The last day of July

How can it possibly be the end of July already? It's not fair.

It's been a fantastic summer's day. Warm, still, clear blue skies and quiet all around. A bit too hot really but I'm not complaining even if it has made mowing into sweaty exhausting work and the flies have driven me indoors more than once.



I went out for a walk this morning and found loads, and I mean loads, of ceps. Unfortunately I was a day or two too late and slugs and the heat had pushed most of them past a point of no return. A pity, although I'd never have been able to eat that many mushrooms by myself anyway. About 10 days ago I found a few hedgehog mushrooms in the woods but so far haven't been able to emulate my Swedish relatives who have been bringing home bucketfuls of chanterelles for the last couple of weeks.



The papalo is looking good for now. I'm awfully anxious for it though as these are my last few seeds, and if I can't bring them to flowering size and fruiting before the autumn I'll have lost the selection. So fingers crossed there.



The first reasonable sized runner bean on the White Emergo. Deer attack permitting it's looking like there'll be a good harvest here in a couple of weeks.



The Martock and Ful broad beans are now mature and I'll be cutting them soon to hang up and dry before shelling and sorting for store. They'll make good eating in the winter. I would have had them in already but I've only just cleaned the spinach seeds and hung the garlic that was taking their space in the drying area.



And finally, the Bronze Arrow lettuce is beginning to bolt, pretty good going considering the temperatures and drought we've had this year. I'm hoping to save plenty of seed from them as they've been an excellent salad for months now.

Pictures

First tomatoes from the greenhouse. The big one is Coeur de Boeuf, seed from a market fruit, the small one a Beefsteak, seed from the Heritage Seed Library.


First pods from the Carters Polish bean, seeds from the Heritage Seed Library. These are still quite small, I think they'll be a bit bigger when they're mature.


Onion Stuttgarter Giant, a flat bulbed variety that I like. This is one of the biggest, grown from a set.

Below, the full onion harvest laid out on a netting support to cure. The weather is too variable to risk leaving them outside.

For the record #2

Today I pulled the onions, I'd have liked to have left them a little longer but the on/off rain and sunshine was beginning to make them split and the battered down leaves were catching fungus and disease from the earth. So they're now nestling in the Tractor house on a netting frame and will stay there for a few weeks until they're cured.

I picked the first greenhouse tomatoes yesterday. Nowhere near a record but the plants themselves were living outside for their first two months of life so it's hardly surprising they're not much earlier than the outdoor crops. The greenhouse tomatoes are showing signs of virus stress with mottled and disfigured leaves. I'm so cross about that, but will just have to put it down to experience. At least some of the plants are going to produce good crops if I keep the watering constant, which is something.

Still no blight but that's only going to last for so long. I can take the tops off of the spuds now if there's any sign of trouble, this won't work with the outdoor tomatoes of course so still fingers crossed there.

Beans; these are not doing anywhere near as well as I'd hoped. I've had reasonable crops from the Annabel. The Ice Crystal Wax are flowering but very poor setting. The Royal Red and Orca are growing on, still too early to panic there although I'm tempted, it is nearly August.

In the climbing beans the Giant Purple appear to be doing o.k. as are the White Emergo runners although neither sort has set much yet. Riana's beans look rather weaker than last year, and the Mayflower beans are slow at the best of times.

The Carter's Polish are also doing o.k. The plants are big and strong, with pretty mauve flowers and the first pods setting are mottled with red. I think they'll be fine but the Striped Bunch have me quite worried.

Only four plants survived a slug attack shortly after planting out and of these four, two are climbing well and two are not being mostly bushy with very short runners that don't catch on to the poles. That could just be natural expression as beans are sometimes affected by environmental factors and will change habit as a result of it but worse than that some plants have round pods and some have flat. The most vigorous plant has many flat pods but I'm sure the little I could find about this variety on the web suggested the pods should be round. So it looks like these seeds aren't a pure selection and I won't be able to offer them for swap with a clear conscience. A pity.

Third time lucky

is a really silly title for this post but honestly, I don't think I've ever blogged three times in one day on the same blog before.



I'd been watching the achocha with some interest, since it's the first year I'd ever grown it. It wasn't doing much, just getting taller and taller as it climbed the net tied onto the compost heap. There'd been some little flowers but nothing fruit-like was setting. I hung on, hardly caring because (did I say?) I've been a tad depressed anyway for the last couple of weeks.

Still, on twitter yesterday, emmathegardener was talking to rhizowen about someone else's problems with it and that spurred me on to having another look for myself. With some help from Appalachian Feet who has some sensible advice and good pictures I managed to identify the start of fruit on my own plants.



