Lettuce and Smoothies

This box contains Lamb's Lettuce "Jade", Amish Deer Tongue, Lobjoits Green lettuce and Red Pak Choi

I've only sewn my lettuces indoors this year so that I can actually get some (the greedy slugs never share).  I have two window boxes along the studio windowsill, so if I want a little break from work I can go and check on these without getting too distracted.

This box contains a Spicy Greens Mix, a Salad Leaf Mix, Sarah Raven's Best Winter Lettuces Mix (Can Can, Green Salad Bowl and Merveille de Quatre Saisons) and Paris Market Atlas Carrots 

Both boxes have a nice quantity of leaves on them now.  I intended for them to be cut and come again boxes rather than grow larger "adult" lettuces.  As you can see in the one above, I also sowed a generous amount of mini globe carrots, which add an adorable look to the box.  I may need to thin them out soon, and I might just eat the thinnings as part of a salad.

I may take a few lettuces and plant them out to mature later also, at least one or two of each type hopefully.

My first harvest of just one type of lettuce (Though I did munch some leaves of the other types while I was at it....)

I was a good amount but not enough for a full salad, so I decided to add it one of my smoothies.

First I made a smoothie with 250ml of fresh orange juice, about 30ml of tea (1 teabag green tea with mango & lychee plus a ginger tea bag soaked for a good 30+ minutes and allowed to cool), loads of spinach, a banana, a generous helping of frozen peas and frozen blueberries.

Sometimes I add ice, but I've found lately the frozen peas add the same effect and equally make the smoothie more silky textured.  I always top my smoothies with a tablespoon of linseeds, ground ginger and ground cinnamon.

Blended in my smoothie maker and poured into a tall glass.  This thick "shake" was delicious and filled with veggies and fruit.

I made another smoothie batch to bottle and keep in the fridge, using the remaining ginger/green tea mix (about 300ml), all my fresh lettuce, spinach, peas, blueberries, cranberries and blackberries.

Most of the fruits I bought fresh and froze immediately once home, because I can use a better amount that way, and I find blueberries especially begin to grow mould really quickly if you buy them from the supermarket.  I also added some Chia seeds to my normal topping mix, and they are better for smoothies which you leave in the fridge rather than drink right away, because they swell and become more substantial.

So it was a good use of my lettuce, as this lot stretched two bottles alone!  The other one I got a bottle out of as well as my freshly poured glass.  Now all I need is for it to stay sunny and next time I might get to drink it outside!  

Strawberries were almost on the way out...

You'll have to wait for the Malta updates yet I'm afraid, as I still haven't uploaded my pics.  Instead I bring you my overwintered strawberries.

Before I went to Malta in mid-March I saw this!  My first strawberry was appearing after all my strawberries had been overwintering in the greenhouse.  I had several flower heads appear in December but they were too cold to set fruit.

As you may notice looking closely at the flower head stalk above the fruiting one, my poor strawberries have been overrun by aphids.  When I returned from Malta the green foliage was mostly brown on all of my plants and this strawberry was nowhere to be seen.

Excuse the weeds between the slabs please - not got to weeding this part of the garden yet

I've had the strawberries sitting outside for about a week now, trying to get the greenfly away from the rest of my greenhouse.  They've been looking steadily worse each day and I decided yesterday it was time to let go.  So as I went to throw them out I of course saw new growth appearing in all of them!

I decided to prune down all the dead and dying foliage to allow the new growth a chance.  Pretty much all of them look like this now.  I left some old stalks as I didn't want to risk cutting too close to the new growth.

I left flowers on some, as most still had flowers, but I pruned them off the ones that didn't look like they were going to survive anyway.

I also treated them with a nice organic pest deterrent.   I've heard garlic and chilli combined are supposed to ward of particularly aphids, but apparently most insects.  Be careful not to go too far with the garlic, because it can put off beneficial insects too.  Hubby had just so happened to have made a fresh batch of pureed garlic, ginger and chilli paste for culinary use.  I used just about 1/3 of a teaspoon in a spray bottle, topped it up with water and shook it up.  I sprayed all of the strawberries and poured some directly over the worst aphid infested plants.  They are still alive today (the plants that is) but I've noticed there are certainly less greenfly hanging on.  Hopefully if I continue to treat them this way they'll leave my poor strawberries alone.  I see now why strawberries are considered the most pesticide-exposed fruits in the supermarket.

