Inspiration from The Courts Gardens

I am now a member of the national trust and try every week to go to one of there places. This week it was the courts in Holt. I had a lovely time, beautiful house which you don't go in because people live there, but the gardens are old gardens which were beautifully planted without being overly fussy. To my great excitement they had a kitchen garden so i have posted up the photos which i took, and it may give you some great ideas. 

Clover on the side acting as green manure.
Corn and squashes growing together.






Caterpillars, they were everywhere.
This was my favorite idea training young apple trees to grow over an arch.
These are some photos i took, because i love the colors and textures.

Last of the beans for now

I realise i have been stuck with a bad seed packet because above are meant to be french beans. I don't know what they are they look like a mix of haricot and french beans, but they have been growing like this since they were small. So i have thrown the packet away and cut the plant down so there is still the stem, because i read until you need the ground leave the bean plant in there because they provide a lot of nutrients.

This is Lucas in the wheel barrow when i was transporting everything to the compost bin. I do have another dog but he is not as cooperative.

Devastation

My pumpkins are not having a good time, first there leaves suffer from mildew and now one of the pumpkins has rotted. My personal opinion and other witnesses have said its because of all the humidity and that we had all that rain.

When i did the autopsy it was complete mush. It has been really upsetting because this was my pride and joy because it had got so big and i had never grown a pumpkin.

There is still hope i have one pumpkin left, which hasn't been attacked by woodpeckers or humidity. I think this is because it is down on the ground is shaded by corn and my enormous haricot plant, and i think its cooler nearer the ground, because the other one had been lifted off the ground nothing to shelter it from the weather. Anyway its just a theory if you know what has happened please leave a comment, i would love to know.

Corn

I was able to harvest three cobs today, because the silk had started to go brown and the corn when you press on it white juice comes out so thats when you know its ready. I boiled mine and had it with butter,it was lovely.

Spoiled

I have just harvested my vast crop of radishes. This is my third time trying to grow them this year and i have got three radishes which proves that the number 3 is the magic number. I think they don't grow in my soil because there is to many rocks and they just push them selves out, well that is my theory. So this winter when i have pushed on, with extending my plot i am going try and get rid of as many stones as i can.

Starting Over

I have taken out all my carrots because i started thinning them and then i got so fed up i took them all out. I know hadn't planted them right the first time a) i scattered them b) and put way to many seeds in. So i thought i would scratch the lot and start over the traditional way. You may also be thinking what is that she is planting them in, it is an old travis and perkins bag which i filled with soil, compost, grass cuttings an some other nutrients. I did this because my soil is littered with stones, and i want long carrots not rude carrots. I saw this idea on an episode of gardeners world. 

My measly crop

Lucas with my only carrot!

Brussel time

I've had these brussel sprouts growing for a while now so i have now planted them in my overcrowded bed to hopefully get some more growth from them. I would like some brussel sprouts for Christmas at least because that's the only time i really eat them, because as it says on the stake "i hate Brussels" it is true. My soil is pretty firm and i have planted it next to the courgette which will shelter it from heavy winds,and i have staked them for support.

Mushrooms

I have been mushroom picking for a long time now and i go with my father and he learnt from his family. As i have mentioned my father is french and him and his family used to go mushroom picking in the mountains and forests in France mainly for Chanterelle and Ceps. Seeing its early and we have had alot of a rain in England we went looking for some mushrooms in various secret locations. We found some and thought we would have an omlette
then we found more and thought we would have a risotto and another omlette

then we just found hundereds and are drying frezzing and giving them to friends. I have never found this many Chanterelle in one afternoon.

