable plot to get anything done, other than checking fencing and clearing debris that has blown in! I will begin sowing seeds soon and over the next few weeks every spare inch in the conservatory and on windowsills around the house will be taken up with seed trays full of seedlings as ever in January and February. I do have another little project though that I will be working on in the potting shed out of the wind, rain and cold temperatures. There are, apparently, over 250 types of bee in the UK, there are twenty-four types of bumblebee alone, and they are incredibly important little creatures. Around 90% of UK bee species are solitary bees, a group that includes mason bees, mining bees and leaf-cutter bees amongst others. Solitary bees aren’t like honey bees that live in hives. As their name suggests, they make their nests on their own and lay ...

It has been a year of successes and failures on the plot in 2024, due in no small part to the ever-changing British weather. One thing that has occurred this growing season that I have never experienced before happened with my Strawberry plants. I cut back the foliage on my plants in early autumn after they had finished fruiting, and they grew back with a vengeance in the warm, wet weather we had through late September and October. I actually had Strawberries forming on the plants again in November! The first proper frost in late November appears to have done for them, no surprise, and I will now give the plants a second trim and a feed of chicken manure pellets to see them through the winter.  The Runner Bean bed has been thoroughly weeded, lightly dug over and a compost bin full of compost (around 220 litres) added to the soil along with two 50 litre bags of Farmyard manure. The bed was raked over and has been covered in tarpaulin, weighed down with bricks, to hopefully keep it i...