Looking ahead to winter and spring

Quince seedling in a container, July 2020

 Now that it's mid-August I'm starting to plan for winter and next spring in the veg garden.  I already have some things planted out which have a long growing season, like the purple sprouting broccoli and leeks, both of which should be ready next spring and I've about eight more purple broccoli not yet planted out.  I also have some red kale, Brussels sprouts and cauliflower for autumn and winter.  But I'm starting some more seeds now and into the next month too.

This week I've sown a tray each of green kale and red escarole--I've never tried growing escarole before, though I have some Belgian endive:  I think these are the same species or closely related. 

I also have some garlic from this year's harvest to plant out next month.  Along with this I'll sow some more cauliflower and peas for a spring harvest.  Though I've overwintered broad beans (and cauliflower), I've never tried with peas.  The purveyor from which I bought this variety writes that these ones can overwinter, so I will try--I'm moving away from regular peas and towards snap peas instead, so I'll use up this last packet and see how it goes and if it's worth saving seed from.  If I get any seed from it, that is.

I may be sowing some green manure seeds in the bare spots at the allotment too, mainly to keep down weeds, but also to improve the soil a bit.  Little by little I'm digging up the grassy sward which is my allotment, and I don't want it recolonized with any other undesirables.  Currently we're keeping the bare spots mulched with stable bedding (heavy on straw and light on manure)--also a good soil improvement for the long term.  I may try a comparison between the two methods in different parts of the allotment.

I don't currently have any broad bean seeds left, though I will probably put in one more seed order later in the year, from The Real Seed catalog;  they do some interesting varieties which the large companies don't offer.  I usually buy my seeds when they are on sale, which unfortunately this smaller company never does.  But I want the seeds badly enough to pay full price for them, including a packet of broad beans this year.

Whitecurrants at last

More pink than white

I don't even know how long I've had this whitecurrant bush, but I guess around five years;  this is the first year I've eaten any whitecurrants.  Hooray!  

...Though to be honest I'm not sure they were worth the wait.  Kind of sour, pretty seedy--and not enough of them to do anything but just eat them (a few at a time).

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In other garden news, I've been picking blackberries, also in the Perennials section--though not intentionally planted ones.  They're weeds sown by birds and trying to take over;  I really don't want them growing in my garden, reaching out to claw me when I'm not looking.  Tasty berries though.  

And my four ducks are picking caterpillars off my cabbages and nasturtiums, or so the husband assures me--I have not witnessed it myself.  We made a corridor from their pond area to the veg patch and they are allowed in while supervised, but excluded from the wider garden in order to concentrate their efforts (on both veg patch and pond).

Calorie dense veg (I wish I had some)

Kale and broccoli for dinner, July 2020

While I'm not officially doing the Vegetable Challenge this year, I'm still trying to serve garden veg daily for dinner.  However, this has meant a lot of chard and kale recently.  Not that I'm complaining:  we like them both!  But I'm kind of missing those roots, zuccinis, beans and other calorie dense vegetables. 

The only roots we have are potatoes and a few onions--we're having potatoes once a week but the onions won't be ready till autumn I think.  I didn't bother sowing any root veg seeds at home, but I think I should have--normally I don't get much success from direct seeding because of slugs and bugs, but it appears that the slug population is much reduced this year:  possibly because the ducks had several weeks on the veg patch over winter.  I'll know for next spring--too late now.

As for zuccinis, yes I have a couple plants, and no they aren't doing much.  As usual.  I don't understand how everyone seems to drown in zuccini when I can barely keep my plants alive.  I doubt we'll be getting any of our own--hopefully people at the allotments are having better success, and will give me some of theirs.

Beans:  the first batch of plants at the allotment are all gone except one single vine, which is very small and sad.  The second batch, in a different place, is now starting to flower.  The beans at home have been flowering longer and have set a few beans, but none are big enough to eat yet.  I don't know why these ones are so late--I got them planted out mid-May and it's August now.  Hopefully hopefully hopefully we'll start eating them by the end of the week.  Hopefully.

Runner beans at home, July 2020

Summer weeding

I'm getting a little bit more gardening done now that my iron levels are creeping up;  and the daughter is four months old now and can watch me from her stroller or laid on a blanket on the grass.  Or sometimes she's even asleep upstairs (not reliably yet though).  Thankfully there's no heavy tasks to be done this time of year;  it's mainly harvesting, watering pots and planters, and a little light weeding.

Actually the allotment could do with some heavier weeding, which I have been accomplishing a little at a time.  Since we now have chickens there, we visit both morning and evening--mine is usually the morning slot, along with the son and daughter.  I've been spending 10 minutes or so every morning digging up clumps of grass and weeds and chucking them over the fence into the chicken yard;  the chickens are very happy for some greenstuff, now they've scratched up all their own.  I make sure there's plenty for everyone (seven currently), and it's usually all eaten by the time I visit next morning.  The son and husband are gradually mulching the bare spots too, to prevent more weeds germinating.

