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!!

Starting Seeds!!

Growing tip of Inca Berry bush

With all the craziness of life of late, I've sorely missed gardening.  This made worse by the never-ending rain and single snowfall since Christmas.  So I was thrilled when mid-February rocked around so I can finally get started sowing some of the million seeds I have been accumulating over the past six months.

The most exciting for me is probably the chillis.  This year I have really gone all out when deciding on varieties to try.  We eat chillis in every meal, so really I am thrilled to have an entire propagator devoted to them.

This is also my new propagator I got from Suttons - it's meant to make it easier to remove the seedlings without damaging the roots.  I'll let you know how it goes on that front.  Last year I had issues with a capillary mat propagator where the roots grew through the mat, often before the seedling emerged to a point where it could be handled properly, so there was a lot of damage when getting them out.

I may have gone a bit overboard in my excitement at being able to sow some seeds...

Setting the seeds out before they're covered up

So here is my list of what's been sown thus far:

Chillis

• Nosferatu (thanks for the seed Mark!)
• De Cayenne
• Purple Flash
• Cayenne Apache
• Habanero Black Stinger
• Scotch Bonnet Big Sun
• Black Pearl
• Numex Pinata
• Capsicum Calico
• Numex Twilight (Thanks again Mark)

Sweet Peppers

• Mohawk
• Organic Nardello
• Bellboy
• Worldbeater

Tomatoes

• Purple Calabash
• Great White
• Peardrops (trailing)
• Black Russian
• Reinhard's Goldkirsche
• Roma
• Health Kick
• Red Cherry
• Green Giant
• Golden Sunrise
• Green Zebra
• Oxheart
• Moneymaker
• White Queen

Cucumbers

• Perfection
• Marketmore

Courgettes

• Black Beauty Dark Fog
• Organic Nero Di Milano
• Early Gem
• Piccolo

Squash

• White Bush Marrow 
• Vegetable Spaghetti
• Black Futsu
• Cornell's Delicata
• Sweet Dumpling
• Butternut
• Crown Prince
• Honeybear

Aubergine

• Black Beauty

Broad Beans

• Super Aquadulce
• Masterpiece Green Longpod
• Sutton Dwarf

Melon

• Watermelon Crimson Sweet

Herbs

• Russian Comfrey
• Thai Basil
• Black Cumin
• Cumin
• Coriander
• Green Mint
• Marigold (I know not strictly a herb but its in with them haha)
• Lovage
• Sweet Marjoram

Radishes

• Cherry Belle
• Summer Cross (Mooli)

These were all planted 19th February.  You may think this is a little early for some of these, but we are going on holiday for the last two weeks of March and I wanted to be able to re-pot seedlings before we go preferably, rather than them come up while we're away when I can't look after them.

This year is very much an experimental year for my veg garden.  I haven't grown most of theses varieties before so its exciting to try them out and see what I like and what new tastes I can discover!  And this is just February's planting! 

Here's a wee look at the greenhouse right now.  Mostly fleeced chillis overwintering and a bunch of thriving strawberry plants

Please excuse the floor and pallet mess - the floor was never finished by the previous tenant in our house and I was too anxious to get started to get it finished properly last year.  Maybe this year will be the year it gets done!

Those luscious green plants who haven't yet realised it's winter are my Inca berries, who have grown without issue throughout the winter and have thrived on my lack of watering neglect throughout my busy work life.  Well done Inca Berries!!

Lovely big leaves soaking up the sun

Since this will be their second year I hope to see some fruiting going on soon!

Another plant that already seems to have decided winter is over is my Goji berry.  

Blackcurrant is starting to produce some lovely pink/purple buds!

This will be the second year for my blackcurrant and my goji berry plants, so I'm hoping for some fruit this summer.  We'll see!!  I bought them as small plants from Sainsbury's last spring and they've come a long, long way since.  Particularly the goji, who I'm convinced is trying to grow tall enough to escape the garden over the fence.

