Gardening successes and failures, dealing with drought conditions on the Vegetable Plot

I am currently enjoying a bit of a glut on the Tomato front, no bad thing, and find myself experimenting with a number of recipes; that said an oven baked Beefsteak Tomato is still one of my favourite guilty pleasures. The Buffalo Steak Tomatoes from the Greenhouse have been a roaring success, baked, fried, in a salad, on a burger or in a sandwich I have used them in multiple ways for breakfast, lunch and dinner recently and these will definitely be grown again in the future - absolutely brilliant. The Gigantomo variety are also cropping strongly with a number of large fruits on the plants I have allowed them to grow on. I have a couple of very large fruits on one plant I deliberately left only a few tomatoes on but no world record breaker. The Tomato varieties I am growing outside on the veg patch following the disaster that was the Limoncito and Black Cherry seedlings failing on me are now of course the Yellow Pear and Pink Brandywine and these are going well I am happy to report with the first fruits all swelling nicely in the extensive warmth and sunshine we have had recently. As I mentioned before the Pink Brandywine tomato is a new one to me but in fact an heirloom cultivar of tomato from America, with large potato-leaved foliage, and I am looking forward to tasting the large pink beefsteak-shaped fruit when ready. 

My Runner Bean Benchmaster have been a major disappointment this season with probably about 10%-15% of the crop I would usually expect by now; I think it is fair to say that have not enjoyed all this sunshine as much as the Tomatoes. Runner beans are of course a very thirsty plant and crop best when watered regularly, especially once they start to flower and form pods. it is said 1–2 gallons of water per square yard every three to four days is the minimum you should aim for. I honestly can't remember the last time we had any significant rain where I am, little more than a few spots in weeks, and the Beans have really suffered as a result. I water with the sprinkler and once a week with the watering can when feeding but with no help form Mother Nature, I have been fighting a losing battle on the Runner Bean front. I am in fact cutting my loses, taking out a number of the plants this weekend that currently have no beans or flowers on at all, and have already sowed another batch in peat pots to germinate and bring on indoors before planting out. I will also be adding a fresh batch of compost to the bed to add as much goodness as I can and help retain moisture. It is very late to be sowing Runner Beans but I have got away with it before, had plants cropping in early November still in the past, and hopefully I can salvage the season with a decent crop come autumn especially if the warm weather continues. That said it wouldn't surprise me if we got early frosts the way the weather has been this year. 

The Pea Bingo crop was good from the first sowing, average at best from the second sowing but the third sowing appears to be growing well and strong; the second sowing was beginning to form pods just as we went into the two hottest days on record in the UK so it was no real surprise they struggled as much as they did especially being the dwarf variety that they are and being grown in large pots. Even the Courgette plant has struggled to a certain degree though it is still supplying four or five courgettes a week! The Mohawk Sweet Pepper has its first Peppers forming on in now but I am a little concerned it is getting crowded out and overshadowed, literally, by the Tomatoes. Hopefully it should be fine and this warm weather won't do that any harm as long as I keep it well watered. 

The Blackberries and Autumn Raspberries are almost over already - another sign of the weather this year. It has been a struggle to keep them well watered but I have managed it and have a number of bags of Berries frozen for the coming months and sat down just this morning to a yoghurt and mixed berry breakfast. The Strawberry plants also suffered somewhat this year in the heat and drought, though they were also getting a little old with some in the beds for four and five years. I have dug up those that were really struggling and composted them but kept back a few of the better plants to create the next generation. They have been placed in pots and as and when the runners are sent out, I will fix these in little pots of their own, cut from the mother plant once rooted and over winter them in the Greenhouse to create myself a nice new batch of plants for 2023.  

The Pak Choi seed sown in an old wheelbarrow are coming along nicely and I think I may have found a new use for the old barrow. I am looking forward to some stir-fries in the very near future. As I have mentioned before I am also planning to try sowing some in a trough later this year to then be kept in the Greenhouse over winter to see if I can prolong the season into November or even December; Pak Choi and leftover Turkey stir-fry on Boxing Day perhaps........

I think the above sums up gardening so very well, some great successes and some spectacular failures and at the end of the day we can only do what old Mother Nature allows.....................

Cheers 🍻