Living off the land

Going self sufficient in Norfolk

May flowers?

May 15th, 2012 by · No Comments · Flowers, Topical

Looking back at photos taken last May, there were quite a few flowers out, including poppies. Not this year though. The salsify is flowering, as reported in our previous post:

Salsify flowers

Salsify flowers

The WINTER flowering pansies in hanging baskets are in their prime, normally we’d be thinking about turfing them out and re-planting with summer annuals! Our new perennials bed is so flower-free we’ve put out an overwintering geranium, just to add a splash of colour (top right of picture).

Geranium splash of colour

Geranium splash of colour

At least the clematis Montana Rubens has come up with the goods:

Clematis Montana in flower

Clematis Montana in flower

This is only its second year since it was taken as a cutting so it’s doing well. We’ve a couple of cuttings taken from this plant – just babies in a flower pot – so there’s promise for more flowers next year…

A good day’s work

May 13th, 2012 by · No Comments · Cropping, Growing, Tips and tricks

We got a fair bit done today. The rain held off for once and we had a lovely day of sunshine and cloud.

The last of the leeks are now up – not a bad crop for so late in the season.

Last leeks

Last leeks

Seeds sown directly into the soil include turnip, swede and parsnips. The early potatoes are well up, we hope there isn’t a late frost as it would be difficult to earth them up any more.

Something, probably a mouse, has taken peas and broad beans from the ground. We’ve re-sown with seed soaked in paraffin, hopefully that will put them off.

Our plan to extend the purple sprouting broccoli season seems to be working. The plants we scalped are producing more spears, albeit thinner than normal, whereas the ones we left alone have gone to seed. The thinner spears are less succulent than normal but very tasty all the same.

We left some salsify in, mainly because it’s been too wet to crop it. The plants have bolted and are now producing lovely purple flowers that open in full sun and close in shade – like mesembryanthemum – so we’ll leave them in for now and use them for cut flowers.

Greenhouse getting full

May 11th, 2012 by · No Comments · Growing

We’ve now got ten Gardeners’ Delight tomatoes, two Nectar tomatoes, four Burpless cucumbers and three Moneymaker aubergines planted out in the greenhouse beds. Catch crops of pak choi, mizuna, spinach, salad bowl lettuce and rocket are also cropping well in the same beds so things are getting a bit cramped. We’ll have to grub out the catch crops soon – don’t want them taking all the nutrients from the high value crops coming on.

Cucumber burpless

Cucumber 'Burpless'

However big your greenhouse is, it always seems you could do with a bigger one…

Ending and beginning

May 5th, 2012 by · No Comments · Cropping, Growing

The purple sprouting broccoli has been superb this year, producing much more than we can eat. Although it’s nearly over, we’re still getting lots. It seems that if you crop a plant heavily it will produce new, thinner spears so we’re going to try that with some plants in the hope of extending the period of production. It’s starting to flower and go over now so there’s nothing to lose by scalping a few plants.

Broccoli flowers

Broccoli starting to flower

Our newly planted asparagus is starting to come up – pity we’ll have to wait until next year before we can try it.

Asparagus spears

Asparagus spears

This photo illustrates just how flinty our soil is – Norfolk boulder clay is heavy and stony but, on the plus side, very fertile.

At last

May 4th, 2012 by · No Comments · Preparation, Projects

Did a bit of gardening today – at last. The ground is still sodden but just about workable.

We needed a new flower bed as we have ambitions to put out annuals, sown from seed. These Alyssum are obviously ready to go out as they’re already in flower.

Alyssum

Alyssum

So, there is a bit of land to the east of our potting shed that was too dry for much. But, now that we’re collecting water from our bore hole back wash, we can keep it damp using the water butt overflow.

New flower bed

New flower bed

There are some raspberry plants (suckers from plants now moved to the fruit cage) in there but that’s OK, we quite like fruit and veg in our flower beds!

