Vegmonkey and the Mrs.

We normally put our Christmas tree up on the first day of December so we can enjoy it for the whole month. This year however, we won’t be able to, due to moving. It just wouldn’t make sense to put it up and take it all down again.

We have however bought the lights! The picture above is our shed which we thought needed a bit of brightening up. The lights are amazing – not only are they 20m in length (10m from plug socket to the beginning of the lights and another 10m of lights!), but they have four colours in, rather than the usual 2.
There are also 8 different options to click through on the control box, like twinkling and chasing. Once we get moved they will get transferred to our tree! We got them from Dobbies here. I think it’s important to get lights that will last – for the last three years we’ve pulled last years out of the box in December and they have broken!

An empty garden has never looked so twinkly!

Wow, it really has been a while since we posted about the beginnings of Autumn – it’s now moving into Winter! We’ve been so busy with work, house moving preparations, other hobbies, seeing people, welcoming nieces into the world etc, that this has been on the backburner. Nothing much is growing this time of year anyhow!

Well, the house is sold (subject to contract!) and all being well, we will be moving within the next couple of weeks. It’s been a long, drawn out and expensive process but will be worth it in the long run. The house we are moving to has an extra bedroom than we have now and a longer and wider garden – although not the acres and acres I aspire to! We will be developing the back of the garden into a veg growing plot before the season properly starts in Feb-ish as long as we get some nice weather to get out there in! Watch this space!

The Mrs. cleared all the green rubbish out of the garden today, including the tomatoes that looked a mess and all of the spinach that looked like it has been peppered with a shotgun! The two rows of greenery where the carrots sat were plucked out of the soil, including the late Summer planted ones (which had pretty much caught up with the Spring planted ones!). The place looks respectable to pass onto the new owners now, but I really will miss the quality of the soil in the raised beds and the ease of access. We are considering planting straight into the ground in the new place.

The allotment however, is not as pretty a picture. It’s been a funny experience which I will post in more depth in over Christmas about, but the upshot is we don’t have it anymore.

Thanks for all the comments during the last few months of inactivity and please continue to do so!!

We have been so busy. No excuses for the lack of updates. I suppose being busy is an excuse though… We don’t really go in for posting recipes or pictures of our dinner either so there’s not really been a huge amount to write about. Ironically, as there is so much going on in the garden, there really is very little to do. I know people shout about getting your Brassicas ready for next year but i really do see it as a lot of effort considering the effort i put in earlier in the year. I just want to enjoy it.

The other reason we’ve been so quiet is that Vegmonkey Towers is officially up for sale. It took a lot to do it as we are very happy here but we need a little more space inside and a little more outside so are moving somewhere else within Cheltenham, where we will get a little more for our money. The upshot of this is all the positive comments we’ve had about the garden. We’ve had so many viewings, I can imagine being part of the RHS open garden scheme must be a little something like this…or maybe I am over flattering us a little…

So, the garden. The sweetcorn did ok. The Savoy cabbage did ok until i removed the Enviromesh cover. The peas did well. The Rhubarb did very well and the Japanese onions did very well.

The biggest successes are the things that are still growing. The carrots and parsnips have done amazingly and I am pulling endless long roots from the soil (even though I know I shouldn’t really be touching the parsnips yet). The tomatoes are also doing really well although my experiment sort of hasn’t worked as I think I may have labelled them wrong. Two of the plants that are meant to be the same, look completely different. Oh well.

At the allotment, we have had what can only be called a ‘glut.’ “What of?” I hear you ask? Well, everything! The runner and French beans have produced about 5 carriers bags full and are still producing, long after the supports have been snapped by the wind. The sweetcorn produced a massive box of earwig filled sweet cobs. Probably 30 or so in total. I was very happy to see most of the cobs had perfectly formed. On the potato front, we’ve cleared two beds and had near to 30kg. The other two beds are still in the ground and are probably being slowly eaten by bugs ‘n’ stuff. I’d guess there is another 30-40kg in there but how much is edible is anyone’s guess.

The courgettes have gone nuts. Will I ever learn? The onions number enough to keep us going for until well into next year – they are all strung up in the shed and we keep checking them for rot. Not sure how we will move them though? We’ve also got a butternut squash plant or two spitting out frequent little fruits which will continue for a while yet I think.

