Archive for October, 2010
Frost-bitten chillis
Well what a difference a few days makes. After enjoying the relatively warm autumn, Sunday night turned out to be one of the coldest October nights for decades. The thermometer recorded -3C in the polytunnel. Luckily I had remembered to put the fleece over the secondary polytunnel, but I hadn’t given the peppers and tomatoes any cover. They just couldn’t cope with that kind of cold, and have wilted. On the positive side the peppers themselves all look okay – I suppose these have quite thick skins that can take a bit of cold – but the tomatoes couldn’t cope. Read the rest of this entry »
Chilli peppers thriving
The polytunnel has been a fantastic aid in the garden, and has exceeded our expectations in terms of the amount of produce we have been able to harvest from it. It only went up in April, so we missed getting an early start on some vegetables, but for growing tender crops such as tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers it has worked a treat. However, I realise we can get much more out of the tunnel than this, especially in getting a supply of salad leaves and other winter greens throughout the winter months, and early crops of beans, peas and potatoes to help in the so-called “hungry gap”. Read the rest of this entry »
Tucked up for the winter
We’ve got a good crop of beetroots this year. The sizes are pretty variable, and the ones I planted in July haven’t amounted to much, but the ones sown in March/April we’ve been harvesting since July. I wanted to have a go at storing some root vegetables this year rather than leaving them in the ground over winter. Last year I didn’t store any and even though most root crops are hardy, they didn’t cope very well with the harsh winter we had.
We’ve got an excellent book called How to store your garden produce by Piers Warren which suggests that you can store root crops in sawdust. I’d previously thought that to keep the roots moist, these crops had to be stored in damp sand or peat, but having been given a couple of sacks full of sawdust by our wood-working neighbour, I thought I would give the sawdust method a try. Read the rest of this entry »
Sunshine indoors
We’ve only ever tried Jerusalem artichokes once, so devoting some space in the garden for them was somewhat of an experiment. They are very prolific plants and only really suitable if you have a big garden or don’t mind things getting shaded. Since we planted them in March, ours have grown at least a couple of metres, and I’ve had to build some sturdy supports to stop them falling over. Even being relatively sheltered by the polytunnel they have still had a bit of battering and some of the stems have broken off. However, they look very healthy and until yesterday had produced some lovely sunflower-like flowers. Apparently I wasn’t meant to let them flower, as it can reduce the yield, but I’m glad I did as they have made nice and cheery cut flowers for the house. Read the rest of this entry »
Something's not quite right!
The hedgerows are full of life at the moment, and this autumn is meant to be one of the best in many years for collecting fruit such as blackberries. We have quite a lot of hedges of our own, and we decided when we bought the place we would let the hedges revert back to their natural state. The local way seems to be to cut the hedges as early and as savagely as you can on an annual basis, and our hedges had been given this treatment every year. This is understandable, to some extent, when you’re using the fields for crops and pasture, and the hedges would start to encroach on the land, but it’s a shame you very rarely see a wild hedgerow around these parts. Landowners are only meant to cut their hedges between September and March, so that birds can nest without being disturbed, and the plants are dormant, although with spring starting earlier this seems a bit late in the year to me. Read the rest of this entry »