I can't tell you where i found these but all i can say when you go looking for mushrroms make sure you know what you are picking and that you don't take the roots otherwise you cut the line of mushrooms. Its not fact this but it has shown it works

Cyclamen

After watching gardeners world and realising i actually had a flower they had i was overjoyed! I have a white cyclamen that i have been growing since last october which i have kept on my windowsill and then planted out this summer and wondered why it kept dropping so much, then these balls started appearing which completly threw me off. I found out from the great gardeners world that a) they like shade and b) the balls are seed pods and are ready to polinate. i have planted my white one out and then bought some pinks ones to go under a tree, can't wait till they spread will make a change from weeds because it seems thats the only thing that spreads in my garden.

Lacock

Lacock a beautiful place, where i went for a jolly out, before i went insane with all this rain!
As i consider myself a true vegetable gardener i had to look at the allotments which is hidden inside a beautiful stone courtyard, and the abbey in the background, i was very envious.
P.S. Harry Potter was filmed here not in the allotments the cloisters. Pride and prejudice and the Cranford Chronicles were filmed in the village.

The Plot Thickens

It might not look like much has happened but it has alot of the top layer of gravel has come off. I have also constructed a stand for my pumpkins to rest on so they don't get damaged while we are digging and i am hoping this works as i have read that pumpkins or maybe it was squashes like growing on trellis. Anyway it stops the dog from weeing on it.

Beans Beans Beans

This being my first year growing vegetables i have found it hard to diagnose what's going wrong with my plants and what specific disease or problem it is. For example with my french beans first of all they weren't growing very well turned out they were a dwarf variety. Then they started turning brown i thought it was either because i put coffee grounds around that and it had affected the beans or that it could be fusarium wilt because it had brown streaked tissue, the leaves were yellowing, but i don't think it was that either because when i cut off those leaves and fed the plant all was fine until i got the actually beans some were green and fine and others were yellow (see above).
All is not lost i had beans else where which have grown very well, i suppose i have to stop comparing them to the supermarket kind.
Haricots are coming along nicely can't wait for them, neither can my mother i planted them for her.

Organic Feed

I have run out of my usual seaweed feed so instead of buying more i thought i would use the nettles i have and make a liquid feed. I read about this particular nettle feed in "the self sufficient-ish bible" its a good book, which has many good ideas and tips which i haven't read about elsewhere. This feed is particularly beneficial for squashes, courgettes and tomatoes. To make it i got a bucket, cut as many nettles as i could until i got fed up of getting stung, put the nettles in the bucket and filled it with water until it covered the nettles then put a lid on it. In my case i just put an upside down plastic cloche on. Then you wait till it smells really bad roughly 10 days, believe me you will know i took mine off today its awful!! To use, water it down to a ratio of 5:1. I am yet to know if its good or deadly, but i will keep you posted.

Scarecrow

Due to my ever populating pest problem i have constructed a scarecrow. As i am frightened of scarecrows after watching one to many horror films with them in e.g. Wizard of Oz. So i have made one with a friendly familiar face, incase you didn't recognize the character i have based my scarecrow on i have it to look like Harry Potter. The head is made out of papier masche so how long it will last outside i don't know. 

Peter Rabbit

I have a problem with rabbits, thats what you get for living next to a forest. So i blocked a hole i found next to my corn, however i didn't realize this was the rabbits escape route. So when a rabbit came out of one of its many other hole into the garden and couldn't escape my dog caught it and it was carnage. I was guilt ridden for the rest of the day until i found all my salads had been eaten.

In the beginning

At the moment my plot looks like a gravel pit its actually meant to be a boules piste (french father) but i have bought a pick axe and will be digging up the membrane then its compacted soil from their on.

Meanwhile I will be sticking to my vegetable and fruit which are scattered around the garden. Strawberry hanging baskets, kiwi fruit plant, blueberry bush, swiss chard, corn, carrots, onions, brussel sprouts .........

......... and my very compacted strip of soil containing salads, corgettes, pumpkins, squashes, beans french and haricots.
This is also my newly improved alpine garden. Before it looked like this it was a real mess huge overgrown weeds, which i puled out dug over and bought some alpines and they have tripled in size!