Anyone else find strawberries to be an aphid-magnet?  Are some varieties more susceptible than others?  Where are all the ladybirds this year?

Long overdue garden update!

I know I've been away from here for a long time!  Life has just been busy.  Since making the decision to leave my job in January, I had to wait out my gruelling 7.5 week notice period, after which I went directly on holiday to Malta!  It was nothing short of phenomenal and I have several posts to do about the Maltese Islands and their flora.

Reclaiming my social life!  I don't officially endorse Southern Comfort or any of their products, but I personally encourage drinking them! Haha

Since then I've been busy working away on commissions and getting my business started, as well as finally having a social life (Which I literally felt like I haven't had for several years).  If anyone is interested in following my business ventures please keep an eye on thequestisover.co.uk for any developments as they happen.  It's slow going right now, but I've had some bridal commissions and lots of paperwork to do around it before I get fully into the swing of things.

I've taken away the cosmetics sections of the blog, which although I do make don't really warrant their own section as I don't post much here about them.  So I have added new sections on Gardening on a Budget, Indoor & Container Gardening and my Lessons Learned series.  I've also changed the header but not sure if I like it yet!

Yes, I like my Nesquick chocolate milkshake...hey at least I recycle!

 Got all my plants in full swing now, some doing better than others, but definitely a large variety going on!

I apologise for the quality of some photos - I took them all on my phone because it was simpler/both my memory cards are still full of Malta photos I've not backed up yet

Most days are a bit soggy but warm enough, with the greenhouse sitting at roughly 20-25 degrees centigrade most days.  On Friday this reached 32 degrees!!

My star plants right now are absolutely my broad beans, which I planted 19th February and they proceeded to rocket skyward ever since.  They are all absolutely laiden with flowers now!  I am growing Sutton Dwarf, Aquadulce and Masterpiece Green Longpod varieties (5 of each).

So far I've managed to deter the slimy beasts (slugs & snails) from my broad beans (last year they did nothing short of rape them of all their worth - not a leaf, flowerhead or pod was left).  However, this year they look much, much healthier and larger plants, I think particularly the new varieties are really impressing me (previously I've only grown Sutton).  I keep all of them on the metal shelf provided by my Dad when he was cleaning out his office.  Since I've been using it I've not had a single slimer on that side of the greenhouse.  So I'm thinking about either replacing the wooden shelf that came with the greenhouse (and is attached to the greenhouse itself) or coating the entire thing in copper tape.

The slug was actually the second pest to get its teeth into this leaf - the top layer was eaten neatly off by some other creature, exposing all the veins first, and then the slug just came in and had a party with the rest

Unfortunately the non-metal side of the greenhouse has suffered a fair amount of slimy creature damage.  I am unkeen to use slug pellets, being a vegetarian/trying to be an organic gardener, but I am not too concerned as most of the cucurbita are actually pretty advanced, and it only seems to be, in most cases, their first set of leaves being eaten, which would have probably fallen off soon anyway.

A few plants have suffered though - like the above four Aubergines.  Its hard to tell from the rubbish photo but it does actually look like the growing tips are intact on at least 2 of the plants, so provided there's no further attacks in this particular pot they might make it.  I do however have zero cucumbers left, though I know one seed has germinated but is still to surface so it might be my only one!

My Inca Berry (aka Cape Gooseberry) plants may look from afar like they are suffering, but in fact they are thriving!  Throughout winter they seemed to have no clue that winter had arrived (much like my goji berry plant) and as soon as it hit March their leaves started to turn more dark and purpley then flowers popped up everywhere.  They also have a lot of new growth.  I haven't pruned any old leaves off yet or any new growth, because though I want all their energy to focus on the fruits, I am concerned that pruning may encourage more new leaf growth instead.  Everything I've looked up on them basically says to leave them alone once they flower, and cut down on watering them/bothering them in any way.  I do have three (well technically 4 since the shortest one appears to be twin plants) so I might experiment with pruning if I get too impatient waiting on my fruits!