At home, weeding is a lot easier:  the soil is much more enriched and soft and most weeds simply pull out without the need for digging.  I pull them out and then lay them down on the soil to break down. 

I'm not too worried about weeds at home seeing as they are so easy to get rid of, but the allotment has a lot of grass;  it seems like the vegetables surrounded by grass are a lot smaller and weaker.  The cabbages at home are at least twice as big as those at the allotment:  same batch, planted at the same time.  Now that I have a bit more motivation to get it dug up (chickens are hungry!), maybe I can keep on top of it better.

Starting to preserve, July 2020

Though we're not harvesting a lot at the moment, I've started preserving a few things, most notably fruit:  cherries, strawberries and raspberries have all gone in the freezer.  We got a bigger freezer for free from the neighbors this past winter and I've got about six or seven bags of frozen fruit in it (though all but one bag of strawberries we picked at a local farm).  I think once the red raspberries are finally finished at the allotment--they're done at home--I'll make some jam with them;  we're still picking a handful every day or two.

I've also fired up the dehydrator for the first time in a few months;  I made some strawberry chips and have started on the fig harvest with the first three ripe figs.  To fill up the rest of the trays while those figs slowly dry, I've been picking nasturtium leaves;  they work well in stews and casseroles as they aren't spicy after cooking but add a nice tang--and they dry within a few hours.

I tried to brine some chard stems to use as a salty/sour addition to salads but am not particularly enamored with the result.  Not nasty, but just sort of bland.  We generally eat the stems along with the chard, even if we eat them as salad leaves so at least I didn't do a very big batch.  Oh well. 

Speaking of brining, we've been given two big cucumbers from fellow allotmenteers (so far) and I'm considering making pickle spears with one of them.  May they be the first of many, as my own cucumber seedlings withered and died before I even got the chance to plant them out. 

What we're eating, July 2020

Even though we're not doing the Vegetable Challenge this year, I'm keeping vegetables off the shopping list for the time being (exception: onions) and eating from the garden and allotment instead.  Well, there's not much to harvest at the allotment now, though we're still getting a handful of raspberries every other day.  The husband dug up one volunteer potato plant last week--a meal's worth--and we might carry on digging them up one at a time as we seem to have a lot of these volunteers, saving the ones we planted in spring for the main harvest in autumn.

At home we're picking snap peas--though they've almost finished--and kale, mizuna and chard.  The runner beans are flowering profusely--hoping for beans very soon.  The zuccini and other brassicas are still growing; though both the red and green cabbages are starting to form heads they're probably not ready for at least another month though.  There's a few small tomatoes forming, but again, not going to harvest any time soon.

We've finished picking all our cherries and strawberries now, pretty much all the red raspberries, and most of the red and black currants.  The sour Morello cherries went in the freezer, as did most of the strawbs and rasps, but we ate the sweet Stella and Kordia cherries and currants (both in hand and in smoothies).  The yellow rasps are just fruiting, and I'm looking forward to some figs very soon.

State of the flock, July 2020

As of today we are down to 10 chickens, having lost our oldest hen (a rescue) the other day;  there is another rescue hen looking very tired and I doubt she'll be with us much longer.  She, the recently deceased, and two other old hens have been here with us at home while the other seven are at the allotment in a smallish yard. 

The husband put together a coop from shed panels scrounged from the abandoned allotment opposite ours (it's now been taken over by someone new) so there's enough room to sleep 10 chickens, but I don't want to take up that old poorly hen.  She can die at home and her two remaining friends can go up there once she does.  Until then, the three of them are free ranging the non-veg section of the garden every afternoon.

Our two ducks and two drakes are the ones confined to their own yard now, having been free range since early spring.  I want them to work on waterproofing their new enlarged pond--which does hold more water now:  it's a big puddle that seeps away very slowly.  Every day their the dirty water from their three drinking buckets gets emptied into it, and they splash and dabble around in it.  Their yard encompasses it and a little section of the property behind our garage which we call the Robot Club (it's a good hiding place for little boys).  I anticpate giving them periodic free ranging again after a few more weeks.

We're getting four or five eggs a day from the allotment hens and one or two from home.  Our little broody hen Cookie finally gave up sitting after about two or three months and starting laying again;  we decided not to raise chicks this year as we have enough chickens.  If we get down to around seven by next spring, we'll consider it, or possibly adopt some more rescues.

The ducks are laying, but they keep moving their secret nests!  I think they are both laying every day or every other day.  We don't collect them every day as we can't always find them.