That black area is not rot or fungus, I'd just been handling rather a lot of soil and was holding the top of the plant while I examined the buds

As I was out in the greenhouse today I could really feel the warm sun on my back.  The days are getting warmer, and the rain and winds are dying down a bit.  It really does feel like winter never really quite got here, and spring really does seem round the corner.  Which means there will be more seed sowing to show you soon!

Simple Black Russian Tomato Pasta

What is this?  A recipe!?  I actually LOVE cooking, but barely have time to do it.  Normally I love to cook curries and rich sauces the most and play with the balance of flavours and nuances.  So this recipe is incredibly simple, because I was dying to use my Black Russian tomatoes that I had ripening in the boiler cupboard.

Depending on your screen you might not be able to see the full, gorgeous colouring of a Black Russian tomato.  It is not simply red but a deep, rich pink, with a dark brown, almost black pattern on the top.  Interestingly, as you will have seen previous posts, they grow with a darker green section on top prior to ripening, rather than being all the same and changing post ripen.  (see below)

Oh look its Triplette!

So, you can obviously change this around and add more into it if you like, but I found the flavour of these tomatoes was so strong and perfectly complimented the onions.

Ingredients: (Serves 2 as a small portion accompanying pasta, feel free to adjust levels to suit the number you are catering for)

- 3 Large Black Russian Tomatoes - Make sure they are fully ripened as the top ripens later than the bottom

- 1 medium or large onion (I used a brown onion, and we only use large ones because we love onion)

- Fresh or frozen peas (or sweetcorn if you have any, I sadly had run out!) - I use a large amount, approx. 2 cupped handfuls, but it depends how much you like them, and I also used frozen ones in this particular case

- Ground cumin

- Ground tumeric

- 1 generous teaspoon Garlic, ginger & chilli paste (we always have a ton of this made up for curries, but basically chop equal amounts of these 3 ingredients finely and blend into a near-puree state.  You can keep this in the fridge in an airtight container for around a month, but its best used fresher if possible).

- Fresh coriander leaves and stems, torn into smaller pieces

Instructions:

- Chop up tomatoes into small pieces (I like the skins so I never take them off, but some people don't, so feel free to skin them at this point)

- Heat oil in a pan on a medium-low heat and chop onion

- Add the tomatoes first so that they sear slightly

- Add the ground spices, garlic, ginger & chilli paste and stir to mix into and coat the tomatoes

- Add the chopped onion (as I said, if you're not a big onion fan, add less/a smaller onion)

- Stir in onion so this is also coated with spices.  If you are looking to go spicier this is the time to add any optional extra chopped chillis or powders, so that they mix well with the oil and the other spices
- Boil some water in a separate pot, add a vegetable stock cube and cook some pasta (appropriate amount for however many you are serving).  Typically I like mine served somewhere between al dente and mush, but you can obviously adjust according to how you like yours

- Add peas - I used frozen, so as they heat up, they provide water to the sauce.  If you are using fresh, you will need to add some water to thicken into a sauce

- After adding the peas cook for a minimum of 5 further minutes, add fresh coriander torn up until wilted, and serve on top of the pasta.  You can also add basil but I didn't have any ready because I'd harvested much of it the night before for a different meal. 

If you want a more sauce-like sauce, cook for longer and add more water.  I served with the onions still a little on the more crunchy side, because I feel it better compliments the flavour of this particular tomato.

My tomatoes were very high in flavour, so I only needed three to get a big impact, and they balanced nicely with the strong onion flavours.  I highly recommend growing this variety to anyone who hasn't tried them before.  They are a delight to grow and even more delicious than they look.  They have a rich, tangy flavour and go far in terms of flavour strength.  I haven't tried them raw yet, but I imagine their colouring would add interest to a salad dish.  I fed the plants weekly while growing fruits.

Final tomato harvest and some weirdos!