Tomatoes planted out

April 27th, 2012 by · 6 Comments · Growing, Preparation, Storing

Guess what? It’s raining again. So, what could be nicer than pottering around in the greenhouse?

Seven Gardeners’ Delight and two Nectar tomato plants were committed to the unheated greenhouse beds today. The two Nectars are courtesy of vegetableseeds.net which we got free when an order came through.

Toms planted out

Toms planted out

The support canes are tied together with cross members at 45˚, this should stiffen everything up when the vines are tall and laden with huge trusses of tomatoes!

Tomato canes structure

Tomato canes structure

We’ve still got good crops of salad leaves in the greenhouse, including pak choi which are looking very promising.

Tomatoes and pak choi

Tomatoes and pak choi

The salad leaves should all be cropped and enjoyed before the tomatoes start to  fruit.

On a separate topic, a visit to the pightle to get potatoes from store revealed that we’re almost down to the bottom of the sacks. This is how many we cropped last autumn:

Spuds - maincrop

Spuds - maincrop

So that’s how many spuds two adults, or at least these two adults,  eat in one winter.

Swamped by drought

April 26th, 2012 by · 3 Comments · Problems, Topical

We can’t garden; the veg plot is too wet and sticky. And now we’ve got more rain. Yesterday evening there was a torrential downpour with thunder, lightening and hail. The pond, which has rarely been full in the last year, started to grow.

Flooded pond

Flooded pond

It wasn’t a problem, just ironic given the drought we’re in. By early morning it had all seeped away and we’re now left with a normal, if murky, pond. The resident toad didn’t look too pleased – funny how toads seem to resent getting wet.

Treading water

April 23rd, 2012 by · 3 Comments · Uncategorized

It’s still too wet to do much in the garden – might try to get some plants in pots out into the ground this afternoon if it dries up enough. Meanwhile, we’ve tied in the raspberries, which are looking promisingly lush.

Raspberries tied in

Raspberries tied in

And we noticed that the first real asparagus spear has broken through, ‘real’ as opposed to a thin and spindly little spear that appeared about two weeks ago.

Asparagus spear

Asparagus spear

Despite it being a cool, wet April, things are continuing to creep into spring and at least the newly established rockery is colouring up.

Rockery in colour

Rockery in colour

The shrubs in the foreground are a mock orange and a Japanese acer.

Wet drought

April 19th, 2012 by · 1 Comment · Problems, Topical

I suppose we mustn’t grumble but this must be the wettest drought on record. We need the rain but at the moment it’s just too wet to garden. Here’s a shot of our field plot taken today (access track in foreground):

Wet dought

Wet drought

This time last year the soil was dry as a bone and we were reduced to the status of mules, carrying buckets of water to the plot just to keep things alive. Here’s a shot of the same plot taken in April 2011 (notice how much greener the trees were last year):

Dry drought

Dry drought

We managed to get 10 asparagus plants in the ground, a few cabbage Red Drummond planted and a sowing of turnip Snowball done on Monday, just before the rain set in. Since then: nothing. Norfolk clay sticks to your boots like glue when it’s wet, if you’re not slipping and sliding around in it you’re having to walk like a deep sea diver with lead boots.

The forecast is for another five days of rain here. We’ll have to dash out as soon as it’s dry, if only to address the growing problem of plants in pots yearning to be out in the ground.

Standing room only

April 15th, 2012 by · 1 Comment · Growing, Preparation, Problems

A wide spread frost is forecast for tonight so we’ve brought all our tender young plants indoors. It’s a difficult time of year, trying to get everything off to an early start but not having the frost free space for them, this lot’s on the dining room table:

Tender plants

Tender plants

We’ve got back up seedlings on the go, in case we lose any of the early ones but hopefully frosts should be over soon and we can relax. Mind you, it seems to be a pretty cold April so far – in East Anglia we’re being plagued by winds from the North Sea, always a chilly direction. Shouldn’t we be in T shirts now?