New beds up the garden path

The last few weeks have not been idle ones Up The Garden Path although as autumn arrives and the days are shorter and the nights cooler, things have been slowing down - including the weeds thank goodness! This year has been a learning curve - or maybe I should say the last six months as we haven't been living from the garden for a full year yet.

Our freezer is packed full of vegetables and fruit and I hope very much that together with any winter veg we succeed in growing, this will see us through the winter months. But of course, some things were more plentiful than others. We will be sick of French Beans before the year is out but wondering where all the peas are. There are no Broad Beans left in the freezer at all and all the onions have been used up - although that's partly the fault of the family who insisted on THREE batches of chutney this year. I have enough stewed apples to satisfy the entire planet's desire for apple crumble and apple pie. Also masses of blackcurrant and blackberries - but no raspberries or strawberries at all.

In an effort to put this right I recently ordered 40 bare-rooted strawberry plants; 20 each of Gariguette and Manille. For the past week I have been frantically digging two 10 metre long beds in a new piece of land which we will use as a veggie plot extension. Ultimately there will be three beds there this year and then about three more in the spring (if I still have the energy!) Yesterday the strawberries arrived and I spent two hours planting them through plastic. This morning they are still standing so I must have got something right! According to Alan Titchsmarsh's book planting them now will give us a decentish crop next year. They are under plastic because I simply don't have the time to weed every single vegetable bed and I plant as much under plastic as possible. I have bought a strong green plastic than can be re-used for several years. As in most things, a compromise between saving the planet and saving my back/time.

I also ordered some raspberry canes - these will arrive next week or soon after and there's a rush on to finish the third bed!

I would like this new piece of land to be, as much as possible, permanent beds although at least one bed will be part of our annual crop rotation (all those onions!). So as well as the fruit there will also be a bed for artichokes - I have six plants raised from seed already and waiting - and also a new asparagus bed. I planted asparagus eight years ago but it has only ever given us enough for two people on a strict diet. I think I planted them all too close together. Whatever, we don't get enough and a new bed there will be to supplement it.

Peas

When I was a child there was a large (to me anyway!) walled vegetable garden and it supplied us with all the fruit and veg we could eat, possibly not all year round but most of it. There was enough left over for the surplus to be sold and people from the village bought a fair share of their veg from us. Those were the days!

My brother and I used to go into the vegetable garden after school and eat the strawberries. Of course, this was not allowed and one day we heard someone coming so we slid both ourselves and OUR BIKES under the netting. That of course was a disaster and presumably we were duly punished. It can't have been too bad though because I don't remember that part! Maybe no strawberries for a week.

One of my favourite jobs as a result of this garden was shelling peas. There is nothing more enjoyable than eating a handful of peas straight from the pod. Nothing sweeter. The taste seems to burst out of its skin and into your mouth.



My youngest son has a friend staying tonight and wanted to prove to him that the English CAN cook. I was given my supper orders: roast chicken, roast potatoes and peas... So this afternoon I braved the heat and picked a bucketful. When I got back to the kitchen I suggested to R that he help me shell them. I was astonished that during the following half hour (while he shelled one pod to every five of mine!) he didn't want to eat a single one. His mother was not quite so disciplined!

Lessons - learn them!

Well the first problem is that we let the borage which had self-seeded from last year, stay and grow in what this year is the potato bed. It was intentional as the bees love it and are all over it. However, as the borage got bigger and top heavy it has toppled over all the potato plants which have also toppled over! I still have plenty of potatoes but I can only imagine that there has been as effect - perhaps smaller potatoes or less of them?


But it looks pretty!

The second lesson is about growing peas. All the books say to put twiggy sticks in amongst them to grow up. Well, I did that but it clearly wasn't enough and the result was peas falling all over the place. I've rectified this but putting some lines of string between bamboo poles and lifting the peas up and against them. However, again there has been an effect - the stems are bent and although the crop is still a good one a lot of the pods are quite small. But the peas are even sweeter!

And finally - broad beans. We just can't have enough of them and I never grow enough! I know they can be grown during the winter months so I will have to plan accordingly.

Saturday's Labour

We got a lot of work done yesterday in the veggie patch. I dug up the first lot of potatoes and will store them in wonderful sacks from the baker. Potatoes have to be stored in the dark to stop them going green. Some are already green and will have to be disposed of. Others are either damaged from the fork or two small to store - that's fine; they're on the menu tonight!

I put black plastic over the part of the bed that had the potatoes and have planted my courgettes. It's quite late but I'm hoping that with the additional heat they will now get going quite quickly.

I cut down the broad beans as there were no more pods. I have left the base of the plants in ground as there are more flowers on them and I don't know if they will start growing again! I don't think so but thought it would be worth a try. I also put in a row of peas - again a bit late but the packet did say until the end of June...

We have eight cucumber plants and I can't believe all the fruits on them. We will be eating cucumber soup all winter at this rate - but maybe not all the fruits will ripen. I have stopped the ends of all the plants in the hope that some of the energy will go into the fruits now. Again, this is a new one for us and I just don't know what to expect.