The worst thing about the allotment is the weeds. It has driven us to despair and made us not even want to be there – which completely isn’t the point of having an allotment. We want to grow, but we can’t as the weeds grow so quick, they throw their seeds everywhere and the problem multiplies. This is exacerbated by neighbouring plots being so covered in weeds that anything we are likely to do would result in, well, let’s just say it wouldn’t work! We’ll see how we get on with it next year. I think landscape fabric may beckon!?

Ok, so onto the Veg! The picture above is of an example of a technique pioneered by Sepp Holzer. It is a swale (ditch) in front of a raised bank enabling any water running down the hill, to go into the ditch, then back into the soil. The raised area is made from tree trunks covered in soil. On top they were growing a Native American Squash that likes wet conditions and watercress. Below is a description from the on-site sign:

As the wood in the raised bed rots, it swells and shrinks holding water like a sponge. This provides nutrients to the earth and warms the soil from inside…soil borne organisms break down the organic matter and add their own nutrients to the mass of earth. Heat rises from this internal activity, warming the soil. Plants grow on the surface…gaining the benefits from the soil beneath them.

Pretty simple really. There’s an article on Wikipedia on Sepp Holzer in German which google kindly – but very badly – translated for me. It seems he is at odds with the Austrian Government by being so successful at growing warm climate plants in a region that has an average temperature of only 4.2%! Definitely some future reading there.

I think the first thing that struck me when I entered the garden was the variety of vegetables – my favourite being Mexican Sour Gherkin. Along with cucumbers and melons, gherkins are one of the things I am looking forward to growing when we move to a bigger house and have room for a greenhouse! Maybe…or would I use the space for chickens? Other veg that caught my eye were some purple beans, some very nicely formed cabbages and some onions growing very close together. My guess is that they were grown from seed. If we grew our sets that close, we could have twice as many onions – but still no space to store them in!

There also seemed to be quite a few studies happening, particularly on Rhubarb, and on the comparative length of time before courgettes begin cropping. Amongst all the veg – which incidentally was very well presented (I don’t think I saw anything that I could have described as dying) – were a multitude of companion plants designed to encourage ‘good bugs.’ I think this works really well and looks really good but I am a purist when it comes to our own outdoor space – the flowers can go in pots.

On the subject of pots, the gardens showed how a small garden could be established using just pots at different heights. I think this would be perfect for a balcony or small patio garden and really shows the diversity that is possible. You wouldn’t want a huge trailing squash or a massive apple tree in there but there are plenty that could be fitted in.

There was also a display of soft pots which I found really interesting – these are made from tights and don’t contain any soil I don’t think. I keep meaning to look them up and have a go at making some but haven’t got round to it yet.

On the planting front, it was good to see the gardens were keeping on top of it over the summer. They had a selection of green manures in and growing, as well as a selection of things like radish and lettuces.

On the subject of lettuces, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen lettuces beginning to bolt, look so nice. When mine start going over, they get tatty and eaten rather quickly, but they seem to be happily getting taller without the invasion of any beasties.

So, quite a wide mixture of very well maintained veg – that’s what we were looking for in a garden and that is what we found. Quite an inspiration really, just a shame there isn’t any that good locally.

Well, technically it is closer to late Summer but I’m trying to be positive! We had a visitor in the garden today – I have christened him Squirrelmonkey! He was happily scampering all over our shed and the wall that separates us from next door. As soon as he saw me clicking away, he was gone! I suppose being a town garden doesn’t lend too much towards wildlife but it’s nice to see.

Haven’t been down the plot all week which is pretty shocking as I’m on my hols. Might pop up tomorrow as I’m sure there will be courgettes, beans and potatoes that need harvesting. Might even be the odd squash – the weather has definitely been perfect for them.

At home, I have removed the Brassica cage as i trimmed the ivy above it last week and I had to take the cage off so that I could clear up the mess I made. This has resulted in the Cauliflowers having to come out too as the Cabbage White Butterflies have been swarming around the green leaves of my Brassica – resulting in lots of little clutches of yellow eggs everywhere. I decided the best thing to do was scrap the two plants we had growing. The savoy cabbage however is going great guns (sounds nice and hollow when tapped) and will hopefully be out before it is eaten!

Onions are at proper glut level (we have the Japanese ones planted last year and a good 200 or so from this year.) Most are tied up, but we think there might be another 5 or 6 strings worth left. They are dry already, living in the cold frame – they just need tying up. They have been there so long though that there are worms livings amongst them, in the soil that is still on the roots!

The omions we had last year lasted for a good few months so these are likely to last us until March hopefully… but on the basis of using 5 onions a week!