Gardening in a heatwave

I recently wrote a post explaining what all the effects of Climate Change will be and included this point about agriculture:

"Drought, flooding and changes in seasonal temperatures will mean farmers having to cope with either too much or too little water and increased levels of pests and diseases.  These negative effects on agriculture will result in increased food prices globally, food shortages and more famines."

As we bid farewell to the heatwave summer 2018, where temperatures rocketed and rain was almost non existent it seems like a good time to assess how one hot summer affected my vegetable garden at Eco-Gites of Lenault and consider how the heat will have affected farmers.

Skills the world needs us to know

I wrote in a recent blog that when we lose so many of the skills our predecessors knew then we place our lives in the hands of others ... and with just a few large companies holding the greater part of the market share we are left to buy what we need from a small number of super-corporations and they can produce theses goods however they want. These large companies care more for profit than sustainability.  They can use as many pesticides as they see fit, grow GMO crops, use child labour, transport goods all around the world, wrap them in plastic etc etc ... and as consumers our choice to have anything different is lost with the skills to produce these items ourselves.

What skills, therefore, do we need for the sake of saving our planet from further environmental damage?

Weekly Green Tips #47 - Greening Your Lawn

Week 47 - How to have a Green Lawn

Having a lawn is much greener (literally and environmentally) than a hard-surfaced garden but is is still not without sustainability problems.  There is the power to mow it and many lawn owners throw all sorts of chemicals on their lawns.  As ever though, there are plenty of simple steps you can take to have the greenest green lawn.

Lafcadio Hearn Japanese Gardens, Tramore, Waterford

On our recent trip to Ireland I was keen to visit a few gardens.  As we were there in October many were closed for the winter but a few were still open.  I have already blogged about Cappoquin Gardens in Lismore and today I give you a very different style of garden: The Lafcadio Hearn Japanese Gardens in Tramore, Waterford.

The gardens reflect the life and travels of Patrick Lafcadio Hearn who was born in Ireland but who travelled extensively in America and Greece before finally settling in Japan.  They are split into 10 individually themed gardens where plant structure, rocks and water play more important roles than flowers.  There are however flowers to be seen, including one when we visited, that most certainly should not have been in flower in October, a Japanese Iris.  Irises grow wild in Japan and are also cultivated widely in gardens there.  The Japanese attribute meanings to their flowers and the Iris means Good News.

The American Garden

Bees in the Polytunnel - Part 1

I know with Halloween approaching "Bats in the Belfry" might be a more topical post title but to be honest, I don't have a belfry, although I did see a couple of bats when I went to collect older boy from athletics last night ... and one was huge!  But I digress as this is a post about weird goings on in the polytunnel at Eco-Gites of Lenault.

As Summer melts into Autumn

As summer slowly melts into autumn, the spiders have once again been busy creating their intricate webs.  Nature's morning breath shows them off at their very best.

Hints of Autumn

It is September 1st and after a few weeks of hot dry weather everywhere is looking rather parched ... and there are definite signs of autumn around the garden.  Apples on the trees are ripe for picking, although small after the lack of rain, leaves are starting to colour and the sedums are turning red as their tiny flowers unfurl (much to the delight of the bees and butterflies who feast on these late summer/autumn flowers).  Many of my sunflowers are still in full bloom though, with some only just starting to flower.  Hopefully summer is not ready to leave us yet but when she does depart, the garden is full of plenty of autumn and winter vegetables to see us though. 

Colour in my veg garden

I have gardened since I was a child when I discovered a box of old seeds in my grandfather's potting shed and since then it is growing fruit and vegetables that has given me the most satisfaction.  However I love flowers too and with not much in the way of a flower garden here in Normandy (Eco-Gites of Lenault to be precise) I do try to include as much colour as possible in amongst my fruit and vegetables.  In many cases, the produce itself is really pretty ...

... like my blackberries turning fast from green to red to delicious black.