Inca Berry flowers and new leaves appearing

Inca Berries have papery pods like Tomatillos which host the berry and protect them as they grow.  These turn a light brown shade and then fall off when ripe.

I've not actually had the pleasure of tasting these yet so I am pretty excited to be getting a harvest soon.  Even the most stunted plant (about 1ft tall, while my tallest is approx 3.5ft) is laiden with pods and new flowers are still appearing.  They appear to be self pollinating too, which is great.

Cucamelons are getting going now!  I've added them to this hanging basket so the mini melon plants can trail over the edges.  Very hopeful and excited for the look of this later this year.  I intend to earth up a bit as they grow.

It may be quite hard to see these plants, since most of them are purple!  These are all different types of chilli.  The ones with the green true leaves starting to come through are calico and black pearl (at the moment they appear to grow much the same).  The fully purple leaved ones are all Purple Flash.  They all appear to be struggling with actually getting growing very fast!

Black Pearl chilli plant

This for example, is an ordinary disposable cup that I'm using as a pot, which cannot be more than an absolute maximum of 5cm diameter.  The roots are tiny and all my chillis still have far to go in these vessels before being potted on.  I had been waiting for them all to get true leaves but decided to pot them into these early from the propagator because they were so slow growing!  I don't know if the propagator they were in has restricted their roots or if its because they're all purple that they're absorbing less chlorophyll?  However my green-leaved chillis are all just mildly larger.  

I planted these 19th February - so I feel they should be much, much larger.  Mark suggested feeding them with Baby Bio plant food, which I will give a try.  It may not seem much because they are still SO tiny, but they have been growing since potting on.  Nearly all of them have started growing their true leaves now, and I planted all of them with the soil right up to the base of the leaves so they've been pushing up a little.  It is quite baffling considering everything else in the greenhouse is doing pretty exceptional (aside from those poor devoured cucumbers, though they were growing well until that instance) so I'll just have to do that awful waiting/patience thing.  

I may try to plant some new seeds of the same chilli types and see what happens - perhaps starting them so early and having a long germination period rather than a shorter one in hotter weather wasn't the best approach?  I'll keep you updated on those.  I am so excited for them to grow up because their foliage is absolutely stunning, not to mention their ornamental (but thankfully also edible) chillis.

French, Borlotti and Soya Beans have all popped up now, and getting some gorgeous, fresh looking leaves on them.

I have 4 varieties of Okra this year (fast become my favourite vegetable to eat, though peas are still at the top for now).  I'm impressed with their growth thus far considering they are more partial to hotter climates.  I will be re-potting them soon once all the seeds have fully emerged.

Green Giant Tomato

The tomatoes are thriving!  I've planted them all so that I can earth up once they are a little larger, to extend the use of their pots.  I'm really pleased with their progress so far, and soon I'll be able to start making decisions on how I intend to prune and shape their growth.  I like these slightly purple leaves of the Green Giant.  

Potatoes are doing great!!  I have four varieties, and need to earth them all up now.  Pleased with how much they seem to be thriving, considering my first time growing them was last year and it was really just a last ditch attempt to not throw away a potato which was chitting on its own in the cupboard haha.  (I did get some absolutely delicious potatoes from it but they were tiny).  This year I bought proper seed potatoes and proper potato grow bags, so looking forward to hopefully a larger crop this year. 

More soon on the variety details of my potatoes, okra, tomatoes etc.  Just wanted to give a larger update overall, but I will soon be building myself a small (not walk in) fruit cage because both my gooseberry and blackcurrant are laiden with these:

Goosebery flowers - Can you see the little green gooseberries above them?

This green gooseberry in particular is thriving with a ton of new growth and flowers appearing.  I'm very excited because I got all my fruit bushes last year and they grew and went dormant, and this is the first year they are flowering/fruiting!!

Apples

So, I'm very fussy about apples. I only like one type an that is Granny Smith.  I like them tart.  Now, I guess I should investigate this but is Granny Smith actually just an early picking stage of a different variety?  Because although I'd planned to start from seed anyway, I've only ever seen a Granny Smith for sale as a plant in one gardening catalogue, and most that do fruit trees have a huge range of apple varieties.  So either they are rare or don't sell well because not that many people like them?  I'm not sure!