Apologies for my recent disappearance!! Some of you may know I had a job interview, which was originally scheduled for last week but was postponed to today instead.  Thankfully on my part, because due to my boss being on holiday, I've been managing the entire time he's been away, and as we're open 7 days I have worked 10 days straight, followed by a day off to act upon bridesmaid duties and sew my suit for my interview like a mad thing.  Then back to work and FINALLY off again today to have my interview and its the first time I've been able to get into the garden in about two weeks, particularly in DAYLIGHT, which seems to have almost left Scotland lately altogether. (The interview went very well for anyone wondering, and I'll let you know how I got on when I hear back next week).

So today I only really had time to check on everything and quickly water it.  It was like a mad chilli jungle, with them having flowered yet again and producing fruits all over the place.  A bit odd, not sure if this is like a last gasp defence mechanism or not.  I still have a bazillion of these plants though, so I will definitely be overwintering at least a few of them.  

I decided it was time to call it a day with the tomatoes, and brought them all inside and cut off the remaining fruits, which I will ripen in the boiler cupboard.  Although I've never read about it before, I'm going to experiment with overwintering tomatoes.  It sounds totally mad, since I've never heard of anyone even trying this before, but I figured why not give it a go since I'm overwintering a bunch of other things anyway.  So I pruned them all down to the point where they can still grow in the side shoots (that I would normally pinch out).  I plan to put them into very deep pots and allow the lower stems to build a really strong root system and I'm hoping this might mean the plants survive long enough to start re-sprouting later.  We will see!  I will likely keep them indoors if not in the greenhouse during this.  I have planted some side shoots which I let grow then cut off a few months ago and they are all doing extremely well in the greenhouse, they are lovely and green, tall, though height growth has slowed as its gotten colder, and they are clearly hydrated and holding water very well.  So I will leave them in the greenhouse and monitor them to see if they actually make it through to spring, when I hope they will start growing up again.  

So now for my harvest!  There's a mix of Black Russian, which is the one with ridges and is dark green on top.  They ripen to red with almost black on top.  There's also moneymaker and roma and a couple chillis in there too.

Roma performed very...non existantly this year.  All my tomato plants produced, and I know at least two of them were Roma as far as I know (there should have been 2 of each of the three varieties)  but the cross pollination of them saw most of the plants producing Black Russians and Moneymakers on the same plant on multiple plants!  I have only seen one distinctly Roma-esque tomato.  So its clearly the weaker of the three.  I would say that Black Russian is the more dominant one, but they take the longest to ripen.

And who is this little weirdo?

I call him Triplette, (because you know, I name and genderise all my tomatoes...), and its literally a single tomato, split into three at the bottom, but attached at the top.  The "scars" on the fruit are from the flower petals which were stuck.  I didn't see this one when it first grew until it got quite big, so I didn't pull the flower off, and as a result the tomato grew through the middle and around the outer edges as the flower was pushed away from the stalk, resulting in this.

It has this brown section on the underside of both edges of one segment of the tomato.  It seems to be the equivalent of a tomato ectopic pregnancy.  The seeds have been produced on the outside of this section, instead of inside.  They are very small and the surface appears more similarly to a strawberry.  It will be interesting to let this one ripen then cut it open.  I'm not sure it will be salvageable as edible, but it will certainly be interesting!

Now that I trimmed it off, I'm not sure if this IS a chilli, or rather a sweet pepper.  I'm sure I'll find out.  I forgot to label well, ANY of my chillis or peppers (fool that I am with having so many) but I may well have got some cross pollination from them too.

I have lots of posts cued up to go, so now that my interview is over, and even if I get the job I wouldn't start until January, so I'm hoping I can get enough time actually out of work to get some more daylight photos and updates on garden renovations and who/what is being overwintered!  (I saw who, cos these plants are basically my children) :P  It's nice to be back!

Tomatoes!!

These beauties were planted in FEBRUARY and they only just started producing some fruits about a month ago.  They did flower earlier in the summer, but because of the extreme heatwave we experienced this year (after having snow until May!) so many of my plants were wilting and burning a little, even when watered multiple times daily in some cases!  So the first set of flowers never set, because they literally fried in the heat.  I should have taken them in the house to cool down really, but hubby doesn't like plants in the house because they attract so many insects (mainly blackflies, which, it turns out he's pretty allergic to)

So now we have lots of flowers and little tomatoes gradually getting bigger, so I'm looking forward to seeing (and eating) them once they get bigger.

