In which my memory lets me down again

I think I told a lie today. I said I'd seen the herb chadon beni for sale in Wing Yip years ago. I'm not saying I didn't but I have now an even more distinct recollection of growing it once, a plant I got from a nursery either in Kent or Buckinghamshire or maybe somewhere else. It's not hardy and it didn't last long but since I remember its demise in the greenhouse in Newport Pagnell it was definitely in the last 15 years... so. My memory is proven to be crap again. Not quite as embarrassing as when I forgot my own home telephone number in Boots the other day and had to look it up on my mobile but nearly there.

Eryngium foetidum is a herb that smells like coriander and originated in the Caribbean and you can read all about it here. I found seeds at Chiltern's and now I've been reminded of it I'd quite like to give it another go, if I manage to keep it in mind long enough.



The Pyramidal orchid is nearly over now and is forming fat seed pods. Sources I have read suggest that they are butterfly pollinated but I've never seen a butterfly go anywhere near it. Small beetles seem to find the flowers endlessly fascinating though. I'd love to be able to spread the seed around the farm but like most terrestrial orchids it needs a symbiotic fungus around the roots so the best thing I can do is scrape some patches of the verge free of grass around the mother plant and hope that some of the seeds will germinate close to her.



Today is less hot and more overcast than the last week with some light rain, perfect for sowing some more seeds. Today I planted three rows of radish, some very old carrot seed and some beetroots in a tiny patch that I intend to keep hand watered for the duration. My crops often suffer from insufficient irrigation despite various measures, like bean trenches, which are supposed to help in drought conditions but the area is too big to keep everything moist with expensive tap water even if I had the energy to haul the water to where it's needed. A couple of small beds will have to suffice.



I've found a colony of Small Tortoiseshell butterfly caterpillars on some nettles in the vegetable beds. They seem to be thriving but the patch is small and if I had my way would be smaller still (it is in the veggies after all), so they will be mostly relocated this afternoon to more spacious surroundings. I hope they enjoy the trip.

Just a week

Flower heads on the burdock

Been away for a week dealing with things and the differences when I got back were substantial. We now have baby beans on the Starley Road Red and Hutterite Soup plants, the Corsican runner beans have reached the top of their supports and are flowering and forming baby beans profusely and the chicory has started to flower.


Ridge cucumbers flowers and fruit 

The pickling cucumbers have started to fruit, I took the first courgette - a yellow one - and the pumpkins and shark's fin melons are beginning to extend their vines. All the peas are flowering now but like the tomatoes I've lost the labels. Just have to wait and see what we've got.


Runner bean 'Corsican'

I was convinced that the Corsican runner bean that came from the HSL this year would be our old friend, the Spanish White aka Fagiolo di Spagna Bianco but now they're flowering I'm not so sure. I'm going to have to dig back through the photos and see if I can spot what seems different about them. They're growing very well whatever they are.


Soldier beetle on carrot flower 

We have quantities of these cheerful looking beetles, Rhagonycha fulva,  all over the garden. There are now far more Meadow Brown butterflies than any other sorts but I'm hoping that after the last two days of heavy rain new arrivals will join us and have their pictures taken.

All in all, very good but it's time to spray against potato blight again as all this warm wet weather is perfect for it to develop.

In the garden with vegetables today

As promised some news on the vegetable patch. The chard is looking good, such a reliable and delicious vegetable, everyone should grow it.



The alliums aren't quite so perky. The overwintered garlic is dying of rust and I'll have to dig that today I think. No point in leaving it longer. The other garlic was mashed under the feet of those marauding cows and isn't going to reach its full potential but I think it's worth leaving in a bit longer.

The japanese overwintering onions are small, also a bit trampled but otherwise would have been fine for what they were intended for, which was an early crop of onions to be eaten over the summer. Unfortunately the main crop was never planted so that's it for onions this year and they won't be nearly enough.

Shallots, just a few, were late in and don't look much cop but we'll see what happens now the longest day is past.







Is it a root, is it a pea? It's flowering at any rate and that means there might be some aardaker seeds available for swapping in the autumn. Like most of the novel crops there are rarely enough to harvest to actually eat but this clump has now been in situ for two years and with some seeds as insurance against losing the lot it might be worth taking some of the tubers later in the year.

The other peas are trying to grow big enough to climb their supports and show no signs of flowers yet. This is because they were nearly all checked in pots before I had places to plant them out this spring. They're making good growth now so all should be well soon.

The exception is the Raisin Capucijner peas which are flowering and forming pods. I'll cover them in part two. The pictures I took were too blurry.



Edible thistles. I read somewhere that most thistle heads are edible if only one could be faffed to prepare them. The globe artichokes suffered badly in the terrible winter two years ago and didn't look like they'd survive but after a year of recuperation one plant at least is having a go.

The cardoons are in flower too. Again you can eat the heads of these but it's a painful task for little reward. I missed my chance to blanch the stems in the spring when they were lush and lovely and now they are more ornamental than useful but I should be able to carry them through the winter for another go next time.