I did start some from seed a while ago, I was thinking it was a failed attempt as after planting about 6 seeds (the contents of 1 whole apple) nothing appeared for at least a good two months.  I get impatient waiting for plants to sprout, because I just love watching them peep through the soil then grow and mature into something so different from how they started out.  But finally, something popped up!

I was thrilled, though some pesky slug (I presume) came along and nibbled the entire top off.  But no worries, another sprout popped up, this time left alone by slugs.  Though again after about another month this it had gotten...about 2cm above the soil.  It seemed to be getting eaten alive by greenfly, and having not seen a ladybird all year I thought it best to bring it inside to nurture the tender creature.  Turned out eggs had been laid in the soil, because soon enough the coriander pot right next to it on the windowsill was bombarded with greenfly too, literally coated in the buggers!  I threw it out, luckily I had another coriander pot completely unscathed.

Anyway, back to the apple.  Once I brought it inside, the following morning a new sprout had appeared out of nowhere, and reached twice the height of the existing one.  Kind of like when your younger sibling grows up to be much taller than you so people assume he's the older one.  Since they were just in a starter pot (really a disposable plastic cup with some drainage holes cut in the bottom) I knew it was time to pot them on soon.  I gave them another week in their tiny pot in case any more sprouts appeared, but nothing came of that so they're now resting in their new spacious pots, next to each other.

I'll be keeping them indoors over the winter because they're so tiny and tender right now, plus the greenhouse isn't heated so I know it will get too cold for them.  I'm hoping they'll grow a fair bit in spring before I move them outside around April/May depending on the frosts.  I might move them to the greenhouse first.  It's going to be a long time before I can get my own Granny Smith's from these trees, but the satisfaction that will have come from growing these from seed to fruit will be oh so sweet.

Autumn Colours

Summer...

Autumn :)

(Sorry these were taken at dusk and the light is pretty rubbish)

Tomorrow I'm revamping the garden and going to buy compost and set up a bunch of raised beds.  I've also applied for a job this morning, had a driving lesson where I made huge progress, and came home to find I had an interview next week for said job.  And this is a biggie one, so fingers crossed. Sadly between work and prep for the interview I won't get a lot of time in the garden this week, but fortunately its come at a time when everything is slowing down anyway!

Cold & Wet

Apologies for the extreme lack of updates!!  There are several reasons for this, one being that when I'm at work its always a 10-hour shift, plus commute, and I've had to pick up some extra shifts because the boss has been ill and I'm basically management when he's not there.  Another has been that its super soaking and cold right now, and really too wet to do anything in the garden right now.  But now that our first frost has finally happened (over a month later than predicted on the weather website I checked it out on in August) the rain has gone off but its extremely windy!

I fleeced a few of my plants, my almond, who went into autumn mode before any other plants, my goji berry (who still thinks its the height of summer and is producing new branches and is filled with greener than green leaves) and my blackcurrant, which is just realising autumn has appeared.  I noticed some white fungal symptoms on some of the leaves of my goji berry, and trimmed some of the branches which seemed worst effected, but I'll have to look into what it might be to stop it getting any worse.  So far the fleecing has proved to be problematic and helps the plants catch the wind and causes their pots to fall over, but thankfully the goji berry has a massive heavy pot, otherwise I would be quite worried, because its a huge plant!  Should I be fleecing my other fruit bushes?  They seem quite acclimatised, particularly the blueberry who is a gorgeous shades of red and orange.  I wouldn't have bothered with my almond, since its already pretty barky, but its still very small and having never grown one before I thought it best to be safe.

My tomatoes are STILL producing new tomatoes, but I picked the massive giants I was waiting on to ripen indoors, but they're being pretty stubborn! Much of my greenhouse doesn't seem to know its nearing winter...

Check out these triplets:

My strawberries also seem to think its perfect fruiting time...though I've heard that sometimes these are planted for a November harvest before, so maybe its normal?  They were planted late, I was hoping to try to overwinter some.

Got my new fruit bush canes planted, potted and out.  (Loganberry, Raspberry, Gooseberry, Blackberry and a new variety of Blueberry) I still have a lot of weeding to make new beds to do, and planning the beds as well as finally getting my garlic and onions out.  So hopefully lots of updates to come now its drier!

