Wet, wet, wet

   Nothing like a winter bonfire. I have now managed to burn all the wood pruned from the apple tree and some. I have started to clear the house garden and I am building up yet another bonfire! Man! In my bank border, if one can call it a border, one crocus has managed to flower and more and more narcissus are showing. I went looking for snow drops on the road ditch bank and they are about half an inch high. 

Bonfire

The last couple of weeks have been very quiet on the gardening front. More often than not too wet to do anything meaningful outside. In the poly tunnel my "Christmas" potatoes are  growing well and I am still just about able to cover them up with soil. They are also protected by fleece. Hopefully that will be enough as long as there is not a sequence of severe frosts. The pace will quicken now that January is coming to end. Onion, tomato, lettuce, sweet pepper and aubergine seed have been sown and are sat on my dinning room floor, keeping warm. The onions sown at the start of January are now well on their way. I need to go and get my seed potatoes. I like to plant a small crop of an unusual potato so I will be on the lookout for a heritage variety.
   The last of the oak leaves are now safely packed away under a tarpaulin. For once I beat the chickens!

Hurry! Hurry! Hurry! Whoa not so fast!

   As long as the weather holds there is plenty to do outside. Christmas and New Year is now behind me and the excess of food and drink almost forgotten. 

Plot in process of being expanded

Two plots forked, weeded and expanded

 The weather has cooperated for a change and there have been several days of no rain but sunshine and warmth. This has allowed me to get on with forking and weeding a couple of plots that had tomatoes planted in them but have not been touched since clearing the plants back in September. I took the opportunity to expand these plots by a foot or so on the length to enable me to plant another row of whatever!  The year has begun with the sowing of Sturon and Yellow Rynsburger onions in seed trays and modules. Much to my surprise after four days up popped onion seedlings! They are now growing away quite happily. My tree onion sets have also sprouted. I am holding off sowing tomato seeds but they will need to go in soon.

Sturon and Yellow Rynsburger onions

   In the poly tunnel the promising cauliflowers were badly affected by the damp and resulting mould and have been removed. Mould has been a real problem in the poly tunnel this last season a result of the very wet weather.
   In the store room I have sorted the apples and there are still plenty there. Butternut and blue banana squash are surviving well. The yellow Rynsburger onions are keeping well and living up to what it said on the seed packet that they are good store onions. I still have plenty of home grown garlic left.
  With the few days (really a few hours per day!) of relative sun I have also been able to finally prune my red apple tree. A  lot of wood came out of the tree and at last light, air and sunshine will be able to get to the centre. Knowing my luck I will have killed it off! The chickens have been their usual annoying selves and have enjoyed scratching in the forked earth. 

We are underway!

Yellow Rynsburger Sturon and tree onion

   Yes! The season is underway. Yellow Rynsburger and yellow Sturon onion seed has been sown into half seed trays and modules. Tree onion sets have be sown in a pot.  I finally got round to getting a dead oak tree by the river cut down. The tree was cut up into 50cm and 30cm lengths. That included the trunk! It was straight forward enough to stack the cut up branches but moving the pieces of trunk required brute strength and took over four hours over two days to get them up from the river bank to a more level area. Next job is to split them up into stove burnable pieces. Hopefully it will form part of next years wood supply.

Oak tree being stacked after being cut down.

   In the outside garden the weather has relented and it has not rained much for a few days. It is in fact quite mild. Herbs do not stay looking fresh and good for ever so I have rearranged my herb beds. In my new herb bed I have  transplanted rosemary, chives and sage from the old beds. In one of the old beds I have dug up the horse radish, split it and replanted it. That bed will hopefully now become a bed of horse radish and one old sage plant which I am expecting to remove at some point. In the other old bed my Bolls mint has pretty much taken over. No surprise there. The thyme, lemon and common, is looking ragged. The lemon time in particular has not fared well in the wet weather. I have taken some cuttings of the lemon thyme but I think I will be on the look out for a plant in the garden centre. I will remove the thyme eventually and allow the mint to take complete control. I have some golden oregano to dig up and move but I also want to take some cuttings. Much to my amazement several marjoram plants are surviving the winter and actually look quite well. I need to research as to whether or not one should keep this plant from year to year as I understand it is supposed to be an annual. The rhubarb patch has been cleared and manured and I noticed a crown looked ready to sprout. It will not be long now. I have finally managed to start forking and weeding the vegetable plots. The soil is damp and a little heavy in places but workable. 
   In the poly tunnel french shallots (banana shaped) have sprouted and are growing well. My, ahem, Christmas potatoes, are once more showing their little heads so I guess it must be a little warmer. I have taken sage and rosemary cuttings and pushed them into the soil. Experience says at least fifty per cent will root! More winter leaves have been sown and fingers crossed I may have a cauliflower or two!
   So, on we go! As always lots of clearing up still to do and I get the feeling that things are about to start growing. 

2014 - New Season is upon me!