Root vegetables are a write off this year. I put some carrots in late last autumn, not because I was expecting much of a crop but to provide foliage for the Swallowtail butterflies to lay their eggs on this spring. Inevitably then, the carrots have done what comes naturally to them (do you hate Eggheads too?) and thrown up flowers. Carrots cross breed rather promiscuously and as I have yellow and orange rooted sorts in the patch any seed won't be a pure variety. Still, as I've never saved carrot seed before I'm tempted to give it a go just for the experience and see what comes up.

I also had burdock and evening primrose in the root bed, both coming into flower nicely. It's my own fault, I did dig some but they were pathetic, tough and weedy thanks to the poor stony soil. It's beginning to look like raised beds might be a help with improving yields around here.

A summer solstice

White flowered form of thistle Cirsium palustre, not particularly rare but the first I've noticed here.

I thought I'd do that thing that people do sometimes on blogs and link back to the 'on this day' entries for past years but looking through it seems that there are no entries for some years. Still, reading the history confirms my thought that this year, planting is ahead of average and everything should be fine.


Anacamptis pyramidalis - fairly rare meadow orchid

Even so I can't help fretting that things aren't growing as verdantly as I'd like them too. The ground here is very impoverished and we plan to have a soil test done so that we can make an educated guess on the best ways to bring it back to full productivity but at the moment with little in the way of good compost to apply and a reluctance to use commercial fertilisers, even the organic sorts, plants seem sulky and uncooperative. Or maybe I'm just projecting too much.



I'm having some computer problems too, a piece of malware seems to have become resident and two virus checkers and two malware removers don't seem to be able to shift it. I've just tried a third and I'm keeping my fingers crossed. The trouble is this is an old XP machine which I was hoping would see out the summer with me. I don't really want to be rebuilding or buying new when I should be doing more useful things.


A single sweet potato plant from a slip raised two years ago and maltreated until now.

I promised vegetable updates. Soon, soon.

Currently

After the burst of summer weather last week the red currants ripened to their glorious translucently scarlet selves so today I picked them before the blackbirds found them.

In fact, the ones I picked were from a self seeded bush that I've been nurturing on the end of what is becoming a lavender bed. It's quite open around it at the moment which is a great benefit for keeping birds away - the red currant in the back garden surrounded by tall weeds and suckering raspberries is almost stripped bare already.

Anyway, I have double the quantity I'd estimated and must turn them into a few little pots of jelly for the winter.



Insect life was ramping up, then slowed right down again for the last two days by overcast and windy conditions but mostly they're making sweet love while the sun shines. The striped shield bugs Graphosoma lineatum have been in congress all over the Sweet Cicely for some time now.

We've seen a few stray less common butterflies, just one Pale Clouded yellow on the 13th June and a summer Map along with the first few examples of the meadow browns.The wind has been in the north for about a week now which tends to discourage exotics migrating up from further south on the continent.

I will try and do a few posts to summarise the vegetable plots in the next few days. A statement of intent like that sometimes works but often ends up being a trigger for guilt when I fail to make the effort. We'll see, things are looking fairly good and worth reporting on.

A greenhouse full of cats

Stuff is beginning to get out of hand a bit. The salsify is self seeded into the lawn, rather lovely no, but still surprising that a plant a metre tall can reach flowering size on the patch we normally keep short.



The devil deer is back, or one of her friends and the fencing isn't finished yet. I have a warning siren I thought might do for scaring hunters in the autumn; it makes big game animal noises but perhaps I should install that with a proximity sensor to discourage the damn herbivores.



The Epicure potatoes are in full flower, I think we'll be able to take some by the end of the month, probably a full four weeks later than we usually have new potatoes. The British Queens are budding nicely too. Already I've had to spray for blight, it rained torrents the next day and washed most of it off but I'll have to wait a few weeks before repeating the exercise. Luckily the forecast is for fairly dry over the next ten days.



At least some fruit is reaching harvest readiness. These red currants on a self seeded bush are looking good and the purchased bush in the back is also ripening nicely. I've had handfuls of wild strawberries, wild in that they grow where they want around the yard, and a first few raspberries too. There are gooseberries, black currants and blueberries all in different stages and the blackberries are flowering now which is pleasing the butterflies.



Tomatoes are just putting on the first flowers. Due to some clerical oversight I've completely failed to keep track of varieties this year, I can tell you I have 21 plants and that they are, in variable numbers, Tigerella, Potiron Encarlote, Gezahnte Bührer-Keel, Cornue Andes and a seed saved from a commercial tomato because I wanted to see if it would grow. I had four seedlings of these but they were terribly weak and weedy specimens and I decided not to waste much energy on them. The survivor has picked up a bit now but I suspect the parent was F1 and the offspring won't come to much.

Some good work.

One of the things I've often bitched about is the lack of rigour and possible confusion over various seed varieties in the Heritage system. With no central control and in the hands of well meaning amateurs my concern is that when mistakes are made they are compounded by being propagated throughout the community in good faith.

I was interested therefore to spot a thesis: The Characterisation of Heritage Vegetables published by Jennifer Preston for her PhD at Birmingham in 2011 examining these issues in depth.

You can read it here and although like most theses it's a dry old study there are some gems in there including a section on duplicate accessions. The conclusion is that of the varieties studied there was a potential redundancy of about 10% of accessions because they were identical in all but name. The research was limited but if it can be extrapolated to the full catalogue then that's a sizeable portion of confusion out there.