August Garden Round-Up

I am sure many gardeners will nod away in agreement when I say that 2016 has been a difficult gardening year.  For us, in Normandy, a mild winter was followed by a long cold spring (in fact we almost had no frosts until March and they continued through April) and then a summer that just took an age to get going.  This all meant a very late start to the growing season.  Usually by now I have been harvesting summer vegetables for weeks but this year I am only just reaching "glut time".  However I am not too worried and so long as we get a nice autumn with no early frosts (I have known them as early as September 28th) then with luck I will be OK - especially as some crops in the polytunnel are looking like being the best I have ever grown.

But first a few pictures from outside the polytunnel:

Combating Potato Blight

There is no denying the Spring of 2016 has been both cool and wet which has meant I have been really late getting things going in the garden.  That said, so long as we get a good Autumn (fingers crossed) this should not be a problem and plants will simply be ready a bit later in the year - there is one notable exception to this though and that is my potatoes.   My potatoes went in late and now have succumbed early to the dreaded disease that is blight thus giving them no time to grow tubers of a decent size. 

So what is blight?  It is a fungal airborne disease that affects potatoes, initially killing the foliage and then passing down underground and affecting the potatoes which can rot to a black slime when stored.  If you  know your (Irish) history you will have heard of blight as it is the potato disease that caused the Great Potato Famine in the mid 1800's when it decimated Irish potato crops leading to an estimated million deaths from starvation and a further million peasants leaving Ireland to try and find a new and better life in America.

Healthy potato plants in the polytunnel

Weekly Green Tips - 7 Best bee attracting plants

Week 13 - 7 Best bee attracting plants

We need bees.  It is not just honey that bees give us.  As I mentioned in my Weekly Green Tips last week (7 beneficial garden bugs) bees pollinate over 30% of all our food stuffs and without them the future on mankind is believed to be at risk.  As guardians of the open spaces we call gardeners, we therefore owe it to everyone to do our bit to help bee populations by planting a variety of plants they can feed from.

Bees can fly in cooler temperatures than other insects as they are able to generate their own body heat in some way, rather than having to rely on the warmth of the sun to get going.  They can therefore be on the wing from early spring to late autumn so we need be growing plants that provide them food throughout the year.  There are also different species of bees and their tongue length varies so growing different flowering plants to cater for both long and short-tongued species is important.

Generally bees prefer single native flowers rather than complex or non native ones flowers but they also adore wild flowers and weeds so leaving some wild areas in your garden in great for bees.

If you are thinking about growing plants that will best help bees the following list will serve our flying friends well - it offers food plans all through the year and caters for different species.

2 bees feeding on  a passion flower

A Garden Rethink

As anyone who has read this blog probably realises, I love gardening and in particular growing my own veg.  It was one of our aims, when we moved to France, to be as self sufficient as possible in fresh produce and over the years this has been pretty successful with the exception of cauliflowers which I just cannot seem to grow!  This year is, however, all turning out to be a massive failure on the veg front.

It started with a cold spring that meant I lost tender tomatoes etc to late frosts and it was too wet and cold to get going outside ... and when it was I was away on holiday.  Then my Mum sadly died so I have been back and forth to the UK giving little time to spend in the garden and the only thing flourishing out there is the weeds.  Why why why do weeds grow so well what-ever the weather??!!

My Tomato Varieties

I love growing tomatoes. 
I love growing different varieties of tomatoes. 
Which is why I appear to have ended up with 14 packets of tomato seeds this year!