When I was tidying up the plants the other day to get leaves for perfume making, I came across several shoots for replanting.  I thought, despite the late season, why not give it a go, they'll either be getting flowers super soon because they're from that stage of plants, or I might be able to bring them inside over the winter and hide them in another room so they don't bother hubby too much.  I'd love to have perpetual tomatoes!!  They're started to produce flower heads now, so there might be something happening! Definitely an indoor growth though soon.

A bizarre flower issue, the "tomato" is shaped like a fine brush section of a paintbrush, it will be interesting if it does continue to develop to see what it turns out like!

Finally, due to the brutal courgettes beating up the tomatoes, I decided it was time they had their own place.  So they've moved into this mini greenhouse.  I assembled it quickly before work and of course it fell over by lunch time so my wonderful hubby weighed it down with some spare planks from raised bed building, and large stones.  Looks good! Hubby insisted that I called him "Green Fingers" after this, despite him having no hand in ever growing anything in his life.  I settled for "Garden Designer" instead.

Greenhouse Tour

So a little tour of the greenhouse, there are a lot of things which are still so early in development because of the late, late snow, and then the heatwave winter.  But some things can be overwintered okay, so it be will alright.

Aubergine 1 month ago

Aubergines 13th October 2013

So these are the aubergines.  I don't actually like them that much, but they look so awesome when they grow, and I know a lot of people who use them a lot so I can give them away.  They're pretty tiny just now, but I seem to have tons of them.  They are the organic black beauty variety.

I don't know if they will overwinter, as I haven't grown them before and they aren't that far advanced.  But I'll give it a go, since they are inside the greenhouse (non heated) and I'll cover them with a bag to help encourage heat.  If they really look poorly I can bring them in the house, but the heating isn't on yet so the temp is about the same right now!

Okra 1 Month Ago (This is the biggest seedling)

I've been trying to germinate Okra all year.  I had two varieties and they were never talking so I'm thrilled they finally grew into strong seedlings.  Also saddened, that its this late in the year.  But we'll see how they get on, first frost isn't meant to come until mid October, so might get them to a strong enough point to either overwinter or bring inside.  I remember going on holiday to Majorca with my husband and two friends, where we stayed in one of the friend's grandad's place.  We went to visit one of the grandad's friends one evening and sat on her balcony, overlooking the stunning cove.  She was widowed, but her and her husband used to run the local green grocer and she still grew lots of veg on her balcony.  She had a stunning okra plant and I just adored it, having never seen one in real life before.  So super excited that I am finally getting somewhere with them.

Okra Seedlings 13th October 2013

Not sure if these paler leaves are a normal thing?   They're still getting bigger, but I'm thinking I need to pot on again soon.  I'm wondering if the pasty looking ones are normal or dying a bit (hard to tell since the old leaves are still so dark green).  Because I might discard a few of them and just keep the strongest 2 if that is the case.

So as you can see, its rather full...I do get a bit into my plants...There's some potatoes on the floor, along with Inca Berries, tomatoes, courgettes and squashes on the left, chillis and peppers, sweet potatoes, peas, strawberries and such on the right.

Update: That's a humongous spaghetti squash on the left, some tomatoes and chillis on the right, inca berries on the floor, many more chillis and peppers, peas and strawberries on the left.

I had to move the courgettes and other squash outside because they were beating up the tomatoes and knocking them off the shelf by growing right into them.  Brutes!  So I have placed them inside this upturned raised bed frame for now, as FINALLY we have some female flowers going on, so I also wanted to help them get pollinated outside.  I'm going to cover them with some insulating sheeting for the time being, and they will still be like a tunnel so bees can get in, but it will cut down on the cold winds at least partially I hope