#mygardenrightnow

So as some of you will remember from my previous #mygardenrightnow post, my own garden causes me far more anguish than any of the 39 gardens I support with Incredible Edible Bristol. A mix of it being a rental, my want for it to be perfect and the expectation I feel people will have all conspires against me often, and almost stops progress. However, there has been progress in the last few weeks.

This corner borders the lower own which sounds very grand but I promise you isn't, and is made up of perennial fruit and veg, herbs and edible flowers. With a self sown foxglove that is just too beautiful to remove!

Until 3 weeks ago I was growing 2 small gardens in the garden for RHS Malvern, but now that plant material has gone, and I have had a little more time, the garden has been tidied, planting has taken place and I am feeling a bit more on top of things, so rather than waffling on, here are a few photos.......
It's occurred to me that I have managed not to get a photo of myself in any of these!! Never mind eh?!

Last year this was one foxglove and now it's turning into a nectar bank for bees. They were all over the alliums and have now moved next door to the foxgloves. Soon there will be lots of wild carrots, clary sage and dahlias too.

Funny how you turn i to your mother. I have spent years saying roses are too much work but when they flower they make me realise how important they are to me in the garden!

First tomato nearly there. I'm keeping tomatoes at home, literally just outside the back door to see how far they get before the dreaded blight appears.

No garden is complete without poppies for me and this one is brilliant-bought as a 9cm pot last year it has now been flowering non stop for 3 weeks and there are plenty more buds to come.

Flower Sprouts are a go!!

This morning I popped up to the allotment for an hour, more to get some fresh air than anything, and to pick some purple sprouting broccoli for dinner. It was a bit of a grey, damp morning but as usual I had a good wander around the garden, picked some beetroots as well as the psb and then saw the flower sprouts looked quite healthy so went to have a look.....

And found this..

 

Flower sprouts, otherwise known as Kalettes!!

Now I have to admit I didn't grow these from seeds but bought them at Thornbury Garden Shop, which is one of those garden emporiums that sells loads of plants, including home grown seedlings, seeds by weight and a whole host of things you don't realise you need until you get there! I saw these and having tried them the previous year having found them in M&S at an enormous price, really wanted to try them myself. 

Now I have to admit they have not been well looked after! They were left in their modules for too long, planted out and eaten by slugs almost immediately, we didn't net them until the pigeons had had a go, and I certainly haven't fed them. And for that I can only apologise to these poor plants which are now going to feed us over the winter. Particularly as they are delicious!!

So what do I do with them? Well I just pop them into some salted water, let them come to a boil and remove from the heat almost immediately. They taste between sprouts and purple sprouting broccoli and are in fact a cross between sprouts and British kale, and are not just delicious but also a really beautiful addition to the plate. 

Lots of people are selling the seeds right now, so if you were wondering whether to try them, I would definitely say do so. I'll definitely be planting some along with other brassicas next year!!

Behind the aquaponics challenge!!

So the BBC finally showed the little aquaponics and growing without a garden film so I thought it'd be good to write a wee bit about it.

It was great to do. I entered into it in a slightly cynical way for sure as although I'm fascinated by aquaponics, I really wasn't sure that it would be possible in a domestic setting, or if I could be interested enough in the detail to really get properly involved. But once it was up and running and the fish were in, it became a bit of an obsession and was really fascinating and very, very productive.

Lots of people have asked what was grown in the grow box, so here's a list and how.

Firstly the box is filled with clay pellets, with a few red worms added which have multiplied over the year. The majority of the plants were grown from seed in modules and then planted into the grow box when they had 2/3 sets of true leaves. The only exception to this was watercress which we added as seed and which went completely crazy. It's fair to say we have been self sufficient in basil, watercress and parsley from the box alone all over the summer.

 

Now the fish were a slightly different matter. They came along and were popped into the tank and we quickly realised that they probably weren't the ideal fish for the tank. They were mirror carp, a deep river fish, so the tank was far too shallow for them, and we had several incidents of them jumping, flying out and across the wooden floor!! As someone who's slightly fish phobic, thus wasn't ideal to say the least. However, they tasted absolutely delicious. Carp is often described as muddy but as we had maintained the water well, keeping it clean and changing it a couple of times, they tasted clean and sweet. We did lose 3 of the fish during an algal bloom, which was awful and really upsetting, it made me realise that water quality is key so we began doing regular partial water changes.

 

The tank and grow box are definitely staying as part of our home growing story, but we have goldfish now, and we're overwintering the grow box with strawberry plants. In the spring we're going to add some aquatic plants to the tank to help maintain the water quality, but so far it's doing really well.

Several folk have asked me yo blog about how we grew the tomatoes so I'll do separate piece with pics!!

Would I do it again? Yes!!

The joy of the pumpkin....

A long time ago I visited the Chelsea Physic Garden for the 1st time. It's a garden I'm always blown away by. The history of the garden, it's links to so many events in garden history including those links to  the plant hunters who are still to this day responsible for so many of the plants we grow in our gardens, always makes me feel that I am wandering through the corridors of British garden history. But on this occasion I came away with two real interests. The first was that I should discover more about the Salvia family, after spending time with the collection in one of the gardens greenhouses, and the second was to explore pumpkin and squash growing more.

In the garden there were different varieties of Japanese squash growing up tripods, with fruit beginning to form and I was mesmerised not just by the new varieties of food in front of my eyes, but also at their beauty.

 

So not being one to waste time, I ordered lots of seeds and got growing the following year. I'm guessing this was the late 90s and in our corner of leafy Bucks few folk grew these varieties and we had lots of interest from our neighbouring plot holders, particularly when we started planting into our compost heaps!

We grew them up tripods, across beds and in all our compost heaps. And we had a great harvest and we swore to grow more, experiment with new varieties and try lots of different ways of cooking with the flesh. It's fair to say I was hooked.

Nearly 20 years later the excitement of choosing which varieties we are going to grow in the year ahead is still palpable. We grow our favourites each year but always try to add something new, to add to the excitement of the harvest. The great thing about pumpkins and squash is they all taste different and so lend themselves to particular recipe types. And there isn't one that's disappointed us.

 

And to grow them? Well ideally they need a nice long season so we sow in March in modules  and keep them under protection until the roots have filled the modules. They then get potted into 1ltr containers as I feel 9cm is filled to quickly and who wants to spend their lives potting up? They then get put back under protection until early to mid May depending on the weather. Once all signs of frosty nights are gone, they go into the ground, with a thick layer of compost around them, and after a few weeks they romp away, not taking any notice of allotment boundaries, paths or roads. In good soil, full of rich humus, they need little attention other than plenty of water, but if you do see yellowing leaves, a good feed of a seaweed solution will soon sort them out.

What we always do is stop them growing at some point in August by cutting out the growing tips and this really helps with production of the fruits, and encourages them to ripen. 

Recently I was asked which are my have to have varieties, and I have to admit to always growing Turks Turban, Baby Bear, Jack O'Lantern, Crown Prince and New England Sugar Pie, and then interspersing with various others that catch my eye. I love Pink Banana and Sweet Dumpling, but have often to limit myself as there's only so much space and lots of other veg to grow too!! 

And before you ask, I buy lots of seed from the wonderful Pennards Plants as well as Real Seeds and Jungle Seeds and then pick up unusual varieties often at seed swaps and community events.

So that takes you through my pumpkin/squash obsession and I hope has encouraged you to give some different varieties a go!!