The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Growth industry
Plenty of rain, plus a little sunshine, means there is plenty of harvesting work to do and then there’s that compost heap...
Lots of rain and regular sunshine mean there is plenty of work to do in the garden.
ardening this summer has become a task to plan ahead. This is so we can avoid the thunder showers and, if the sun is forecast to shine for a few hours, get outdoors to bring in the harvest. Growth on everything (except my onions) has been phenomenal – fruit, vegetables, flowers and weeds.
We try to plan crops to be available over as long a period as possible but there is always a glut of something that we just cannot munch our way through or pack into the freezer.
Who needs seven large courgettes for two people? And it is hard to give them away, as everyone else is in the same boat and there will be a lot more next week.
Mornings and afternoons are spent picking fruit and vegetables and evenings are spent shelling peas, cutting up cauliflowers, cleaning beetroot, leeks and turnip.
The last of my early potato Casa Blanca got lifted but had to be washed and dried before storing.
Autumn raspberries and strawberries, as well as brambles and blueberries, all need picking then sorting for immediate use and cool storage.
Perpetual strawberry Albion may well provide large red fruit for a few more weeks but they are so hard that they are no great pleasure. They will get discarded soon.
Another of my new strawberries I thought I would try was Colossus, as the catalogue description was wonderful. However, these strawberries were not as big as any others and berries were not prolific so, again, another one for the compost heap.
There is still plenty of rhubarb available, as it has never stopped growing.
Aronia Viking, the chokeberry, got picked then weighed for freezing after I got my seven pounds for wine making, but then I had to crush every berry in a fermentation bucket. This job took me all evening but I am looking forward to sampling this healthy red wine (packed full of antioxidants) in a couple of years’ time.
I can recall many days in youthful employment when I worked a 12-hour day, as well as weekend shifts, but now I am beyond retirement the work continues. However, there is no payment of time and a half with double time at weekends, and you can forget about time off in lieu or flexitime.
My fig, Brown Turkey, yet again has been providing heavy crops of figs – sometimes 10 or more at a time – but Anna is sorting out ways to preserve these for future use.
Anna was thinning out a row of beetroot to use as baby beet but growth was so good they all looked like mature roots.
Our leeks have also grown well so some of these are being used, though
Autumn raspberries and strawberries as well as brambles and blueberries all need picking then sorting for immediate use and cool storage
we normally keep these as a winter vegetable. Another winter vegetable now in use is our kale. I grow the normal dwarf green but thought I would try the red-leaved Curly Scarlet. It grows just fine but is quite tough with poor flavour.
Harvesting Dwarf French beans has not been a difficult task this year, as they have yet to produce beans. This is not their best summer.
In the greenhouse, tomatoes are cropping heavily, and my hot pepper, De Cayenne, turned red so we tried some out to see just how hot it was.
The Scots are no wimps so I chomped away at the red pointed end. Nae bother, what’s all the fuss about, but Anna nibbled at a wee bit of pith and ran quickly to the sink for a glass of water. So that’s where the heat comes from.
However, to get a break from all the harvesting and processing, I decided I would get back to the land and give my compost heap its first turn over.
The heap has been building up fast with spent kitchen waste, weeds, grass clippings, spent peas and beans, rhubarb leaves, and is now three feet high.
If you want a bit of really good exercise, get a compost heap. I think this is where our success with crops comes from, as the plot gets compost dug in or mulched every year.