All the flowers are very tiny and as with other cucurbits the male ones are often seen first. They come out in an inflorescence on a relatively tall stem. The female flowers are singular with tiny fruit behind them, growing in the leaf axils, and have almost no stem at all. They're still very small on my plants but now they've started I'm sure they'll be romping away in no time. By the way, does anyone need any courgettes, as I have a few spare?



The rest of the garden is looking verdant after so much rain although there are signs of some sort of leaf disease on the cucumbers and the other pumpkins and squash have mildew to greater or lesser extents. The happiest plants of all are the weeds which will have to be attacked quickly before they take over. Everything needs a good clear up and then more crops planted for autumn. If the weather stays bright it might even happen.

On this day - butterflies

It's not been the best year for butterflies and the recent dreadful weather seemed to be sealing their doom, but today in the sunshine, some signs of hope. These are just snaps, all taken today, visual proof of what's here.


Female Large White


Brimstone - this is the second brood, progeny of the early spring adults


Tatty little Gatekeeper


Ringlet - a very shy butterfly


Holly Blue wouldn't sit still for its photo


Marbled White - see underside here


Meadow brown, still the most common butterfly on the farm


A Skipper butterfly but I'm not sure which sort


Peacock, quite a lot of them about,which is nice


Red Admiral, another old favourite

There was also a Hummingbird Hawk moth but it's not a butterfly and it didn't want to stop for the camera either. This isn't anything like as many varieties as we get in the course of a year but it's a good cross section. I'm hoping with some sunshine we'll see many more.

Kittens and Flowers

There's been no mistaking that I've been at the bottom of a very dark well of despair this last week. Today, after a morning of rain coming straight down like the traditional (and probably long forgotten by most) stair rods the sun returned and life seems worthwhile again.



The cats were pleased to come out for a photo forage with me. Madam Raven demonstrates her floating ability here.



All the insects are glad the rain has stopped too. Loads of bees and butterflies making the most of the warm sun. The teazels are flowering now and attracting plenty of attention. Later it will be birds who enjoy feeding from the seeds.



Rook has such a pretty face although it's usually obscured by cobwebs or other scrud.



These colourful things are the first harvest from the ornamental gourd patch. Unfortunately although there are twelve plants there from a mixed seed pack this seems to be the limit of the variations. Still they'll be nice decorations for the autumn.



Crow was so jealous of the attention I was paying to the gourds that he jumped on the table and posed for his portrait, which isn't like him at all.

I took loads of photos so there will be a few more posts to come from them today. I could do with an annotation and archiving application for keeping things in order and making it possible to find stuff again. What do you use or recommend for adding tags and notes to your photo archives?

Wish List Seeds

Fruit on a home grown peach tree, from a seed saved from a bought peach.

The weather has been lousy for about a week and shows little sign of cheering up. I know we needed the rain but now everything is soggy and dull. Despite saying I would, I didn't spray for blight on the potatoes and tomatoes and it looks as if that omission might be a disaster. Although there are no signs of a problem yet, the continuing warm damp is perfect for blight and while it's so rainy there's not much point in trying to spray now, it would be washed off before it had settled.

Still, more cheerfully (and with fingers tightly crossed) it looks as if there might be seeds sufficient to make a good sized swap list in the autumn. The Irish Preans and Striped Bunch are making babies, the Carlin Peas are weighed down with a huge crop. There will be plenty of Babington Leeks bulbils and probably a few Walking Onion topsets too. The Oca is growing well. Maybe even Tuberous Rooted pea seeds. I'd hoped to have Welsh Onion seed too but if it doesn't stop raining that's going to rot in the heads before I can harvest it.

So my thoughts have turned to what I might be able to swap some of these treasures for. I haven't grown it for years but the Strawberry Blite, Chenopodium capitatum is a fun plant and I'd like to revisit it if anyone is saving seed for swap this year.



An odd solanum I've been meaning to try is Morelle de Balbis (Solanum sisymbrifolium) also known as the Litchi tomato. I know it grows well in the south of France and I'm sure it would do here with a little care. The only thing I'm wondering about if it is susceptible to blight, don't know if anyone can advise me on this?

And a chance conversation on G+ reminded me how much I love Morning Glories, in particular the traditional huge sky blue sort. Anyone who could spare me a handful of a reliable selection that has grown outside for them in northern Europe would make me extremely grateful.


Many thanks to Bill Barber for the photo.