My Tomatoes for 2016:

1. Marmande - Large juicy red tomatoes which make great passata and tomato sauce
2. Green Zebra - Yellow and green striped tomato with a thin skin and fabulous taste. Wonderful in salads
3. Golden Sunrise - just like "normal" tomatoes but yellow and better tasting!
4. Pomodoro - a very prolific cherry tomato from Italy 
5. Ananas (Pineapple) - a huge red and orange heritage tomato with which tastes divine
6. Black Cherry - a burgundy coloured cherry tomato which crops for ages and tastes delicious
7. Black Russian or Noire Russe - the bigger brother on Black Cherry
8. Roma - an Italian plum tomato that crops well so long as you give it plenty of water. Fabuous for passata and sauces
9. Costuluto Fiorentino - a new one for this year, a deeply ridged beefsteak ideal for slicing apparently.
10. Brandywine - another new one producing large, thin-skinned fruits
11. Coeur de Boeuf - large dark red heart shaped fruits
12. Harbinger - a "normal" tomato without the best taste but crops very late. These were free seeds otherwise I may not have grown them this year.
13. Yellow Poire - small pear-shaped yellow tomatoes - these have a slightly disappointing taste compared to some others I grow but look lovely in a salad and crop heavily late in the year when others have finished.
14. Gardener's Delight - this year our Christmas crackers had seeds in them including these cherry tomato seeds so it would be shame not to plant them ... plus is stops me have a superstitious 13 varieties! 

Do you grow tomatoes?  Have you any varieties you could recommend to me for next year?

Sowing parsnip seeds in loo roll inner tubes

My packets of parsnip seeds say they can be sown from February.
My packets of parsnip seeds have obviously NOT looked at the weather we have had over the last couple of weeks.  Winter has thrown every conceivable form of horrible weather at us - rain, sleet, snow, frost and really strong winds ....meaning that the soil is still cold and very wet and if I were to sow parsnips seeds they would most likely not germinate.  This is  not a veg patch ready for seed sowing of any sort:

Ideally to get large parsnip roots you need a long growing season so what do you do to achieve this when the soil isn't ready for early sowings?  As parsnips are a root crop they do not take kindly to being transplanted therefore starting them off in seeds trays in a warmer place is not an option ... but there is a variation that does work: sowing them in long biodegradable pots where you plant out the whole thing in the ground when soil conditions are better and the pot rots away leaving the parsnip root to grow on undisturbed.  However these biodegradable pots are quite expensive so why not use the next best thing .... that's free too ... loo roll inner tubes.

You simply stand the inner tubs in a plastic container of some sort and add compost.  Parsnip seeds are big enough to allow you to sow one per tube and then cover with about a centimetre of compost.  Water sparingly if the compost is dry and place somewhere warm to germinate.  Even when warm parsnips seeds can take a while to germinate so be patient.  Oh and always buy your seed fresh each year as parsnips seeds do not keep well and most will not germinate from an open packet left over from the year before.

After germination move them to a greenhouse/polytunnel to grow on and once the weather improves and the soil warms up and dries out you can transplant the whole tube in rows leaving 10-15cm between each one.

This method also works for other vegetables with long roots or which do not like being transplanted e.g. sweetcorn and flowers such as sweet peas.  However it'll be a while before I start my sweetcorn off as, unlike parsnips, they will not stand cold weather.

In other news luckily cabbages are frost/snow hardy!

If you fancy giving this method a go why not pin me for future reference?

How are things in your garden?  Have you sown anything yet or is winter still firmly in charge?  Oh and if you are wondering why on earth you'd want to be out gardening at this time of year why not have a look at this blog post I wrote about the advantages of growing your own fruit and veg.  It might inspire you!

11 Reasons to Grow Your Own Fruit and Veg

From time to time I get asked the question "Why do you bother to grow veg when you can buy all you want so cheaply at the supermarket?"  It's true, you can buy so much there but, as I am sure any gardener will vouch, there is much more to gardening than just supplying fruit and veg to put on your plate.  So, to the next person who asks why I grow my own, I shall point them to this blog post.

11 Reasons to Grow Your Own Fruit and Veg

Freshest possible produce

Growing your own means you have the freshest possible produce.  As soon as you pick something it begins to lose quality and for some foods, for example sweetcorn, this happens really fast with those gorgeous sugars in the cob rapidly turning to starch.  When you grow your own you can have it from plot to plate in minutes and you'll not lose any of that goodness. 

