After too many distractions over the past few weeks, last weekend saw a welcome return to gardening again, with thankfully more of the harvesting jobs and less of the mundane tasks like weeding. They are probably as difficult as each other, but a bucket of Spuds, a tub of French Beans or a basket of Courgettes is definitely a better return than wheelbarrows of weeds.
What we harvested this week:
Apples
This is a new one for us – having actual apples to harvest. We had the grand total of 21 apples – all from one of the first apple trees I planted in May 2017 I have attributed this to a combination of:
- extra shelter around the orchard and luck with avoiding wind damage while the blossoms were out
- the additional trees we planted last December, which were in bloom at the same time as our fruit bearing tree
- the added benefit of having our beehives in the corner of the orchard
I have to say, I am loving having our own apples. Chemical free, home grown and absolutely delicious – what more could you ask for.
Maincrop Potatoes
What remained of the potatoes we planted on the 31st of March (my father and I socially distant on a 30 year old spud planter!), were dug out last Saturday morning. The garden, which is shared between us, my folks and a neighbour, has been keeping us all going for the past few months. We had about 7 drills (ridges) of British Queens, 12 drills of Kerrs Pink and the remaining 4 drills of Golden wonder.
We had earlier harvested our own crop of earlies from our little garden – after planting 10 Duke of York and 10 Sharps Express. First time growing them and quite impressed. Luckily we were able to grow them Chemical Free, as there were so few of them and the got harvested so early.
British Queens are a Second Early variety, but due to the absolute spud snobbishness of my father, will only ever be used until the Kerrs Pinks are big enough to eat. The remainder of the “Queens” are either left to myself – who wouldn’t eat that much in 4 years, or usually get left to the crows!
Kerrs Pink, the maincrop are the only spud worth talking about according to some. They are quite a flowery spud that grow to a good size and are fairly regularly shaped.
Golden Wonder are mostly used for storage – or were traditionally anyway. These categorisations don’t really stand for much any more, as both New spuds and the immaculately uniform Rooster are available practically year round.
Even though this garden of spuds isn’t Organic or chemical free, as they have been treated for blight, I’m still happy to stick with tradition, especially if it avoids what untold growth prohibitors and other unknown chemicals that can be added to perpetually stored tubers.
As if that wasn’t complicated enough (I’m beginning to get a complex being Irish and talking this much about spuds!) we planted about another 30 of a supposedly blight resistant purple variety and about half as many Pink Fir Apple, just for ourselves (waxy ugly, knobbly salad potatoes are not in high demand around here). These were dug with a pike / fork and I ended up with 4 buckets of purple spuds and 2 buckets of Pink Fir Apple. Unfortunately the neglect they received during the year showed and resulted in quite a few of them getting eaten by slugs, or sunburned, or what ever the technical term for spud sunburn is.
Courgettes
Our courgettes have been moderately successful this year. We’ve had enough to keep us going, but haven’t experienced the glut of previous years. They are still delicious, chemical free and about 50 ft from the kitchen so I’m not going to be complaining.
Glasshouse
Our 6 foot by 10 foot glasshouse has proven a real winner this year. We’ve been pretty self sufficient in tomatoes, chillis and cucumbers for most of the Summer as well as a few bonus red peppers. We still have 2 luffas growing in there, so just dying to see what becomes of them.
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