Fruit, Veg, Flowers and Slugs

Happy New Year! I will start this post with a look back and the feeling of satisfaction I felt when able to serve Christmas Dinner at mine last month with Carrots, Parsnips and Leeks all fresh from the vegetable patch. It is lovely to be able to simply wander down the garden to do the veg 'shop' and children and grown-ups alike all enjoy pulling a few veg out the ground for their lunch. The Eskimo Carrots have lived up to their name and hype and are beautiful despite being under several inches of snow a couple of weeks back and as you would expect the  Parsnip Gladiator  and the Leeks didn't mind the snow and cold at all.  There is little time to rest on the laurels mind you and as the New Year dawns, it is a great time to give the Greenhouse a thorough clean and wash down and on a mild day with a little winter sun shining down it can become quite an enjoyable hour or two spent. A bucket of soapy wat er, sp onge and a soft broom for those harder to reach places is p

I am writing this article on an unseasonably warm Saturday morning in October, the thermometer tells me it is twenty Celsius. The garden is still looking surprisingly fine considering the clocks go back this weekend and next week we are into November. The Salvia Hot Lips remain covered in bloom, Marigolds are still in flower in their pots, I have tomatoes ripening outdoors (hopefully anyway) and one of the Agapanthus still has a bloom on it!  I will be pruning the Climbing Rose this afternoon and as it is now pretty established it is a simple case of training the stems I want to keep horizontally to encourage flowering and cutting back where it has outgrown its support. As for new stem for next season which will carry the flowers, w hen pruning climbers, cut just above a bud that points in the direction that you want a new stem and let the rose do what it does.  I have already taken a few cuttings from my Zonal Geraniums,  P elargoniums to give them their correct name as I understand i

The seed order for the year has arrived from Thompson & Morgan. As is often the case I have probably over order and will now spend a few hours mulling over plans of what to sow where . I have also been gifted a ‘sack of seeds’  at Christmas  containing all sorts of wonderful things  that I am now also trying to work out which to grow this year and where, hopefully, I can squeeze them in – in  short,  I need an extra half acre or so to the garden to fi t  it all in!    The vegetable seed order for the coming growing season consists of  Runner Bean  Benchmaster  a real success story in 2021 for me so on the list again ,  Tomato Buffalo  S teak , new to me   and  I am hoping for some nice juicy toms from this variety ,  Tomato  Gigantomo  another I have grown before ,   as the name suggests this plant can grow huge tomatoes of 2lb  - 3lb each  and   Tomato  L i moncito   that fruits lovely yellow  mini plum tomatoes and was   another big su cc ess for me in 2021 so back on the list. I