Great taste

Believe you me, you'll taste the difference when you grow your own.  The first strawberry, picked on a summer day and popped into your mouth, still warm, really is a delight not to be missed.  

Natural form of exercise

If you don't like the gym don't worry.  Gardening is a great form of free exercise and a lot more fun than a stationary exercise bike or running machine.  And look at the muscles you'll be using: 

Gets you out in the fresh air 

We all know fresh air is good for us and gardening gives you a reason to get out in all seasons.  You'll soon also be building up a healthy appetite for all that fresh produce you're growing.

Eat seasonally

Once you start to grow your own you begin to eat seasonally.  Roast parsnips in winter, lovely salads in summer and because it is all so fresh it tastes so much better.  Strawberries in December might look lovely but they will be tasteless having been picked under-ripe then flown in from miles away.  

No air miles and organic

When you grow your own you are helping the environment. No more beans flown in from Africa when you can have them on your own plate with zero air miles involved.  And you can grow your own produce organically.

Heirloom Varieties

If you shop for your fruit and veg in the supermarket, there will be little or no choice of variety.  There may be several apples, if you are lucky, but how many varieties of strawberry are available or carrots or cucumbers?  Not many, yet the are hundreds of varieties available for you to grow at home.  Most of these old heirloom varieties will not be grown commercially for various reasons but when you grow your own you'll be opening up your palate to a whole range of fabulous tasting and wonderful looking fruit and veg.  Yellow raspberries, a multitude of pumpkins and more varieties of beans than you could possibly dream about.  It is gardeners growing these varieties that are vital in the fight to prevent them being lost for ever in favour of the more "bland but transports/stores well" produce on most supermarket shelves.

Community Spirit

This is especially true if you have an allotment where friends can be made, advice freely given and excess veg swapped with neighbours.  

Feeling of achievement

Quite simply, the feeling you get when you first serve up a plate of your own produce never actually leaves you - I grew that, with my own hands and it is such a good feeling.

Connecting with Nature

Gardening gets you back to basics, connecting with Nature, the soil and the world around you.  You'll be much more aware of the seasons and see things down at garden level that are all too easy to miss in our often busy lives.  Gardening gives you time to slow down a little and enjoy life at the pace Nature sets.  It's also a great way to get children to understand where their food comes from and to get them interested in becoming gardeners as they grow up.

A source of home-made presents

Who doesn't love a nice jar of home-made jam or chutney as a present and with your excess harvest you now have a ready supply of presents?  My Mum loves it when I visit with a box of veg although I did learn the hard way that travelling from France to Exmoor with fresh leeks in the car makes it stink for the whole journey and days afterwards! 

Are just starting out with growing, in which case look out for the series of blogs I'll be writing over the coming weeks aimed specifically as new gardeners.  Or are you a long-standing gardener who could give any more reasons why growing your own is such a good idea?  

Go on - pin me!

Polytunnel Progress

Since writing about coming out of hibernation last week I could quite easily have headed back to bed this last week and not surfaced.  The temperature dropped below freezing and we woke to a light covering of snow on 2 mornings and frozen hail on a third, none of which puts me in the mood to garden.  BUT, having posted my polytunnel to do list last week and concious that time waits for no man or woman, I ignored the call of the warmth and got on with that list.  "How did you get on?" I hear you ask.  Well ... 

• Clear dead plants - YES
• Weed through onions and other crops -YES
• Water sparingly as necessary- YES
• Manure cleared areas, dig in and water- YES
• Tidy up cold frame- YES
• Tidy work station- YES
• Set up my new min-max thermometer - NOT YET
• Clear the central path - NO
• Wash the polytunnel plastic - NO
• If the weather permits sow mangetout, spring lettuce, broad beans - TOO COLD
• Keep harvesting what's in there - calvolo nero, chard, parsley, oriental greens - YES

Most of that "stuff" is now out away in my working station

A much tidier polytunnel than I had last week!