Just some herbs

The egg shells on the surface of the soil seemed to be keeping the slugs and snails away after all, but I decided to bring the coriander in to sit on the kitchen window, because it also makes it easier than having to run out to the greenhouse in the middle of making a meal.

Some basil a co-worker gave me as a gift when she moved away (I gave her a lavender plant).  There's some purple basil in the back too, but this all died back as the green seems more successful at competing for space.  The oddest part about this is the OUTSIDE of the pot is growing mould.  I've never seen that before!  The basil is extremely delicious though, I've basiled up a fair few recipes of late ;)

Cucamelons

These adorable little plants grow like mad but they're like miniature watermelons, and their little leaves and flowers are itty bitty!

They've really grown fast and kind of everywhere, I love trailing plants!  I re-potted them about a month ago, thinking there were only 2 which had germinated.  Turns out there were actually 6, but each "one" had been three interwoven together.  So there are actually some which are much smaller and less developed, so glad that I re-potted them to give them a bit more space.  I'm impressed how long they got to in their tiny 9cm germination pot.

Teeny Tiny Cucamelon

I've put them up against a trellis to trail up, and they've had a few flowers going so hoping to get some lovely cucamelons soon.  I've not tried them before.  Though the trellis will work and look lovely, I think these would work equally well as an adorable hanging basket.  Think I'll try that out next season.

They also were germinated really late, so not really expecting much from them, just wanted to see what they grew like really!

Courgettes & Squashes

Female flower soon to open on Spaghetti Squash

You have no idea how long I have been waiting to see this.

FINALLY.  Ladies arrive on the squash and courgettes.

My courgettes always seem to have the male ones out for a month or two, then usually when the female ones come along, they've stopped producing male flowers, which obviously causes some issues...BUT there are still some with male flowers on, as well as the females, so fingers crossed I can pollinate something.  I'm not sure if both the courgettes and squash have the male flowers remaining though, as I've stuck them all together and not really looked at the labels...so might end up with some interesting hybridisation, but we'll see if anything takes at all.

Spaghetti Squash leaf compared with my hand

These guys are a bit behind because the first set of squashes and courgettes never germinated.  I don't know if it was still too cold because we had snow until so late in the year this year, or just bad seeds or what.  But they're a bit behind.  So I was thrilled to see flowers appear at the end of July.

Is it normal for the male ones to be out so long before female flowers appear? (Literally 4 months)  Or is this a container growing kind of issue?  I'm hoping to plant out the courgettes and squashes in raised beds next year, and maybe start them off in the house instead of the greenhouse, to counteract the potentially long-assed winter again.

Not expecting much to come of these now its pretty cold.  I'd be lucky to get something small to harvest at all now.

Peas

So this pea planting and string cage idea worked out really well!  Even the ones which are growing away outside of the string can either be tucked back in or they use their tendrils to cling on.  The peas are producing really well and I'm harvesting every few days.

My latest harvest, which joined courgettes, tomatoes, cashews, chillis, spinach and home-grown coriander leaves in a stir-fry with some delicious chilli noodles (The Sharwoods ones that actually have chillis inside the noodles).  I admit, some may have just made the pea skins in...as I scoffed the peas out of the fattest ones before I started cooking ;)

Also just realised this placemat is really gorgeous as a background!

Do you think I like chillis?

As you can see...I like chillis rather a lot.  Actually, these are a mix of chillis and peppers, and there are so many different varieties I can't even remember them.  I know the sweet peppers are mostly if not all the elongated ones, rather than the bellboy style ones.  I know that some of the chillis are a hot carribean blend, some are just considered hot cayanne, there are literally dozens of varieties.  Again these were late, late bloomers because it was so cold the germination took months.  Hence why they're all pretty small.  Was planning to give some away as gifts for Christmas though, because they can be overwintered so easily.  I overwintered them the first time I grew them and wow when they woke up did they produce like mad!

They are flowering and fruiting now, but I doubt I'll get much out of them before they go dormant.  They are kind of taking over the greenhouse though, I have so many.  It's too windy to put them outside though really, they'll just get torn up and broken.  Damn Edinburgh is always so incredibly windy!!