   Happy New Year! I hope Santa brought you what you wanted. Just a short blog as really not a lot has been going on.
   So, here we are once more! January. Time to think seriously about sowing onion and tomato seed. Also in the back of my mind potatoes. In the vegetable garden all is wet and horrible. The garlic, field beans, leeks, beetroot, spinach and swede are hanging in there. The chickens like cabbage so the poor old swedes have taken a beating. Ninety nine per cent of their leaves have been eaten. Not really an issue. My green manure has also been eaten to nothing by the chickens. Mind you, they are producing some nice eggs! The ground is still very wet and really not worth trying to cultivate. In the poly tunnel my french onions are sprouting and the kohl rabi is just about ready to pick. The coriander looks good probably the best batch I have grown as it has grown slowly. The very early rosemary cuttings I stuck in just as an experiment have taken and hopefully I will have another six rosemary plants. My Christmas potatoes, now to be early 2014 potatoes have remained dormant. I am keeping an eye on them and will cover them up as soon as I see any sign of them. Soon be time to start looking for the asparagus shoots. Still lots to do in the outside garden just need the weather to cooperate a bit.

Ooops! Forgot the title..

   The weather continues to be clear and sunny with a hard frost in the morning. Most mornings have been -3C at the front of the house and the ground is now unworkable because it it frozen! I cannot win at the moment.
   Having -3C every morning with frost has meant that my celery is now done for. The fennel is just about hanging in there and the root crops, parsnip, turnip, swede, orbis and beetroot are surviving. The few parsnips that I have dug up have varied between being very good and completely destroyed. The long period of soaking wet ground meant that some had started to rot and those are a complete right off. I have been raking up leaves and I have mulched the strawberries. I have also started a new leaf mould bed using the well rotted stuff on the poly tunnel beds. The plum tree that had broken branches due to an overweight of fruit has been trimmed and pruned. I need to get pruning the old apple tree! Despite saying to myself that I would get rid of it I have staked up an old pear tree. It has produced a number of new shoots which have fruit buds on them so I will give it another year. I have also had to stake up one of my new apple trees which is top heavy and leaning in the wrong direction. 
   The days are short and despite the sunshine not a lot gets done. It will soon be mid-winter and before I know it I will be sowing onion and tomato seed. Christmas is now just a few days away and the turkeys and geese have been dispatched. Looks like we have some very good birds this year.

Two geese and four turkeys.

Crack on!

   Gee! Two weeks has past since the last blog, not that there is much to say. The weather has taken a turn for the better. Cold, yes, frost yes, a little sunshine yes, but rain no! Hooray! Just need the ground to dry out a little and I will be able to do some forking. Famous last words those. Of course the frosts have got harder which means the ground is hard until the afternoon and of course once you get past three o'clock french time the day is pretty much over! Pah!
    Our eldest home reared chick now nicknamed by me as Big Chick, has been confirmed as a cockerel! He was spotted being seduced by a brown hen.
   In the poly tunnel the potatoes planted for Christmas have shown. I do not think we will be eating them for Christmas but if I can protect them we could have new potatoes early in 2014. Some french shallots (torpedo shaped) that I planted to see what might happen are starting to show. Winter leaves are now being picked and very nice they are too.  I have a good crop of coriander and the kohl rabi are swelling nicely. I am hopeful for a couple of spring cauliflowers.
   In the outside garden I have been trying to gather up fallen apples and rake up leaves. The chickens have other ideas. The oak tree is dropping leaves but there is still a lot to fall. I want those leaves for the strawberries!
   Heath Robinson has nothing on me! I fixed my front gate which was had a broken slat and the gate was sticking. Bit of spare wood, sand paper, some wood screws and old bit of plastic pipe and hey the gate closes without sticking or falling apart! 
   So all in all I have spent more time putting up Christmas decorations than doing gardening. Such is the way of things. Still, there is plenty to do if I get the chance so onward to Christmas!

Still too wet but improving!

  What can I say? Very little done over the last week. Too wet. The ground is too wet to do any work on. I have cleared the perennial beds and tried to light a bonfire a couple of times with limited success! Of course, soon as I wrote that the weather has taken a turn for better! Dry, overcast and a cold wind but at least the ground is drying out a bit! I have apples still to pick and weeds that need removing not to mention a vine to prune and bullock hoof impressions and mole tunnels to fill in to mention some of the tasks still waiting to be done and Christmas is around the corner!

Clearing the perennial beds and bonfire

   Unfortunately the farmers bullocks got out of their field and wandered into the garden. Ten or more bullocks weighing probably half a ton each wandering around on saturated turf did not do the ground any good at all! At least I was able to keep them off the majority of the garden but there are some hoof prints in a couple of the plots. Minor damage to the garlic and the rest is just cosmetic. Where they walked on the grass though is a mess and will require some tender loving care in the spring. Man! Bullocks and moles not a good combination.
   Autumn/winter animal husbandry moves on. The white turkey was starting to unsteady on her legs and was being picked on by the others so we decided to dispatch her. After processing we got 6kgs (14lbs) of meat. Next to go will be are old cockerel, Wally2, who is looking his age. One of our chicks who we believe is a cockerel will replace him. Coq-au-vin is on the menu! 
   In the outside veggie garden last of the early leeks and carrots have been pulled. Spinach, fennel, orbis,beetroot, celeriac (small but edible), celery, carrots, leeks, Jerusalem artichokes still available. In the poly tunnel I have planted french shallots (as an experiment) and there is lettuce, cauliflower, kohl rabi, celery, fennel, sweet peppers and herbs. Not a sniff of my Christmas potatoes. What is the betting that they grow straight after Christmas.