Weeded onions behind cleared and manured soil

A tidy work station next to my broad beans

You know what, I'm pretty pleased with what I've achieved and as the weather is set to be less cold over the next few days I may well get those seeds sown.  I also went through my seed stash, chucking out those which don't keep well and starting to decide what to grow this year.

Seeds

I still have no idea what was munching my chard except to say, it is now us (very yummy it was too) and it looks like very soon we will be eating one of my all time favourite vegetables - Purple Sprouting Broccoli.  Usually this is ready much later as I don't plant a very early variety, preferring to have it crop in March when other winter veg is finishing.  Looks like Mother Nature has different ideas this year.

Purple Sprouting Broccoli

Despite the frost and snow my brave English marigold is still flowering and there is even a new flower bud.  I'd like to think I've managed to grow the first frost-hardy, winter flowering marigold that will make me my fortune but as I have seen others around locally, I suspect it is more to do with the overall mild weather than a freak of genetics.  Oh well, back to the drawing board then!

English Marigold - Calendula vulgaris

Other signs of Spring are out there too.  Catkins are dancing in the breeze, reminding me of lamb's tails and bluebells and orchid leaves are peeping through the cold soil.  The snowdrops are in flower under the hedge and those daffodils I planted so late last year are just peeping through.  Winter may yet bring us his worst weather but Spring is stirring.

Leaf whorls of Early Purple Orchids - Orchis mascula

How has your gardening week been or are you still hibernating?   Annie from Mammasaurus was in Poland so I am hopeful for garden pictures from there this week on How Does Your Garden Grow. 

Coming out of hibernation

I have never really been one to succeed with New Year Resolutions because I believe that the dark month of January is not a good time to achieve much except hide inside.  BUT ... for me, once the winter solstice is passed and the day length slowly increases then my internal clock starts ticking away just that bit faster.  I know spring is on it's way and so I know I need to get going.  Some will already have sown their onion seeds and I have not even started to scour the seed catalogues.  I know it is just a touch too early for me to sow much yet ... but I have a polytunnel that needs working on and my inspiration to do it has returned.  I am coming out of hibernation.   I am gradually waking up - such is January for a gardener!

So - that polytunnel.  It's a mess and there is no denying it and I need to get on in there.  Hopefully by next week I can report back that I have done all these jobs:

• Clear dead plants
• Weed through onions and other crops
• Water sparingly as necessary
• Manure cleared areas, dig in and water
• Tidy up cold frame
• Tidy work station
• Set up my new min-max thermometer
• Clear the central path
• Wash the polytunnel plastic
• If the weather permits sow mangetout, spring lettuce, broad beans.
• Keep harvesting what's in there - calvolo nero, chard, parsley, oriental greens.

View from the main door

View from the far end - am lot of that green is weeds!

With the mild autumn/early winter we have had, weeds are still growing and mould has been a bit of a problem .. as have chard eating pests.  I can't see what's been eating my chard but it obviously liked it!   And there are some surprises in there that I would not expect in January.  In amongst my overwintering onions are baby nasturtiums and there are foot high potato plants behind my leeks.  For goodness sake, it's January.  I will have to weed out the nasturtiums (I'll save some to spice up a winter salad) and with frost forecast I doubt the potatoes will survive.  I will see if I can rig up some sort of cold protection but I really do not hold out too much hope for them at this time of year.

Potato plants - in JANUARY for goodness sake!

Nasturtium seedlings in with my onions

A touch of mould on my parsley

Who's been eating MY chard?

12ºC in the polytunnel in January - other days have been even warmer

Cavolo Nero

Two forlorn tomatoes on a very dead plant.

January can often throw its worst weather at a gardener but it is also a time on new beginnings, plans and hopes for the coming year.  How is your garden doing or are you still hibernating?